One plot, clearly fenced
Promotions lived in a single carousel below the account card and daily actions. They never pushed everyday tasks down or took over the screen.
Alfa / Gen 2 · 2020 — 2023 / Use case
We turned the home screen into the bank’s best real estate.
Every business team wanted a place on Alfa’s home screen. Instead of saying yes to everyone, or no to everyone, we treated the banner carousel like property, with limited space, clear rules and one design standard.
01The problem
Everyone wanted the home screen.
Our Digital Channels team owned Alfa. Around us sat a department full of stakeholders, each with business targets: cards, loans, deposits, remittance, insurance, and lifestyle partners like Vouch365, foodpanda and Booking.com. All of them wanted the same thing: to be seen by the people opening the app every day.
If every request became a new tile, popup or menu item, the home would collapse under its own promotions and the daily tasks would get buried. If we said no to everyone, the app would stop earning its keep for the bank.
02The idea
Treat the promo area like real estate.
We gave the home one marketing area, a sliding banner carousel, and treated it like property. Space was limited, there were rules for using it, and every tenant got the same standard of design. Business teams brought us their campaigns, we designed the banners, and the carousel became the one place on the home where products competed for attention.
Teams brief, we build
Business teams came to us with a campaign and a goal. We designed the banner, so quality and tone stayed consistent no matter who was promoting what.
One template, many products
Headline on the left, product visual on the right, the curved brand shape in between. A fixed template kept the carousel feeling like part of Alfa, not like ads.
Built for three themes
Every banner was produced in Conventional red, Islamic teal and Premier gold, so it matched the theme of the customer seeing it.
A door, not a poster
One message and one action per banner: get a loan, order a cheque book, top up. Small enough to read at a glance on a phone.
03The tenants
Cards, loans, remittance, lifestyle and more.
A sample of the banners we designed for the home carousel.
04Three themes
The same banner, at home in every theme.
Switch themes to see how each campaign adapted for Conventional, Islamic and Premier customers.
05Next time
What I’d improve, with hindsight.
If I ran the plot again
- Let data decide the order. Every slot should report taps and conversions, so priority goes to what customers respond to, not to whoever asks first.
- Personalise the carousel. A customer who already has a credit card shouldn’t see “Apply for your credit card”. Banners should promote what each person doesn’t have yet.
- Give teams a self-serve brief. A simple template for goal, audience, dates and action would speed up every campaign.