UX/UI Design, Full Website Rebuild, Personalisation, and Visitor Group Strategy
Animal Friends approached Appius with a vision to transform their digital presence.
The challenge was to capture a broad set of complex requirements and phase them into a realistic, achievable roadmap for delivery. One of the first major decisions was selecting a modern technology platform that would immediately elevate Animal Friends' digital capabilities, while also providing a scalable foundation for long-term strategy and future growth.
Appius was tasked with empowering the internal content and marketing teams by removing the long-standing dependency on developers for day-to-day content updates.
The solution needed to provide not just editorial independence, but also meaningful insights into customer behavior. This meant enabling more intelligent use of end-user data to refine and enhance the customer proposition.
Simultaneously, Animal Friends wanted to better position themselves as a hub of authority on pet insurance by surfacing relevant content in a more strategic, structured way.
In Appius, Animal Friends found a strategic partner who could bring together technology, user experience, and marketing insight to deliver a site that meets both short-term goals and long-term ambitions.
Working closely with stakeholders across Hoya’s international markets, Appius began with in-depth requirements capture workshops to understand both central group objectives and the specific expectations of local markets.
The resulting solution was a highly flexible, componentised trade portal built on the Optimizely platform. It was designed to integrate seamlessly with existing systems in both the US and Europe, enabling Hoya to manage global operations through a single, scalable CMS instance.
Crucially, the platform allows each market to select and activate the components most relevant to their customers—supporting true localisation without compromising technical cohesion.
Authentication was centralised via Salesforce, and the portal supports single sign-on (SSO) across various systems, providing a frictionless user experience across Hoya’s digital infrastructure.
Designers and content creators can build narratives around each persona, resulting in more emotionally resonant experiences.
While the visual identity remains consistent, variations in tone, imagery, and layout allow each group to feel uniquely addressed.
With themes linked directly to Visitor Groups, creative teams could rapidly test, optimise, and deploy variations based on real-time user data.
The ability to tailor user journeys helped the marketing team align on-site messaging with external campaigns, ensuring cohesive and impactful communications.
opticians have adopted the Hub
languages supported
local market portals delivered through global roll out
Seiko branded portals
