Brad Tober

Following Epsilon's acquisition by Publicis Groupe, and only a few years after Epsilon itself had been combined with Conversant, the organization faced a significant challenge: three separate design systems operating across its product ecosystem. As both a key stakeholder representing the Publicis Design System and a strategic leader in this transformation, I helped guide the initiative to unify these disparate systems (Blueprint, Conversant UI, and the Publicis Design System) into a single design system, called CORE UI, that would align all Epsilon SaaS products. The project required navigating complex cross-functional relationships, establishing clear adoption criteria, and developing a phased implementation approach that minimized disruption while maximizing consistency. Through strategic leadership and collaborative problem-solving, we transformed a fragmented design landscape into a unified system that reduced development costs, improved product quality, and strengthened brand perception across the enterprise.

Business challenge

The sequence of mergers and acquisitions had created a complex digital landscape within the organization. Legacy Epsilon products—including Customer, Loyalty, Messaging, Events, Data Hub, and IQ—relied on the Blueprint design system, which had been adopted by more than 25 teams and 250 developers. Meanwhile, the Conversant division maintained its own distinct Conversant UI system, with over 60 engineers using it across more than 35 distinct products / tools (today, Epsilon Digital collectively). Adding further complexity, the Publicis PeopleCloud platform (later renamed Discovery, known today as Clean Room) had begun implementing the Publicis Design System (which was used in my work on the PeopleCloud Analytics Environment). Each system had evolved independently to meet the specific needs of its business unit, resulting in divergent visual languages, interaction patterns, and technical implementations.

This fragmentation led to several critical business problems:

• Inconsistent user experience: Customers using multiple Epsilon products encountered different UI patterns, reducing learnability and increasing training costs.
• Inefficient development: Teams duplicated efforts building similar components, leading to unnecessary overhead and technical debt.
• Brand dilution: The lack of visual consistency undermined Epsilon's market positioning as an integrated platform.
• Scaling challenges: As new products joined the ecosystem, the divergence threatened to increase, magnifying these issues.

This situation demanded a strategic intervention to harmonize the design systems while minimizing disruption to ongoing product development.

Strategic approach

My approach to this challenge focused on balancing long-term design cohesion with practical implementation realities, while also representing the interests and strengths of the Publicis Design System.

Inventory and assessment

I conducted a comprehensive audit of all three design systems, creating a detailed component matrix to identify overlaps, gaps, and integration opportunities. This included evaluating technical implementation details, visual design characteristics, and component functionality.

Foundation selection

Rather than building from scratch, I advocated for leveraging the most mature aspects of each system. We selected Conversant UI as the technical foundation due to its robust implementation, while incorporating visual elements and accessibility standards from Blueprint and interaction patterns and data visualization components from the Publicis Design System.

Tiered adoption framework

I developed a 4-star certification system that allowed products to adopt CORE UI at different levels based on their technical readiness, with clear criteria for UI development approach, design principles alignment, maintenance commitment, and product design engagement. While individual timelines varied, the expectation was that all products would strive to reach and maintain 4-star tier certification.

Phased rollout strategy

I championed a phased approach to implementation, prioritizing high-visibility elements (navigation, typography, color) in phase 1 to quickly establish visual consistency, followed by more complex components in phases 2 and 3.

Team and collaboration

Leading this initiative required careful stakeholder management across multiple organizational boundaries that had been created through successive acquisitions. The complex corporate structure meant navigating different team cultures, workflows, and technical approaches that had become entrenched over time.

My role focused on facilitating collaboration between UX designers, product engineers, and marketing teams that had previously operated independently. Through inclusive planning sessions and transparent decision-making processes, we gradually created a sense of shared ownership across these historically siloed groups. These efforts were complemented by securing executive buy-in, which I achieved by developing a business case that balanced immediate efficiency gains with long-term strategic benefits. By framing the unified design system as essential to Epsilon's platform positioning, we were able to gain crucial support from leadership across different business units.

On the ground level, our team established practical infrastructure to support day-to-day collaboration. This included creating standardized design tool workflows and component libraries in Sketch with versioning through Abstract, ensuring designers across teams had access to the same assets regardless of which product they supported. To bridge the gap between design and implementation, we instituted weekly office hours where UX Development representatives served as consultants to product engineering teams, providing technical guidance on implementation challenges as they arose.

Communication remained a constant focus throughout the initiative. We created shared channels to facilitate ongoing collaboration and quick resolution of implementation questions, which helped prevent small issues from becoming major roadblocks. Underlying all these efforts was a detailed project roadmap that I developed and maintained, spanning from Q2 2020 through Q1 2021. This transparent timeline established clear milestones and accountability for design, development, and product engineering teams, helping to coordinate efforts across multiple workstreams and ensure steady progress toward our unified vision.

View the roadmap as a PDF (with username protected and the password you used to access this page)

Outcome and impact

The CORE UI initiative positioned us to achieve many of the benefits typically associated with successful design system implementation:

• Development efficiency: We achieved significant efficiency gains with CORE UI by building components once and reusing them across all Epsilon products.
• Improved product quality: Standardized components ensured consistent implementation of accessibility standards, responsive behaviors, and interaction patterns.
• Faster onboarding: New developers and designers could more quickly become productive across multiple products due to shared patterns and documentation.
• Enhanced brand perception: Customers experienced a more cohesive platform experience, strengthening Epsilon's market position as an integrated solution rather than a collection of disparate tools.
• Scaling advantage: New products could be developed more rapidly by leveraging existing components rather than creating custom implementations.

Reflection

This initiative taught me valuable lessons about leading complex cross-functional efforts:

• Balance standardization with flexibility: I learned to create frameworks that provided clear guidance while allowing for necessary product-specific adaptations. The tiered adoption model proved particularly effective in accommodating different technical realities while maintaining progress toward a shared vision.
• Lead with evidence: When advocating for change, concrete examples of efficiency gains (like bug reduction metrics associated with design system adoption) proved more persuasive than theoretical benefits.
• Invest in governance: Establishing clear criteria for measuring adoption success was essential for creating accountability without relying solely on mandate. The certification system created healthy competition among teams while providing clear implementation targets.
• Build coalitions: Success required identifying and empowering champions within each functional area who could advocate for the initiative with their teams. These relationships proved invaluable when navigating implementation challenges.
• Align immediate needs with future vision: The phased approach to implementation allowed us to show visible progress quickly while tackling more complex components over time, maintaining both momentum and quality.

This experience fundamentally shaped my leadership approach, reinforcing the importance of balancing strategic vision with practical execution, and demonstrating how thoughtfully implemented design systems can drive significant business value beyond mere visual consistency.