In phase one, Bond developed a new mobile application to poll staff asking for their input on uniform requirements and to share initial materials and design directions. British Airways wanted to ensure that colleagues were included in the uniform design and to share how they needed the uniform to perform. The engagement was across 35,000 colleagues and was the start of an exciting journey. Phase two, was an ongoing deliverable. The app was used continue the communication updating on progress sharing content and video when staff members were engaged in workshops and wearer trials. The final phase was to develop the reveal application. Most importantly this app was designed to enable colleagues to discover and navigate their uniform, what looks they could wear and how to wear them. All presented in a style that matched the expectation of a high‑end retail brand.

Part of the challenge for the reveal application is to seamlessly enable staff to find what new uniform items are available and relevant to their specific needs, whilst keeping their enthusiasm for the full brand. British Airway’s full uniform options consist of almost 100 individual products. Each uniform item needed to be photographed, together with videos including both flat lays and of items being worn by colleagues. The products are then spread across the individual looks, showing a complete set of looks and how they are designed to work together. These then fit into 10 separate wardrobes depending on the job role, with both male and female options.

The application design needed the same elegant feel, matching the same uniform design ethic created by Ozwald Baoteng. With a user experience fitting of a high‑end retail store, rather than a corporate application.

With our British Airways colleagues always driving the creative process, it was a natural fit to focus our cameras on members of the BA staff rather than professional actors. Some were quite new to the photoshoot process, so we focused on fostering a relaxing environment to deliver authentic images that showed the BA uniform in its full potential. Each wardrobe look led with a hero video of a staff member wearing the uniform, complimented with images of each item within the full‑look, as well the accessory items that could be ordered. Teaser videos of the uniform were created prior to launch, honing in on the craftsmanship of the patterns and the quality of the materials. These snippets underscored the overall creative vision by guiding the eye towards the unique design of the uniform – like the BA speedmarque that is woven directly into the fabric. An experience created for the BA team by the BA team.

The key thing was that the technology had to work, be secure, quick, and easy to use. There are two significant parts to the technology; the first is the user interface and overall user experience. In order to support all of BA’s staff, no matter where they are in the world, a web‑based experience was decided as the best option. This was coded using Gatsby that allowed for an extremely fast user experience, whilst being as adaptable as possible.

The second part of the technology was all the backend: from the Content Management System through to the 365 always on hosting. All the content is managed using the Hygraph CMS. This provides a very flexible approach that allows the content to be modelled and managed in a way that is easily understood and matches the front end. The site is hosted as an Azure Static Web App that is authenticated using BA’s internal Single Sign On server in order to ensure that only authorised BA users are able to access the site.

The digital experience and technology enabling it was built to scale. Within 72 hours of launch the site had received over 1 million hits on the platform, with over 100gb of data delivered to users over that period. The analytics provided by the solution then enabled British Airways to understand the usage: where users accessed the content, what uniform was most viewed and how long was spent viewing the content.

‑Peter Lyons, Senior Communications Manager