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Empathize+Define+Ideate+Prototype+Test+Iterate
Taking each problem through this process, whether digital, physical or phygital, has proven the greatest rate of success in my experience. I follow this process as much as possible with each new problem I get to tackle.
Jakks Pacific wanted to create excitement and increase demand for their Disney Princess Toddler doll line
Create an ownable new style for Toddler dolls that appealed to the current 2-5 yr. old consumer while increasing appeal to girls up to 6 yr. old, without increasing the key $19.99 price point
As my role of Design Director for Jakks Pacific, I led research and design while working closely with designers in the HK office to help with prototyping, iterations and costing
Key challenges were 1) identifying what would appeal to this young consumer, 2) resistance of the sales team to support something new and 3) not increasing cost
Jakks Pacific had launched their original Princess toddler doll line 3 years earlier. It had grown to be very successful and its classic look appealed to moms. But testing showed that children were often more drawn to the competition.
Disney Princess is a well loved Brand amongst all ages. Having worked at Disney for 5 years prior, I had an intimate knowledge of the brand and what it meant to consumers
Parents of 2-5 year olds Considerations when shopping for a doll for their child:
Children 2-6 desire in their dolls:
Doll Category at the time was filled with lots of Fashion dolls, including Disney Princess and many generic baby dolls. Disney Princess was one of the few brands that had Toddler doll scale at mass. Monster High and Barbie Fashionistas were popular but I noticed there was a gap in doll offerings that were both sweet and had a contemporary look that was attractive to older girls.
Trending in popularity was Instagram as well as the rise in children as style influencers. Due to this both parents and children had more awareness of trends in fashion and entertainment, driving a demand to be on top of the trends and styles. Consumers were also playing around with unusual combinations and unexpected exploratory styles were emerging that crossed into the toy space.
Kids tended to play with multiple doll styles and princess characters together, mashing up and creating their own story. The larger toddler scale doll was seen as a companion/friend and was carried along with the child during many different activities. In this case the child wanted it to be as much "like them" as possible and be something that they felt was pretty and proud to show off to their friends.
30 year old Mom of a 5 year old daughter. She wants to give her daughter the best things in life, but money is a factor so she looks for value as well. She wants to know that the Brand she buys is a good quality as well as something that is as beautiful and fun for her daughter as possible. Her daughter loves the new Princess movies but doesn't love the Princess fashion dolls because they seem more a mom and less relatable to her.
We identified that we would focus on the aesthetics of the doll since the Disney Princess brand was already established as trusted Brand a in mom's mind. We wanted to show her that the beauty and quality was above that of the competition but keep the price the same or lower than that of the competition.
There are four main areas that attract the doll consumer:
Overall style, Eyes, Hair, and Fashion.
Of all of these, the element with the most impact is the eyes. This is also an area that was the most ripe for innovation and would set us apart on the shelves. This would establish the overall style and then the hair and fashion could be easily designed once this important factor was defined.
We got together as a team, both Disney and Jakks Pacific, to brainstorm the different approaches we could take to this challenge. I managed the Brainstorm, putting us in separate smaller teams allowing time to iterate on the ideas, as well as the opportunity to individually flesh them out and create rough sketch of the concepts.
There was a strong material component to the potential solutions so we explored what other options that there are in the industry and how we could innovate on them, or what other materials there are in other industries that we could use for dolls. There were glass eyes that had been done on dolls more recently at mass and while they looked great in collector dolls, no one had executed them successfully at mass.
We then started to sketch out what the solutions could look like. This process shone a light on the various Princess eye shapes, which was a very important feature to Disney to execute accurately.
*art pictured is was done by vendor, Christine Nigossian
We edited down to 4 different options to explore:
As we started to create rough prototypes of each, we found that we all gravitated to the impact the the clear lens idea could have. But we were left with the problem of how this could be manufactured as we needed one lens eye solution that would work with all the princesses eye shape variations.
While trying to problem solve a way to address these two issues, I came across an activity kit for glass pendant jewelry. This gave me the idea that we could use the circular glass shape for the iris of the eye only. This process would allow us to keep the variety of Princess eye shapes and make for a more lifelike looking eye. Lastly, this kit gave me the idea that the deco could be printed on the back of the lens rather than on the doll head itself. With this approach, the manufacturing process could be solved and simplified.
There were a lot of challenges to creating a prototype to test. We could not quickly create something that represented a final product on shelf. But we could create something that parents would be able to respond to and visualize what the final product would look like. We focused on one character, Ariel, and built a model by sculpting and casting the body and head. When designing the look, we considered the consumer desire for a more modern look but balanced with Disney's desire to keep the characters recognizable and somewhat true to content. We created unique art for the eyes and placed a thick plastic lens over it which was glued into the painted and casted head. Then we added a special made wig and Princess fashion to give the finishing touches.
Responses: Our prototype was tested agains the older style Disney Princess Toddler doll as well as against other similar sized dolls in the marketplace. We tested with parents of girls that like Disney princess and are between the ages of 3-6. There was some concerns voiced by parents, but unanimously parent's felt the new style was appealing and appeared to be higher quality.
Analyze patterns: We analyzed the results to determine what patterns there might be that we needed to address. The main concerns being that parents did not want to pay more then the 19.99 price point they were accustomed to. But other considerations were that they wanted to ensure that the dolls eyes would not end up crossed or looking "staring" as many of the glass eyed dolls on market. Lastly, they wanted to ensure the that the hair wouldn't get messy too easily and would stand up to their child's play.
Base on the information from testing, we went about refining the product:
We implemented the same design process across all the Disney Princess'.
Finally, and importantly, we were able to keep the overall product cost the same, regardless of the more expensive eye details because there was less eye deco needed. This along with a few other smart but unnoticeable cost reductions allowed us to deliver the product at the same desirable price point as prior years.
This new doll eye design was named "Royal Reflection eyes" and was patented. The new eye style was soon adopted by other manufacturers and has now became the norm for this doll scale. Even though the sales team was hesitant to make this change, they finally were convinced through our testing and refining process. The results at retail spoke for themselves as our sales on this line increased significantly the year of their release.
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