First Data + Clover @ CES

Objective

Successfully launched the Clover point-of-sale system at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Experience design goals:

• Press – Get Clover noticed by the audiences and media at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (booth visits, emails collected, sales calls booked)
• Marketing material – Provide a platform to advertise and create marketing material for partner companies
• Collaborative partners – Showcase the collaborative efforts between First Data, Clover, and Clover’s application partners. Since Clover relies on 3rd party developers to create apps for small to medium sized businesses, this event helped encourage interested developers to build for Clover’s application marketplace.
• Interviews – Book interviews at the booth for both product demonstrations and executive conversations
• Reusable marketing – Parts of the booth as well as the marketing material were used at several other national events and integrated into the sales and marketing roadshow.

Roles and responsibilities

As the Design Manager at First Data’s Innovation Lab I took the design management and strategy lead between the First Data and Clover product marketing launch effort. Without a distinct plan in action, I worked directly with Theresa Ward (First Data sales and marketing), Ben Love ( First Data business strategy), Sarah Spoja (KKR), and each of the Clover companies to gather insight, material, and create a plan in order to showcase Clover at the 2014 CES. I was tasked with all things that needed user research, design iteration, design management, prototyping, and production. This included the following:

• Research carried forward – Utilized months of SMB research insights gathered by the Innovation Lab to seed initial marketing approaches
• Research conducted – Met with small business owners to learn about their overall experience with payment processors and then to learn about their initial experiences with Clover.
• Marketing material design and manufacturing – Designed all marketing material in collaboration with the internal First Data marketing department and all of our Clover application and bank partners (Bank of America, SunTrust, etc.)
• Exhibit design and builder collaboration – Designed the CES exhibit booth to match some of the existing Clover design language. Worked with the Czarnowski exhibit and event marketing team to iterate, build, and finally transport the exhibit to Las Vegas.

Output

Over the several days at CES, the booth was frequently visited, many business cards were exchanged, relationships were formed between Clover application developers, and our marketing photographer on hand captured MANY amazing photos of the experience. We were able to show that an old and rigid company like First Data can successfully launch a new age product and brand into the marketplace.

Companies involved

First Data (acquired by Fiserv), Clover (acquired by First Data), and Clover’s application partners; Perka, Noshlist, Homebase, and DigitalPour

Work and process examples:

CES  Exhibit booth design

Exhibit booth marketing material:

This design pushed the limits of die-cutting and brochure design for me. Many tolerances had to be considered in order to make sure that each panel of the brochure could be seen as centered even if the die-cut was off a bit. The five style guides that had to be considered was also a bit of a hurdle, but the end result was amazing.