Mattel’s Problem
Mattel approached our team to pitch an idea that could solve a critical issue. As a toy manufacturer without any brick and mortar, Mattel sells most of their products through retail partners which limits their access to customer data. Without this, Mattel felt they were unable to improve as a company.
My black board of ideas
Constraints
COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule) firmly dictates the types of data marketers can collect from children — identifying information (e.g. profiles) and browsing history are examples of protected data when it comes to online services directed to children under 13. The consequence is that toy companies are unable to target specific users and are often limited in creating engaging experiences for children and families. This was an important constraint for us to keep in mind throughout the design process, and was a key reason for shifting our focus to targeting the parents rather than the children.
Market Research
Through our research we found a pattern in that consumers expect personalized experiences. From subscription services to streaming, to e-commerce experiences, to products themselves, companies rely on data to create personas, validate ideas, make recommendations, and tailor content to customers.
Competitive Analysis
Disney uses adult-focused products such as credit cards and vacations to keep parents sharing information. Newcomers such as Kiwi Crate use community and CRM tactics to build relationships with the people who are buying their subscription boxes: adults.
User Research
Interview With Parents
We hosted two focus groups each with 3 to 5 parents raising young children. We established a set of questions to help us understand their pain points when buying toys for their children or others. We wanted to better understand what triggers their decision of buying a toy, and the selection process. After several hours of speaking with parents, we consolidated our notes as a team, re-watched the interviews and identified four key findings.
Key Findings
Establishing our goal
How do we create an experience that benefits parents enough that they feel comfortable sharing their family’s information?
Create an app called "The Mattel Parents App" that meets the needs of parents that purchase Mattel toys. An engaging experience will make parents willing to “welcome” us into their family and provide useful data.
Some Ideas and Executions
1. Removing Friction
Hypothesis: linking to Mattel’s website from physical packaging reduces the friction to shopping online
By introducing a print insert into the physical packaging, we are able to break the ice given that only 1% of our customers shop via mattel.com. Through our research we found that parents still prefer the in-store experience when it comes to toys because they can allow their children to interact with the toys before they make a decision. With this packaging insert, we will encourage our customers to download the Mattel Parents app that will allow them to be part of the rewards program, as well as use multiple tools that will help them create birthday registries and teaching responsibility.
2. Gathering Meaningful Feedback
Hypothesis: allowing parents to provide meaningful feedback gives Mattel user data while improving customer satisfaction
Gathering feedback needs to be easy for the user and straightforward for Mattel. By giving the parents only two options for reviewing a toy (either happy face or sad face) we can quickly gauge whether they like it or not. We then provide a tagging structure that helps us categorize the product based on qualities like "creativity", "educational", or pain points like "too loud" or "boring". We also allow the user to send a message if they have additional feedback they want to share.
3. Gamifying Responsibility
Hypothesis: Gamifying responsibility & purchasing encourages parents to engage more with Mattel’s products.
From our research and earlier conversation with the parents, we realized that it is very common for them to reward their kids for good behavior, good grades or completion of chores. That led us to the idea of creating a feature that would allow parents to create challenges for their kids and taking into consideration the COPPA restrictions, we gave the parents the lead role but making it an engaging experience for children to join their parents in the experience of choosing a reward, a challenge and accumulating stickers.
4. Giving Confidently
Hypothesis: adding wish lists and registries allows customers to purchase with more confidence and satisfaction.
As a parent, it can be a challenge to know what to get for children outside of their family circle. Often times they will have to buy toys for their children's friends or cousins and not be sure what to get. Conversely, they may be in a situation where they’d rather their own child receive toys that will get used, rather than gathering dust in the closet. The Mattel wish list tool acts as a gift registry for birthday parties and helps save time and money when it comes to giving and receiving!
Creating a wish list.
Left screen: Sender finalizes wish list and is now able to share it.
Right screen: Receiver tries to buy a gift but all toys are gone. Luckily, Mattel gives him recommendations based on the wish list!
Outcome
How Parents Earn
Parents will have an easy time earning points and rewards – not only by buying, but by also being active – on the Mattel app.
What Parents Earn
To keep the rewards system simple, we limited the amount of accumulated points and instead released small discounts and rewards more frequently. In addition to that, sending a gift on a yearly basis to show our appreciation felt important to keep building Mattel's relationships with customers.
What Mattel Earns
The number of diverse features in the app would help Mattel gather a variety of data from their users, from purchase habits to popularity of toys, tags, feedback, and more.