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Perple is the only all-natural sports drink and endurance mix, created to replace the artificial, synthetic, and ultra-processed sports drinks that currently dominate the FMCG food and drink market.
As Perple prepared for its market launch, it faced the challenge of educating a misinformed consumer base while positioning itself as a credible, performance-driven alternative.
Joining both the core internal team and a wider network of partners, I collaborated closely with the CEO, Founder, and Chief Brand Officer to translate Perple’s bold new brand identity into an immersive digital commerce experience. My role was to define the art direction and tone of voice for the online store, ensuring that Perple disrupted a market traditionally associated with a “no pain, no gain” mentality—which often skews dark and moody—by introducing a fresh vision of performance and pleasure.
Perple, an all-natural sports drink designed for athletes, had the unique advantage of being backed by F1 Champion Sebastian Vettel. However, the brand faced the challenge of aligning all digital channels in preparation for a soft launch in January, followed by a hard public launch in April, coinciding with Sebastian’s PR appearances promoting the product across various media platforms.
A key challenge was re-educating consumers and athletes about the ingredients they consume, positioning Perple as the clean, science-backed alternative to synthetic sports drinks. This aligned with the company’s internal objective: to drive sales and revenue growth, securing momentum to attract Series A investors.
As Lead UX/UI Designer, I was quickly appointed as E-Commerce Manager, overseeing the end-to-end digital commerce strategy. My responsibilities included:
This holistic approach ensured that Perple’s brand presence, messaging, and e-commerce strategy were fully aligned for a successful market entry and long-term growth.
Before conducting my own research, I first engaged in a brand immersion session with the branding team. This allowed me to fully understand Perple’s North Star and its two key UX principles:
Following this, I led a workshop designed to uncover deeper insights into the brand’s e-commerce vision, marketing direction, and internal operations. The session focused on three core pillars:
Target Audiences & Segmentation
We identified two core target groups, each aligning with a specific product offering:
Aligning UX & Brand Strategy
To ensure the online store accurately reflected Perple’s active, science-backed positioning while maintaining its core values of pleasure and performance, I developed and presented:
This research-driven approach ensured that every design decision was aligned with Perple’s brand vision, customer needs, and business objectives.
Following my standardised design process in Figma, I meticulously designed all required Shopify pages, ensuring a seamless customer experience that was both joyful and informative. The design emphasised art direction and photography, reinforcing Perple’s unique positioning. Once finalised, the designs were handed off to the developer for implementation.
With the website build underway, I shifted my focus to building and optimising Perple’s e-commerce tech stack, covering:
As part of Perple’s brand awareness and community-building strategy, we launched in-person activations in partnership with Rep Runners Weekly Run Club and Trash Mile Cycle Club during their Race Weekend events.
By integrating both digital and offline touchpoints, we reinforced Perple’s brand presence while fostering relationships within endurance sports communities.
As a fast-moving startup, one of our biggest challenges was balancing speed and prioritisation while setting up multiple e-commerce channels simultaneously. To address this, we adopted a sprint-based workflow, allowing us to:
This agile approach allowed us to stay adaptable, ensuring we could rapidly launch, monitor performance, and refine strategies based on real-time data.
