Content leadership
Scaling content design at giffgaff by defining strategy and empowering the team to deliver impactful user experiences.
Role:
Head of Content Design
Team:
Content Design
Skills:
Content Strategy, Workshop Facilitation, Agile
Situation
The demand for content design support was growing. As I was developing the team, I needed to transition from a hands-on content design to a leadership role, responsible for guiding and maturing the discipline within the organisation.
Task
As Head of Content Design, my goal was to create a clear content strategy, balancing giffgaff tone of voice and embedding content design into the UX practice. I had to grow the content design discipline, develop team skills, and create a culture of collaboration while ensuring that our content aligned with giffgaff’s brand values.
Action
Defining tone of voice and content principles
I ran a workshop with the team to define our content personality and tone of voice. We explored:
Brand personality: We identified words and traits that represent giffgaff and make it unique. Using the personality map, we pinpointed where we were (friendly but submissive) and where we wanted to be (friendly yet dominant).
Tone of voice matrix: I developed a matrix to guide us on when to dial up or down the tone of voice at different customer journey stages.
Content design principles: We established four core principles to embody our approach and represent the giffgaff brand Friendly, Clear, Simple and Fun
Introducing agile practices
Agile ways of working: To meet the growing content demands, I introduced agile practices:
Stand-ups & community of practice: We introduced regular stand-ups and a community of practice to help the team share knowledge, align on projects, and discuss best practices.
Bi-weekly drop-in sessions: We created open sessions where anyone could get content design support, improving cross-team collaboration.
Supporting team development
Personal development plans: Using the GROW model (Goal, Reality, Options, Way Forward), I worked with each team member to set development plans, giving them a sense of purpose and structured support.
Pair writing: I implemented pair writing sessions to foster collaboration, share knowledge, and strengthen our content outputs.
Content style guide: We established the foundations of the giffgaff content style guide, helping other teams with the tools to create drafts, which my team and I could then refine and improve.
Content design principles that we created
How we saw the giffgaff tone of vocie
Where we see out brand personality and where we want to get to
Tone of Voice Matrix
The brand traits we want our content to be
Results
Stronger brand consistency
The personality map, tone of voice matrix, and content design principles helped make sure that giffgaff’s voice remained consistent and recognisable across all touchpoints.
Improved collaboration
Agile practices, pair writing, and drop-in sessions created a culture of continuous learning, helping to break down silos and improve cross-team collaboration.Team empowerment
Through structured development plans, the team had a greater purpose, supported, and was more engaged, with clear paths for growth.