TagCity is/was one of the largest discount code websites in Belgium. Studio Pixili offered them a total branding, web, image and character design package. We designed branding and integrated it into website, it all their marketing material such as newsletters, banners and social media campaigns. We also developed the website and all internal tools. Gave advice in web strategy.
TagCity’s journey was therefore a true saga, and Studio Pixili was there from day one. TagCity was our first client and six years and three versions later, we are still working on it.
TagCity has since become kortingscode.be. Now kortingscode.be is also project designed and developed by Studio Pixili. TagCity has also provided the collaboration with the biggest Belgian news magazines; Knack and Le Vif, this too is a project by Studio Pixili
Question
TagCity 2.0 came after TagCity 1.0 was a great success. The client saw the number of visitors grow month after month many web shops wanted to be on TagCity and a growing community of TagCityers emerged.
However, it was held back by the fact that the website in TagCity 1.0 was very simple.
The Approach
Company mascot(s)
Designing corporate mascots has always been one of our specialities. We think it is a lost skill, while there are many examples of why a corporate mascot is a good idea.
A mascot was obvious here, because the client wanted to tap into the “City” part of TagCity. And a city has inhabitants.
We first developed a female and male character. These would become the main mascots, but also form the basis of TagCity as a community. From that came Tagy and Tago.
Tagy is a male character with a very recognisable head. The shape is identical to the TagCity logo. Tagy is described as friendly, extroverted, creative and a born salesman. His general appearance is based on that of infomercial legends Anthony Sullivan, Vince Offer and Billy Mays.
Tago, whose name is based on Margo, has many of the same qualities. If anything, she is an even better salesman than Tagy, because besides all the natural qualities that make someone a good trader, she has charisma in abundance.
Both characters are deliberately designed to be straightforward. Tagy and Tago contain few references to race or origin. Their skin is orange because it is TagCity’s brand colour, but our a way of saying that skin colour does not matter in TagCity. Everyone is welcome.
One problem we encountered is that TagCity had a wide range of online shops, and so had no real target audience in mind. Tagy and Tago are the prototypes for all residents and users of TagCity.
After registration, every user becomes a TagCityer because these characters are also meant to be community symbols. You could design your own character based on your interests, from Geek to Foodie. This also gave us an idea of the new member’s interests, which gave us a good start in creating a customised TagCity experience for them.
Homepage
TagCity 1.0 was regularly requested by e-commerce sites to be able to promote deals more extensively. Indeed, this is an important source of revenue for them, and the ecommerce sites showed interest in a tag that could take over the website’s homepage banner. This banner had to be user-friendly, readable and fit within their brand without coming across as too commercial.
The webshops wanted customer exposure without compromising on TagCity’s user experience. To achieve this, we created a layout with an appropriate overlay. No matter what colour the font or logo is; the text will always be readable.
Furthermore, this is entirely possible in CSS (2) and does not require special effects such as blending modes that require Photoshop. This makes it banner, beautiful without expensive software or the intervention of a graphic designer. It is as simple as uploading an appropriate photo.
Finally, we have established some simple advertising rules to maintain the quality of our website. There should not be too much text in the photo and low-resolution photos are not recommended.
In addition, we have decided to help this webshop by offering a suitable image if the advertiser does not have an image or prefers to leave this to us.
Branding
The TagCity logo has remained largely the same since it was first designed in version 1.0. We have slightly modernised the logo we designed.
Social media
The client asked us to design a reusable layout for common Facebook messages. TagCity regularly participates in giveaways and contests. In TagCity 1.0 and 2.0, the client wanted to continue doing this, but also use it more on social media platforms.
In addition, TagCity also wanted to be able to promote special offers and/or events on Facebook. Studio Pixili developed the basic layout for the Facebook thumbnail, which had to remain the same at all times. This way, the page remained recognisable for TagCity’s followers.
The layout also had to be flexible. As can be seen in the carousel below, the basic layout can take many different forms. Extra attention was also paid to posts for holidays and action days.
Newsletters
The client also asked us to design newsletters. As on Facebook, a flexible basic layout would come in handy.
