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Yamaha

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When Yamaha came to us, they had identified a segment of consumers that identified with their brand, but were not buying their products. This was a real “white space” opportunity. When you think about it, motorcycles, snow mobiles and personal water craft are loads of fun, but the experience is designed for one or possibly two adults to enjoy at a time.

Families with young children were looking for something they could experience together, would be a smaller investment than the current offering and that younger children could experience safely.

M Design proposed a process that would deliver great ideas that were founded upon the emotional needs of these consumers. By understanding the emotions that these consumers were seeking, we felt we could construct stories or experiences that would deliver these emotions. Once we understood the experiences, we could envision products that would deliver them.

In order to engage with the consumer in a way that would allow us to see what emotions and experiences they were seeking, we planned some observational ethnographic research that included taking them to Disneyland. How cool is that? We tagged along with our target families and observed and took notes on what types of rides and attractions they chose and why. In addition to the observational piece we interviewed them afterwards to fill in any blanks.

This was a rich experience gave us great insight into the emotions these consumers were seeking. Armed with this insight, we invited the Yamaha team to our studio where we conducted a BrainSpark workshop. In addition to the client team, experts in consumer research, play, and experience design participated.

The team developed stories and experiences based around the emotional goals of our target consumers.  We then created product concepts that would deliver these types of experiences. We were able to generate over 120 concepts for products that could be used on land, in water, in the air or on snow.  Through a process of concept selection, we narrowed down to 12 concepts that Yamaha was able to take into further development.

The product concepts are all still top-secret stuff, but don’t be surprised if someday you see a really cool Yamaha product the whole family can enjoy together.