GSK | A bold website redesign

Challenge

We’d been the creative communications agency of choice for GSK for more than a decade when a big change in direction for the pharma giant saw them come to us for help. A much-publicised separation – the result of rapidly changing global and industry context – meant GSK was refocusing its ambitions squarely on leading in R&D, innovation and advanced technologies.

On the back of this historic step-change, GSK challenged RY with reinvigorating its digital estate and embedding a new, future-facing brand identity across its global platforms. Critically, a renewed gsk.com would need to reflect the company’s bold new strategic direction and its purpose of uniting science, technology, and talent to get ‘ahead of disease together’.

The process wouldn’t be straightforward: timescales meant the website and new brand would need to be developed at speed and at the same time – and more than 150 internal stakeholders would need to be consulted along the way.

Approach

With technology and innovation at the forefront of the ‘new’ GSK, we knew the site needed to present a more immersive, dynamic and relevant user experience to a diverse range of audience sets.

Existing persona and survey data, together with SEO and analytics audits, painted a rich picture of the journey users take to get to, and travel through, the GSK site. This enabled us to identify the key needs and barriers for all audience groups and develop a responsive, fluid site architecture that brings the most important content to the fore.

From there – working together with GSK - we designed a new, category-defining website that delivers fluid, dynamic experiences for users. Living, breathing design focuses on informing and engaging audiences through movement and echoes GSK’s constantly evolving, forward-looking and digitised nature.

Key features include: a Netflix-style ‘outstanding people’ video hub; an interactive ‘behind the science’ online magazine that brings the R&D story to different audiences; and site interactivity and motion that brings palpable energy to every user experience.

Outcome

The new corporate website, with a new narrative and tone of voice, received overwhelmingly positive feedback at launch. The site sits at the heart of GSK’s corporate communications and lives and breathes the organisation’s renewed strategy, culture, and the power of its purpose in action.

The site is set to deliver in the long-term and at scale, with plans to continue evolving it to keep it up to speed with both GSK’s ambitions and the fast-moving sector it operates in.