Digital Excellence Hub

UNIFYING ARLA WITH DATA

Times are changing

At Arla, our single biggest challenge is keeping up with our consumers’ changing behavior and increasing expectations within the field of digital marketing. People are constantly looking for “the better way” – and what wowed us yesterday is quickly becoming old news.

With the Digital Excellence Hub, we meet that challenge head on.

The how's and why's of the system

Before we dive into the technicalities of the system, let's just take a step back. Because a very key – maybe even the keyest – point about the ecosystem lies in its unifying nature and its potential to benefit all brands and markets – no matter the size.

Big markets have a lot of money to invest, and by putting them into the different services of the Ecostyem, smaller markets can grow from these investments. In other words: Bigger markets helps smaller markets grow their digital maturity levels. Besides that, the Ecosystem can also align Arla brand values and web content so that Arla becomes a globally unified company with a common goal. And when times come, the Ecosystem makes us capable of interacting with new, strategic business opportunities. But let's not get carried away just yet.

The statement that started it all

So, what is the Ecosystem exactly? Well, before the Ecosystem was even created, we phrased a statement of intent that should lead the way on our digital journey – and that has now manifested itself as our Digital Ecosystem:

“We want to keep building a marketing ecosystem that can scale and adapt to changes in technology.

We do that by utilizing data and insights to proactively automate processes on all Arla’s digital platforms.

In 2020, Arla’s marketing ecosystem is comprised of several microservices that, in combination, deliver a highly individualized customer experience on platforms and devices we haven’t even seen yet. “

The 3 pillars of the ecosystem

The ecosystem contains thoroughly structured information about Arla’s digital services and functions used to interact with our users. To break it down, the ecosystem consists of three main pillars:

Information chunks

Microservices

Presentation layers

What are information chunks?

In short, information chunks are data points. It is the data of our articles, recipes, useful insights – basically every single piece of information that makes up the backbone of our digital presence. It is all our data within content, commerce, analytics and personalization.

What are microservices?

Microservices are structured compilations of our information chunks. It is the architectural gatherings of our data. In other words: If you have a recipe, it is an information chunk – but once you gather all our recipes in a dynamic database, it becomes a microservice.

So, why are microservices crafty? Well, because it allows us to reuse content across platforms. Instead of manually adding recipes to individual Arla sites over and over again, we can use the pre-made bundle of recipe data in our microservice.

What are presentation layers?

Presentation layers are where all the data from the microservices translates into interfaces with consumable content, hence allowing users to see the correct ingredients, amounts and actions in recipes presented in the correct order. And, when it is needed, the layer also lets you customize the information in terms of styling, format, colors and so on.

Experience Principles

Arla Eco System is based on four primary experience principles. These are essential for maintaining a good editor experience.

The principles will form the basis for an upgrade of the existing editor experience, but will also be the way we establish a direction for all new features and functionalities.

Simplicity

Consistency

Efficiency

Joyfulness

Simplicity

Remove noise and provide only editors with what's needed

Less is more – presenting less clutter and noise and only show what's important
Limit the amount of brainpower required to process pages and content
Group and categorize different content types
Remove and simplify content – show content in a precise and meaningful way
Simplicity should be supported for everyone inside the editor landscape

Consistency

Improve scanability and heighten usability

Users don’t read, but scan
Similar design and interaction patterns creates faster flows
Ease the amount of page and content processing
Consistent experience across services and platforms

Efficiency

Complete tasks faster

Enhance familiarities by applying well-known patterns
No reinvention of the wheel
Easy access to services – everything a few clicks away
Optimized workflow by de-mystifying navigation and links
Focus on high-frequency, low-complexity tasks
Elevate the experience by using data and automation

Joyfulness

Connect with editors emotionally

There are three levels, which should be fulfilled in order to create a joyful experience:

Visceral: The visceral system works on an instinct level and relates to the first impression of a design in terms of 'look and feel'
Behavioral: The behavioural level refers to usability. Overall the product needs to have relevant functions that fulfil actual needs
Reflective: The reflective level refers to how meaningful and valuable the product is to the editors, and how it will afford to them. This is both before, during and after use.

What's in it for you?

Creating new things are never easy – and the process is not without its trials and tribulations. We know that. One of our biggest challenges is to get you – BM's and marketing people of Arla – to embrace the system and really make use of it's possibilities. Even though it sometimes feels faster to just work on your own smaller projects.

The Ecosystem is made to benefit everyone.

Let us know

If you have experienced challenges, please tell us about them. The ecosystem is an ongoing process under constant development – and we do everything we can to improve the system. And if you help us by pointing out mistakes and/or challenges, then we all benefit from the ecosystem’s full potential a whole lot faster.