Snapchat x

Heal the Bay

PRODUCT FEATURE

Snapchat is a powerful social media platform capable of creating mass social trends. We tackled our task holistically because we believed Snapchat as a platform can benefit all non-profits and their cause. With this and user interviews, the new feature Communities will live on Snapchat's Discover screen. Heal the Bay is an environmental non-profit dedicated to making the coastal waters and watersheds of Greater Los Angeles safe, healthy, and clean.

CLIENT
Snap Inc. (Snapchat)

TYPE
Experience Design / UI/UX Design / Interaction Design

ROLES
Product Designer & Visual Designer

YEAR
2019

Through interviews with Heal the Bay's Communications Director, we gained an acute understanding of Heal the Bay's current main goals, their cause, and pain points.

Key Insights

They wanted people to know they have much more to offer than their beach clean-ups to get users engaged in their cause.

Heal the Bay wants to capture the younger audience of 18-35 coming into voting age, but Heal the Bay is currently limited in ad reach.

A current high priority is passing the Plastic Pollution Reduction Act by getting the community to sign the petition on change.org to pressure legislators to push the bill.

How Snapchat can help Heal the Bay and any non-profit in their cause

Snapchat has proven itself a powerful marketing tool for generating viral trends through user engagement. This phenomenon can be captured and utilized to promote and campaign for a good cause a non-profit is pushing. We saw this as an opportunity to create a feature not just for Heal the Bay but for any non-profit struggling to reach a larger audience.

Introducing Communities!

Snapchat's Discover feed has the most content engagement from its users. On the Discover page, users can view their friend's stories, and keep up-to-date on current events and pop culture. 

Living on this same page is Communities where you can get involved with the non-profits around you and learn about their cause. 

With Communities, Heal the Bay can boost its outreach and engagement to help pass its Plastic Pollution Reduction Act in a fun and educational manner.

All in all, this redesign of the Discover page will help any non-profit to push their cause and campaigns.

Activating spaces and engaging users through interaction

We wanted users to discover Heal the Bay's petition campaign through multiple access points of Communities, geo-fenced filters and Lens at the Santa Monica Pier, lens Snapcodes, available by search, and most importantly Lens and filters shared from friends.

Bridging awareness and action through each other

We all know that pollution and the crisis in the ocean have large implications on the globe, but despite this, most people fail to act for several reasons. People may fail to act through a lack of awareness, lack of knowledge to act, they may believe that someone else will take care of the problem, or believe it takes too much effort to act.

Snapchat is for friends

Snapchat has always been a more personal platform than other social media platforms. We saw this as a perfect opportunity to help bridge the gap of awareness and action all in one place, Snapchat. 

We believe when someone receives a lens or filter from a friend, they are more likely to participate and take action for the same cause. By sharing lenses and filters with friends, Heal the Bay and other non-profits can engage people themselves to spread awareness and engagement with each other by utilizing Snapchat's power to market a good cause at a lower cost.

Rewarding community engagement with more engagement

As more and more friends share the filters and sign the Plastic Pollution Reduction Act petition, a growing reef filter will evolve into a lusher environment along with an educational lens. We wanted to drive doing good and taking action with educational lenses to generate more engagement and action in the community.

Awarding community accomplishment

Once the goal of 500,000 signatures is reached, everyone who has participated will have their growing reef filter transformed into an immersive AR thriving reef experience to enjoy.