Target & FastCompany
Divvy is a shopping app that lets friends easily split the bill on their Target shopping list.
Only pay for what you added to the list.
Roommates, students, parents, grandparents - someone is always going to the store to get something, and often times its to purchase something that gets shared with others.
Divvy from Target lets customers share the bill, only paying for what they added to the list. With the Target Red Card attached, Divvy handles the direct debit, applies discounts, makes recommendations, and even saves a history of your purchases, so you never forget to buy the brands you love.
A Zero to One case study.
Target & FastCompany accelerator competition.
FastCompany & Target collaborated to form an accelerator to help stimulate innovation in the retail space, announcing a public competition to launch the initiative.
While at TBWA I pulled together a small group of talented individuals and persuaded them to help me build an app. We worked after hours, sometimes pulling all-nighters to get the prototype and pitch together.
We didn’t know it at the time, but we were competing against 350 teams ranging from freelancers, digital agencies, and tech companies focused on the mobile retail space.
FastCompany accelerator launch.
The initial launch of Target & FastCompany’s accelerator, and brief for the competition.
Target corporate announcement.
FastCompany assigns industry judges.
Target’s corporate announcement of the competition.
Target partnered with industry leaders on the accelerator.
A little background on the project.
When we began working on the idea for the app we decided to throw out as many ideas as we could over 3 days, coming up with roughly 10-15 ideas. Then we took a day off to refresh and do more research before regrouping. We then focused on trying to kill the ideas by interrogating them to see if they would hold up. We looked at the ideas through several different lenses; technology - was it doable at scale, UX - would users find it valuable and engaging, business - would it align with the clients goals and help drive revenue. All the ideas in the first round got killed.
We did this process 3 times, the last time was our do-or-die ditch attempt. I had the idea for splitting the bill from many late dinners with colleagues in New York city. At the end of the night no one wants to get stiffed with the bill, and I thought the same might be true of roommates shopping for groceries, (I remember my college days of people stealing my food!).
Luckily the idea of splitting the bill held up to the teams rigor, so we proceeded to think through the technology, and business impact of such a service. Jusso and Steve did a lot of research into the shopper journey, Steve as an expert from Integer, and Jusso was our digital strategy guru at TBWA. I did a lot of competitive research on the experiences available on mobile at the time, with a focus on trying to find existing patterns that people were somewhat familiar with. My thought was that we didn’t want to ‘invent’ something that was too future forward, but leverage UX conventions that users we’re familiar with so that adoption wouldn’t be so difficult. The second reason I wanted to build something that felt familiar was that it made it easier to pitch to Target. In my experience you always want to ground your audience in what they know first, before you introduce them to a new paradigm.
Once we landed on the idea of splitting the bill we tried to attune all of our efforts to making the experience, and the pitching of the app, ass simple as possible. An important component of that was coming up with a name that resonated with people. Steve White had a stroke of genius one late night (right before the deadline), and came up with the name Divvy. We loved it, and so had to tweak some of the designs to brand it, and also tweak our keynote and leave behind deck. Eric, Charlton, James and Chris focused on bringing the wire frames I’d created to life in a prototype that showed off the ability to share a shopping list across a few mobile phones, while storing the information in a data base. The read-write permissions on the lists were tricky and we had to work out a way to make sure that the lists would sync without wrecking a shopping excursion.
A shopping insight.
Room mates, students, parents, grand parents - someone is always going to the store to get something, and often times its to purchase something that get’s shared with others.
If it’s your turn to go to Target for your roommates, Divvy can help you keep track of the exact products everyone in the dorm loves most. It’s also a God-send for husbands and grandparents. ;-)
The idea.
Divvy lets customers split the bill, only paying for what they added to the list.
With the Target Red Card attached, Divvy handles the direct debit, applies discounts, makes recommendations, and even saves a history of your purchases, so you never forget to buy the brands you love.
Target’s 4 strategic areas of importance.
We took on this project on top of our regular day-to-day jobs, working on it in the evenings and late into the mornings some nights. We did as much research as we could about what Target’s mission was particularly how it was handling mobile shopping and digital transformation in general.
Social.
Enabling customers to interact with one another, or Target.
Education.
Helping students, teachers, and schools be more successful, and improving the community.
In-store.
Expanding & improving the in-store experience, or until the next visit.
Personalization.
Catering to the unique tastes and needs of each individual customer.
Introduction screens for first time users.
For the pitch we decided that students were our core audience, so we tried to keep the design lite and fun.
Split the bill with friends.
As part of our pitch we created this short video to help explain the idea.
Divvy beat out 350 teams, and won $85,000.
I was very proud to work with this adhoc team that I pulled together. Incredibly smart, fun to work with, and really driven – the journalists call out says it all.
Divvy beat out 350 teams, and won $85,000.
Charlton and I presented at the meeting. He was new to the agency but showed so much passion and drive during the project – the entire team agreed that he’d earned his place at the meeting. This photo brings back found memories indeed.
Partner comments
“If you are looking for a tech genius who happens to be a great guy, Chris is your man. What's he good at?
Delivering ideas that blur the line between advertising and service. He did it for GSK. He did it for Vonage.
Fostering a culture of invention - He invented and made stuff at TBWA\CHIAT\NY. He impressed Target with "Divvy." And won their contest.
Collaborating - We did a pitch together. He was a pleasure to work with, brilliant and prolific. Oh yeah, we won, too.”
“Chris understands brands, people and technology in a way that only a few people on this planet do. He has an instinct of creating things that are unbelievably simple, intuitive and fun to use - no matter how complex the underlying problem is. In addition, he's a nice and humble guy.”
— Juuso Myllyrinne, Global Head of Performance Marketing - Media Arts Lab
“…Chris wants to create digital products that fundamentally change the way clients go about their business. It’s Chris' vision, coupled with the skills needed to bring that vision to life, that make him an invaluable asset. For the past three years Chris has been more than a colleague, he's been a mentor and a friend. If I'm lucky we'll work together again sometime down the road.”
