New Chapter: Rebuilding Trust Through Digital Transparency

Challenge

Founded in 1982, New Chapter had built a loyal following in the natural supplement space. When P&G acquired the brand thirty years later, customers feared ingredients and quality would change. Despite P&G's assurances, over the next few years many long-time customers believed the products no longer worked as they once did and left. The brand needed to rebuild trust. Additionally, their digital presence was fragmented, inconsistent, and functioning more as a product pamphlet and they now needed an e-commerce experience.

Audience: Two distinct groups: health-obsessed (wellness-focused individuals, those managing health concerns, athletes) and women navigating family planning, pregnancy, and postpartum (a critical entry point into the supplement category)

Objectives:

  • Rebuild customer trust through transparency around sourcing, fermentation, and manufacturing

  • Create a cohesive digital brand experience from fragmented web properties

  • Capture and convert new high-intent audiences, particularly women entering the supplement category through pregnancy

Insight

Through stakeholder interviews and customer research, I uncovered three critical insights: First, we likely wouldn't win back customers who'd already left, but we could prevent further erosion by being radically transparent about what made New Chapter unique (ingredient sourcing, fermentation processes, manufacturing standards). Second, pregnancy was a powerful entry point into supplements, yet New Chapter's rich prenatal content lived on a separate site that was nearly impossible to find from the main navigation despite strong organic search traffic. And third, New Chapter was using insider language (like 'Therapeutics') and organizing products in ways that didn't match how customers actually searched—creating a comprehension barrier that caused new visitors to bounce.

The strategic bet: Rather than chase lost customers with defensive messaging, we'd earn trust with new audiences by making New Chapter's quality story accessible, consistent, and impossible to miss.

Solution

I led a comprehensive digital audit and redesign that unified New Chapter's fragmented web presence into a cohesive, transparent, conversion-optimized experience.

What I Led:

  • Website audit using URL Profiler and Screaming Frog to identify traffic patterns, performance signals, and content gaps (for example, users landing on product pages but exiting quickly, signaling critical information wasn't surfaced fast enough)

  • Stakeholder interviews and customer research that identified transparency as the trust-building mechanism and pregnancy as a key acquisition moment

  • Information architecture that replaced insider categorization (like 'Therapeutics') with customer search behavior: product categories, ingredients, and wellness goals, making it intuitive for new customers to find what they needed

  • Integration of high-performing prenatal site into the main experience while preserving its SEO value

  • Content strategy that standardized how products were described, eliminated redundancy, and surfaced sourcing/manufacturing transparency at every touchpoint

  • Competitive research and website audit that revealed how to modernize the digital experience while honoring the brand's natural products heritage

Outcome

Successfully launched redesigned website that was easy to navigate and unified fragmented properties into one cohesive brand experience

  • Integrated previously siloed prenatal content, making it accessible while maintaining strong organic search performance

  • Created scalable content framework built on transparency and consistency

  • Client celebrated launch by sending the team a chocolate cake and returned a year later with new business (Oral-B)

Core Responsibilities: Discovery, Audience & Competitive Research, Website Audit, Ideation, Client Pitches and Engagements, Information Architecture, Content Strategy, Copyeditor