Portfolio of Christina Fowler

Context

When we started the redesign of Marshall.co.uk we knew we still had 2 years to go with our existing CMS provider, but we wanted to up our game and create the best possible dealership website that Constellation Automotive Group could produce.

Within the Constellation Automotive Group, we have great learnings from cinch and how they have approached disrupting the dealership market, we have access to fantastic resources at Autos on Show for product imagery and of course, decades of experience in the whole automotive industry at BCA.

Halfway through our work, Marshall went through a brand refresh with help from cinch's marketing team, so that was an extra challenge that we hadn't anticipated at the beginning, but it really helped to elevate the final result.

Action

To kick things off we started with a good look at competitors with the likes of Vertu, Arnold Clark and Group 1 really standing out in the market.

On the existing marshall.co.uk we changed fonts and colours on each page to match the OEM that we were representing but we noticed that our competitors didn't have the same approach. In fact, outside of vehicle imagery, they do very little to match the OEM.

By changing our existing approach with the new website we were able to cut out many rounds of approvals, reduce development time but also let the new Marshall branding remain on every page. Let's make Marshall a brand that people recognise as one they can trust, an expert dealer of many OEM brands.

Our next challenge was to get Marshall.co.uk seen in more searches. Marshall is a people-focused business, and that is not going to change. We still want to drive people from browing online to contact Marshall and come into the stores for that in-person sales experience that Marshall are so good at. However, how can we convert people from a google search to coming into the store?

We focused on differentiating Marshall's approach to cinch - photography across the site shows people as much as possible. People within the business, people being served by Marshall staff and people loving their cars. This isn't an online-only experience, we want Marshall to be recognised as a great service business which is centred on our in-person experience.

Results

In October 2025 we launched Marshall x Audi - our first OEM brand on the website. You can now browse Audi vehicles in the new experience with improved search capability, a totally redesigned product detail page and a whole new approach to selling offers and servicing online. We then continued to roll out the 32+ OEM experiences over the next few months on an ambitious schedule.

It will be a few more months before we see the results of all this hard work however, we now have the ability to track data much more effectively. How many people are visiting the site? How many make an enquiry? How many of those enquiries are we able to convert? Let's wait and see!

Learnings

In the future we hope to move away from the CMS provider and create a full custom experience, using the technology that we already have within the group. However, we've learned some big things along the way...

• Make sure you have a clear map of how many pages and screens you have, there is nothing worse than realising you have a bunch of new pages to redesign and write content for at the last minute!
• Hierarchy is king! So often we were redesigning a page where there were competing messages and calls to action, we really focused on ensuring the hierarchy was right. Our key goal is to get people to make an enquiry, and every page is now focused on that goal.
• Always have a prototype prepared - there is nothing better than showing stakeholders your ideas in order to get buy in. Show, don't tell!
• Feedback makes everything better - some comments can be hard to swallow at the time but we all want the product to be the best it can be so gathering feedback is only going to make it a stronger result.