ROGERS • IGNITE SMARTSTREAM
Designing Ignite SmartStream for Cord-Cutters and Cord-Nevers
March 2021 - December 2021
Summary
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Role
As Prime Product Designer, I led the design of Rogers' Ignite SmartStream, a digital-exclusive streaming product targeting "cord-cutters" and "cord-nevers." Amid pandemic-driven shifts in customer behavior, we streamlined the online purchase journey, focusing on affordability, personalization, and ease of use. Through cross-functional workshops and phased rollouts, we achieved a 37.62% Buyflow completion rate (over double the predicted 15%), 4.8K migrations, and a $17.15 ARPA increase. This project highlighted the importance of market adaptation, collaboration, and data-driven design, establishing Ignite SmartStream as a successful alternative to traditional TV services.
Project Overview
Project Overview
With the rising trend of customers canceling traditional cable subscriptions ("cord-cutters") or never subscribing in the first place ("cord-nevers"), Rogers needed to adapt its offerings to meet the demand for affordable, streaming-based alternatives. Ignite SmartStream was born as a response to this challenge, leveraging Rogers’ strong integration with premium media providers like Netflix and live TV services, while creating a digital-exclusive product that catered to evolving customer needs.
Target Audience
The primary audience included:
Existing Rogers Internet customers who were looking to reduce costs by eliminating traditional TV services.
New customers seeking an affordable way to stream content without subscribing to traditional cable TV.
My Role and Responsibilities
As the Prime Product Designer, I led the design process from ideation to delivery, focusing on:
Collaborating with product teams to ideate, research, analyze, design, validate, and develop features.
Applying systems thinking to ensure that solutions improved the broader user flow and ecosystem.
Partnering with Product Owners, Engineers, Marketing, Legal, Copywriters, and Branding to create a cohesive vision for Ignite SmartStream.
Managing cross-functional workshops to align stakeholders on product positioning, value propositions, and feature prioritization.
The Design Process
Defining the problem
The pandemic had implications in the way Rogers was making business. Customers were feeling less prone to make changes to their TV services, and that changed the strategy that we would be rolling out SmartStream
Key Covid Considerations
44% of Canadian households have been financially impacted by COVID
Comcast reports TV viewership up 6-7%
Household churn improvement as consumers do not want to disrupt service
Approximately 75% increase in daily OTT signups in the US (Disney & Tubi)
Comcast has seen a ~38% increase in streaming usage
56% of Canadians said they are streaming (e.g. Netflix) more compared to 2 weeks ago
Data captured as the program started
A phased approach
Given the scenario that we were in, Marketing decided to roll out Ignite SmartStream through a phased approach. Existing Legacy Internet Customers would be our starting Phase.
Data captured as the program started
Competitive Analysis
Ignite SmartStream was born out of that perception. The first thing we needed to do was to understand the strengths of our products. A proper workshop session was then required with all teams involved in this program.
This exercise allowed us to better understand how to position the value props, the features, and even how content should be informed, in a way that would be delightful for customers.
Competitive analysis
Our audience
From the foundational steps of this program, we knew that Ignite SmartStream would only be available as an add-on for Rogers Internet customers.
Persona
Creating the Digital foundation
We took advantage of the context we were to deliver a first on Rogers' business. The first Digital-exclusive product. Customers would only be able to purchase Ignite SmartStream through our website.
A workshop was rolled out to better understand the teams' ideas and insights in how we would be able to do that
Workshop with stakeholders
Establishing the journey
Ignite SmartStream would be rolled out in multiple phases. We needed to guarantee that - no matter what phase and what scenario that phase would be placed into - the flow would work.
Journey highlighting the points of contact that Customers would have with any information about how the pandemic would impact their experience with Rogers
