Bio-Oil launches new mobile application for B2B marketing

We partnered with Union Swiss, makers of skin product brand Bio-Oil, to design and develop a new Instagram-style mobile app to provide distributors across 154 countries the ability to access brand content, news and information to support their marketing and sales initiatives.

The new B2B marketing app not only enables the Union Swiss team to communicate with and share information with its distributors, but it also creates a sense of community among distributors by giving them a platform to show what they are doing in their respective markets.

It provides clear user journeys to ensure quick and easy access to content and the user experience (UX) invokes belief, pride and a compulsion to want to share content with others.

Our team worked closely with Union Swiss team members to address the key challenges and ensure we deliver a solution that successfully meets the key objectives. The project followed an Agile KANBAN approach to deliver both the iOS and Android mobile app.

Union Swiss CEO Kim Lombard says they wanted to create an Instagram experience, but with a more corporate feel. “The app was designed to function as the only channel of communication between Union Swiss and their extensive distributor network, eliminating the email and extranet correspondence that was commonplace in the past.”

“Today, this is the primary way that we communicate with our distributors. Everything happens on the app. More importantly, this approach just made sense because the days of the big and bold brand adverts are over and have been replaced by local, more bespoke digital campaigns,” she adds.

Bluegrass Digital CEO Nick Durrant says they worked closely with Union Swiss team members to address the key challenges and ensure the solution successfully met the key objectives. “Together we have developed a robust mobile app that encompasses and successfully portrays the professionalism and styling of the Union Swiss-owned Bio-Oil brand.”

Our Agile approach allows for the team to be flexible with iterative UX and design process allowing us to use a phased approach to the rollout of new features.

Some of the key features include profiles for different distributors, a newsfeed where people can upload videos and photos, as well as a contact list detailing the different distributors across disparate regions. There also needed to be some sort of reporting functionality so that users can report any potential misuse of the app.

“With the app, we wanted to create a glass window between ourselves and our distributors so that they can see into our business and, ideally, we also get to experience what they’re doing and how the strategy is translating in reality,” adds Lombard.

“Our aim was to build a Bio-Oil community. We want to seamlessly connect everyone in a more contemporary, real-time way, which wouldn’t have been possible using more traditional communication,” she explains.

Bio-Oil followed an iterative process where we produced wireframes and then went back and forth with the client adding further features and functionality as the development progressed. They used React Native so that it was possible to make improvements that applied to across Android and iOS without having to maintain two different sets of code.

The API has been built with .NET and supported with Azure App Services. All the images and video content that distributors share on the app is hosted in Microsoft Azure.

In a very short time, Union Swiss has been able to get all its distributors onto the app and they are actively posting the work they do. By creating an ecosystem where content can be shared, helps build a community and inspires others.

Lombard says it also makes individual distributors feel like they’re part of something bigger. “It’s been a wonderful experiment in how to run a global business and how to do so, well.”

“Future plans include incorporating sales performance metrics into the app so that distributors can see how others are doing and measure their efforts alongside the efforts of their peers,” she concludes.

Our team will continue to collaborate with the Union Swiss team and regularly add new features and make improvements to the app.

Watch the ITWeb interview with MD Nick Durrant about the new Bio-Oil App.