BBC Worldwide is the commercial arm of the BBC and is responsible for taking shows such as Doctor Who, Top Gear, BBC Earth and CBeebies to households across the globe. From their London base, they oversee the publishing and management of their global sites, servicing over 80 countries in 10 languages with 100,000s of users daily. Phew! It was a massive operation that needed simplifying.

Enter Guerrilla.

With new territories, channels and shows regularly launching, BBC Worldwide approached us to create a single system that would automate and standardise their publishing workflows while also allowing regional variations such as language, time zone, geo-blocking, geo-targeting and local editorial overrides.

Though each region required localisation, BBC Worldwide required global consistency in relation to the quality, design, branding, functionality, security, caching, scheduling and mobile responsiveness of their sites. To add to this, a high standard of design and brand compliance meant that the system overall needed to be incredibly powerful and the sites, beautiful.

In collaboration with the client, we worked closely to architect a system that would meet their operational and business needs while tailoring to specific daily workflows. As a result, a bespoke web management interface was designed and built upon a framework to allow rapid prototyping and development. Particular focus was placed on the user experience for site editors in combination with the business requirements, security and flexibility that was required for the project.

Beyond the management layer, a library of page components were designed and developed to meet the functionality required on the sites. Each component was then customised to facilitate design changes, allowing the component to be accurately adapted to any channel brand, show or master brand. For speed and efficiency, sites, pages and components could be cloned across regions with content then being localised.

Given the broad audience of BBC Worldwide, each custom component was built to be fluid-responsive on any modern device, retina-ready and optimised for page load — the user experience of each component and overall site was carefully crafted for accessibility and a ease-of-use.

We also work closely with BBC's web-ops team in London for ongoing optimisation of the hosting environment, caching, API and security layers of the system.

In addition to designing and engineering the system, we were also responsible for the user experience and web design on all system sites. This involved deep attention to a suite of BBC brand styles, while also bringing ideas and creativity to every brief.

Originally designed and built in 2010, the system has hosted hundreds of websites while currently serving over 50 live sites globally. For BBC Worldwide, it allows rapid site design, development and deployment at a fraction of the time, cost and effort of standalone sites, in every region.

Though namely used for BBC Channel sites across the globe, the system powers global brand sites such as Doctor Who, BBC Earth, BBC iPlayer and CBeebies.

At an average one million visits per month, the system and its sites represent a significant portion of BBC Worldwide's global business while delivering millions of individual brand experiences year on year.

We're continuously working to further develop the system to achieve additional productivity gains while enhancing brand quality and consistency globally — more on that next time.

For us, it was the opportunity to put our ethos into action on a global stage. We combined our user experience focus and tech nous with creativity to create a platform that was equal parts utilitarian, intuitive, creative and beautiful — for the whole world to enjoy. That. And we love the work that the BBC produces!