Tags
Content platform · Streaming · Product Lead · YouTube
Client
Tropicfeel
An Owned Stories Streaming Hub
Launched a Stories platform that reached 142.8k views in the first month—shifting video from rented channels to an owned experience.
142.8k views · 6% CTR · 15m 47s avg watch time
Tropicfeel had been publishing content on YouTube for a while, but we needed a more owned, polished experience aligned with the brand.The launch of The Journey (video podcast) was the trigger to build Tropicfeel Stories: a series hub designed to inspire, organize content, and make discovery effortless.
Challenge
YouTube gave us reach, but it wasn’t enough to:
Deliver a consistent, premium brand experience.
Structure content like a product: series → episodes, with our own navigation and hierarchy.
Use The Journey as the main hook without burying the rest of Tropicfeel’s stories.
We needed a platform inside the website that gave us control over information architecture and content discovery.
Goals
User
Watch The Journey quickly and seamlessly.
Discover other series and keep exploring inspiring stories.
Business / Brand
Elevate brand perception with an owned platform.
Create a scalable system for future series and seasons.
Integrate Stories into the ecommerce ecosystem with clear entry points (menu, banners, placements).
My role & collaboration
I led the platform end-to-end:
Sitemap + information architecture
User flows (hub → series → episode)
UI & visual direction
Technical integration approach in a Shopify blog + YouTube embeds setup
Website visibility strategy (menus, banners, and placements)
I partnered with dev, content, and marketing to align storytelling, UX, and execution.
Process (lean, built to ship)
Benchmarking content hubs/platforms (series/episode patterns and discovery models).
Architecture: defining a scalable series → episodes system.
Design in Figma of 3 key templates: Hub/Home · Series · Episode.
Build in a Shopify blog using YouTube embeds (key constraint).
Post-launch validation with GA4 + Clarity (no formal testing).
Solution
A simple, editorial experience where content behaves like a product:
1) Hub/Home (discovery-first)
The Journey dominated the first scroll (hero banner + first episode carousel).
Other series stayed visible to encourage exploration with minimal friction.
2) Series page
Quick context + a clear episode list to support continuity.
3) Episode page
Embedded playback + structure to keep watching across episodes and series.
4) Website entry points
Navigation and placements ensured Stories wasn’t hidden—it became a real part of the Tropicfeel ecosystem.
Suggested visuals: Hub (hero + carousel) · Series (episode list) · Episode (player) · Menu/placements.
Impact & validation
In the first month:
👀 142.8k Stories page views
📈 6% CTR from hub/home → episode (especially from the hero banner and first carousel)
▶️ 15:47 average watch time (The Journey, on-site)
Clarity confirmed users followed the expected journey (discovery → episode).
With strong metrics and positive qualitative signals, we didn’t iterate further at that stage.
Key learnings
In content platforms, the player isn’t the product—architecture and discovery are.
“Owned” means control over hierarchy, narrative, and brand experience.
Entry points (menu/banners) matter as much as the pages.