Shopify Markets
An empowering campaign for Shopify Markets. Inspiring merchants to sell and scale internationally.
The Challenge
Many merchants want to expand their sales into new cross-border or global markets but face multiple barriers, including fear and lack of confidence. We wanted to create a memorable product launch campaign to show our audience that global growth is possible for anyone. Our challenge was highlighting the Shopify Markets product with an innovative marketing strategy and visual system across the marketing website, admin tool, email campaigns, and social press.
Goals & Approach
We aimed to develop a unique concept and launch a campaign that empowers users to confidently expand globally. We began by analyzing existing data about merchants' barriers to entry. Our audience needs inspiration, empowerment, and trust, so we built a brand voice that is knowledgeable, approachable, and authentic. I worked with our lead content strategist to develop a concept that showed merchants they could transform their businesses globally overnight.
Discovery & audit
I analyzed merchants' barriers to entry for global expansion with the data team. I then audited the existing Markets page to understand what was working and what we needed to improve. With these insights, I lead the creative exploration focused on inspiring storytelling.
Campaign concept
"Step into a new world." Our visual concept transcends the perceived reality of global possibility. Markets can bring you to global growth. I also worked closely with our marketing team to establish a grounded brand that is knowledgeable, approachable, and authentic.
Iconmark concept
I developed a logo iconmark for the Markets platform to symbolize the product and to represent it in the admin navigation. The iconmark is timeless, easily identifiable, and expressive, subtly representing the idea of consumer expansion, globalization, and guidance.
Design system
I built the website using the corporate design system. With multiple components, variants, and flexibilities, I constructed a compelling user experience without breaking the design system. This allowed me to translate UX into storybook components for rapid development.
Collaboration
In producing this product launch campaign for a global audience, we collaborated with various teams in the organization to align on visual strategy, content localization across multiple countries, and brand consistency for different assets. Working with the video production and engineering teams allowed us to effectively expand the brand to our target audience in multiple media formats and languages. With this many contributors, working as a unified team was critical, allowing everyone to own their expertise and striving to learn from our cross-functional teams.
Video production
I worked with the video production/motion design teams to create assets and concepts while providing feedback for their produced explainer videos and animated visuals development.
Engineering sync
In building our website, I collaborated closely with our lead web developers from the beginning of the design process to ensure transparency about the planned UX structure and address any red flags.
Cross-team alignment
To ensure success, we sought alignment and feedback from multiple teams, including product marketing managers, product engineers, web developers, and the enterprise design system teams.
Stakeholder sign-off
I also presented the brand to chief officers and stakeholders with the marketing team's support to showcase our final concept with supporting assets, receive any feedback, and get launch approval.
Global Localization
As a global enterprise, Shopify is available worldwide and prioritizes localizing its content in many countries to accommodate local languages, currencies, and social/economic inclusivity. We collaborated with our localization team to catalog all written content and translate it into the top priority languages for launch. We then ensured that all translated copy and graphics were implemented appropriately across each subdomain.
The Solution
"Next stop the world." The Shopify Markets brand launched with the bold vision of entering a new world through our platform. We developed visuals of glowing portals around the products and user interfaces, showing the instant transformation of merchants' businesses when using Markets. I executed a detailed guide outlining our voice & tone, personality scale, and visual system. With aspiring language like "A single store. Hundreds of markets. Infinite opportunity." we successfully created content to empower our audience across various platforms, including web, email, admin, and social media.
Campaign launch
I developed the overall visual branding system and implemented accessibility standards. I expanded on various brand assets for the admin tool, video production, web, and social content.
Website launch
I led the creation of the Shopify Markets website, strategizing the user experience within the existing design system and designing dynamic visuals to support global expansion storytelling.
Email campaign
Working with the product manager and email developer, I designed multiple emails, accessible in light & dark mode, to introduce the public launch and send informative guides to our target audience.
Video campaign
Collaborating with the video team, we built an informative Markets video with supporting motion graphics. I supported this by providing storyboards, video thumbnails, and product insights.
Results & Impact
After the public launch of the Shopify Market product and campaign, we quickly saw higher user engagement, high email conversions, and successful website engagement, with users staying on the page for an average of 5 minutes. The launch also led to multiple success stories from merchants who started with our product and were able to optimize their business, quickly expand to new markets, and learn through content guides—removing barriers to global growth.
Conclusion
Building this global campaign evolved my creative process and ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams in a fast-paced setting. I asked questions to learn and adapt to the environment quickly while enjoying the challenge of developing an impactful story for our audience. This undertaking also made me think globally about our merchants as I familiarized myself with localization standards and translated visual information to an international audience.
