Going the extra mile with a global automotive brand
- Digital Stragety
- User Experience
- Visual Design
- Web Development
- Hosting
- Support Services
- Umbraco CMS
- eCommerce
- UX Research
How do you bring together a network of stakeholders within a single digital presence?
Calico has been an ISUZU Trucks (Australia) development partner for over seven years.
With our history of success with this brand, when it came time to overhaul ISUZU’s website and introduce a raft of new features, Calico was the natural choice. Partnering with ISUZU’s local advertising agency, Calico delivered a wonderful web experience in Umbraco 8.
Keeping consistency across a brand network
As a global automotive company ISUZU’s focus was very much on stability, security and flexibility. Umbraco ticked those boxes, with the power & flexibility of the CMS a further incentive to continue with the system.
Calico invested considerable effort in the early solution planning and UX design stages to thoroughly understand the needs of IZUZU’s niche audience and plan the elements of the site accordingly. Prior to moving into UI design, all aspects of the site were thoroughly tested with a customer group.
From a solution architecture point of view, Calico took the time to carefully specify how the complex elements surrounding API integration and the ‘shadowing’ of key content would best fit the client’s need, prior to commencing development. This approach allowed us to “measure twice and cut once”, and deliver a high quality solution in a relatively short time frame.
The stand-out custom feature of the site is the “node shadowing” that is used throughout the dealer sites. A main site was created to hold all the content, with corresponding dealer sites created with the same layout. We then referenced each page on the dealer site to a page on the main site.
This allowed each dealer site the opportunity to simply display the same information that was set on the main site or place their own grid information surrounding the content being imported from the main site.
This tactic enabled the main ISUZU site and all the dealer sites to be consistent and kept up to date with the latest information while balancing the dealer’s need for unique and appropriate local content.
Due to the flexibility of the Umbraco CMS we were able to tailor this functionality to precisely suit the client’s needs
Prioritising stakeholders for better brand relations
As the complete ISUZU digital environment consisted of multiple sites, we decided to launch these new sites in a staggered manner.
All Dealers were brought online first, followed by the corporate site, then satellite subdomains for smaller areas of the business.
This strategy ensured value could be more quickly delivered back to key stakeholders within the business (The Dealer network). It also ensured work needed for multiple sites was only completed once and could be reused to bring other sites online when the time was right.
The power of a Calico build
Calico’s redevelopment of the ISUZU sites resulted in organic traffic increasing by 46% in the launch month, and has maintained a 38% increase over the first 6 months.
Server response time has improved by 77% shaving off 1.5s per page load on key pages, a significant factor in the improved SEO performance.
Improved navigation connected users to the information they needed faster, whilst improving conversion rates by 13%.
A more efficient and effective build meant time spent managing content via the CMS across the entire network has decreased by 30 hours per month.
Visit the ISUZU site now to discover the full experience Calico developed.
The ISUZU website redevelopment project was an ambitious project to bring together the OEM website with 37 individual dealer websites into a single environment. Calico were amazing throughout the project, from the technical solution to the project build, we have felt fully supported across the journey.
John Walker - Marketing Manager ISUZU Australia