There was also a technical challenge: to develop a newsletter that is fully dynamic and thus automatically sends the best matching tags to the person. This algorithm would base this on the web shops the user follows.
We also designed special versions for important days like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Valentine’s Day, etc.
Company video
This is part of the initiative to give local traders a place on TagCity, which was previously only suitable for web shops. In addition to a completely separate backend, this involved a separate campaign aimed entirely at attracting traders.
Over het maken van bedrijfsvideo’s schreven we een aparte case. Lees hier>
Digital strategies
User-Recruitment strategies
When developing the community section of TagCity, we faced the challenge of finding a way for users to register. Banners, pop-ups and other intrusive ads were not an option because they were both distracting and negatively impacted the user experience. Studio Pixili found a unique, effective solution for this and increased the number of registrations.
Exclusive Content Strategy
The concept of the exclusive content strategy is simple: users can only access exclusive content if they register. This idea came about in response to a request from the merchant; a trend among online shops is to make their discounts exclusive by limiting their number. This also gave us a potential competitive advantage as we could offer many exclusive deals.
Although this strategy was successful, we saw that the number of registrations increased, but fewer users stayed on TagCity. The second strategy was much more effective at this.
Although we would love to have more data, we are never greedy and ask for information bit by bit and in a fun way. This is why most data is only requested after registration in the form of a TagCity passport.
In the first version of TagCity, we let users choose their own avatar, which resulted in +80% of users having no profile picture, 19% with a profile picture were copied from Facebook and 1% had spammers. These contributed little to data collection and were not always brandsafe. In the new TagCity, the avatar field is a nice way to collect data, as each avatar is a target group for which TagCity has tags.
- The father/mother (Baby and children, flowers and gifts, erotica, home and garden, toys)
- Student (Books, Music, movies and games, Office and desk, Electronics, Toys, Dating)
- Geek (Printing and photography, Books, Music, films and games, Office and desk, Electronics, Toys, Dating )
- The Do-It-Yourselfer (Home and garden, Electronics)
- The Traveller (Holidays and travel, Health and care, Food and drink)
- Foodie (Food and drink, Holidays and travel)Entrepreneur (Business services, Hosting, Office and desk, Electronics)
- The Normie (Everything/I prefer not to share this preference with TagCity)
A notable easter egg is that each user has a unique avatar. Each tag has a unique combination of eye colour, clothing colour and hair colour. Randomly generated by the system.
Unique merchant-recruitment strategies
The strategy to attract sellers was a different route. There was a call-to-action at the top of the page, intended more for sellers who found TagCity through our campaigns. A separate recruitment strategy was devised for salespeople.
We split the registration process into steps and visually show the progress at each step.
For instance, we go from step 1, an empty city, to step 2. Here, a shop appears, but the sign above it is still empty. In this step, the name and logo are filled in, so when the user gets to step 3, the shop has been made recognisable.
In step 3, the location of the shop is requested and the virtual shop is given neighbours. After that, there are two optional steps that are not mandatory, but do complete the profile with useful information.
Recruiting local merchants
New in TagCity 2.0 was the introduction of collaboration with local merchants. Previously, TagCity mainly offered tags to webshops
An interactive, digital map allows users to filter shops for possible discount coupons or a sale. It is also possible to zoom in on their location.
Now we understand that this map is not so user-friendly on some devices. Therefore, we have now developed a feature that displays the same as the map, but with more text.
This is similar to a web page, but with many more options. This part of TagCity can also be fully managed by the local merchant.
This allows sellers to create their own discount coupons with Live Preview.
That this coupon was then immediately available as a PDF download. provided extras such as limiting the number of coupons and/or setting a limited validity period. On top of that, TagCity already sets conditions by default that prevent abuse.
In addition, there are two more unique elements that only sellers have access to. The first element was announcing a sale. This is unique because they can only be added a few times a year and are reserved for Premium members.
When a sale is announced at a nearby shop, an email is automatically sent to all users near this shop.
There is also the option to let the merchant post updates. This leaves the trader free to post whatever he wants.
Furthermore, as a platform that until then was mainly known for promoting online shops, those sellers were also given the opportunity to promote their discount codes and offers. They also got a tool with a live preview of what they would add.
