Stubhub Fallback Tile Redesign

  • The Brief

    The dual goals of this push are to innovate on fallback imagery currently being displayed while also boosting the presence of StubHub’s brand visual identity across the product.

  • The Process

    How can we begin to shape this initiative in a way that builds the brand while providing comprehensive coverage of all event genres?

  • The Deliverables

    The final assets, applied across StubHub and its parent brand, viagogo.

The Brief

Through this initiative, we will explore two key objectives. Creative will aim to improve the fallback (default) imagery on StubHub while elevating the brand’s visual identity across the product.

StubHub’s visual display is hierarchical, designed to show default images when an accurate depiction of an event or performer cannot be sourced or purchased due to factors such as rights management, cost, nicheness or newness to the live events space. From a study I led in conjunction with product management to collate fallback images live in the app and on the website at the time, it became quite clear that the assets live in the marketplace were a handful of generic stock photos likely put up in the early stages of the organization’s development as placeholders without a holistic consideration of where and how often these displays would be seen by consumers depending on how content is promoted within the product.

Assignment: to explore new fallback tile design options using new brand direction as a starting point. To the right are a sample of images used to represent fallback categories before the redesign, as well as new designs created by myself and a cross-functional team of art directors and product managers.

The Process

As a starting point for approaching this assignment, I gathered visual references for live creative designed before my joining the organization.

To me, one of the issues related to the former selection of images seemed like design options that were being explored at the time were limited in volume and did not take into account possible repetition in display depending on events being pushed regarding sales. Additionally, the lack of brand elements across the handful of generic assets selected seemed like an opportunity that I could use in this new initiative to reinforce the StubHub look. To the left is an example of a fallback image being used to market concerts and festival categories that are unrelated, as well as a sample of the event marketing layout with default tiles for theater (the plain red seats) shown.

For the above reasons, I developed two approaches to provide a solution to this brief. My intention is to explore two distinct styles of imagery–photography and design–in order to select one to be used across these fallback tiles. Proposed direction is as follows.

  1. Photography: the goal here is to solicit assets that feel more authentic and representative of consumers’ perspectives and the content categories.

  2. Design: the goal here is to create assets that follow new brand guidelines currently being developed by CX creative leadership, increasing the presence of the brand’s visual identity across the product in a way that feels innovative, fun and inviting for consumers.

  3. My third goal, which is over-arching and touched on team KPIs, was to drive coverage of events across the product, showcasing actual imagery of these live events in conjunction with the metadata entry team.

In alignment with the brand’s mission statement to serve as the central hub for all live events, I considered the consumer’s perspective in as many placements as possible including fallback imagery. For photography, this meant sourcing from the crowd’s perspective to give consumers a glimpse of what their experience could be if they purchased tickets from StubHub. Photo direction should feel bright, vibrant and convey excitement through lighting and composition. For design, tiles should follow the visual direction established for large-scale event design and new brand guidelines.

Options presented to creative leadership are laid out below in “final creative.” Approaches utilized different balances of editing techniques like high contrast retouching to make generic stock photos pop, overlays and selective colorization with brand colors and hand-drawn design elements.

Final Creative

The final visual direction features a blend of photography and design, treating overall tiles with selective coloring to call attention to the brand while also delivering a higher volume of assets compared to the original selection of fallbacks for variance in case of side-by-side displays within the product.

The designs shown on the left are a sample of the approved and ingested fallbacks for concerts and festivals.