Re-igniting Physical Play in the Digital Era

THE BRIEF

Develop a strategy and a portfolio of products to achieve $100M in incremental revenue

THE OUTCOME

A mess-free, non-toxic activity kit that allows kids to create collectible toys using "mystery molds" — a surprise outcome every time. Launched at Walmart in September 2022 (consumer score: 4.6/5). Named among Fast Company’s top innovations of 2023.

The Challenge

Elmer’s struck gold in 2017. Fueled by social media and the ASMR trend, the world was taken over by an old craze, “slime.”

It just so happened that Elmer’s glue was a key ingredient. Gallon jugs of Elmer’s glue started flying off shelves across the world.

However, Elmer’s sales waned as the trend faded. Newell Brands, the parent company of Elmer’s, believed that they now have brand equity to enter into the Toys and Activities segment. It approached my team to build a $100M business.

FROM THE END-USER POV

Imagine you’re your 7-year-old self again.

The world is a wondrous and exciting place full of discovery. Your imagination is vivid. You see magic in everyday occurrences.

You’re walking through a park filled with towering trees. Each tree becomes a potential hiding spot for fairies or secret treasure. The rustling of leaves in the wind might sound like whispers from woodland creatures.

A simple game of tag with friends becomes an epic adventure through a jungle, with each tree serving as a checkpoint or obstacle to overcome. The sound of birds chirping overhead could be a secret code, signaling the start of a magical quest.

KEY MOMENT #1

Develop domain knowledge quickly by asking the right question

Relying on research and a little bit of our inner child, we took a step back to understand the fundamental questions of play. Why do kids love to play? What are the drivers of that? Why is play important for growth and development?

We spoke to researchers, parents, teachers, leaders of kid education start-ups, and kids themselves to understand the meaning of play from multiple perspectives — whether it’s in the form of one-on-one interviews or focus groups.

We synthesized our learnings into a job-to-be-done framework to help us draw up boundaries around “a hunting ground” for product ideas.

We broke down the unexpected phenomenon of slime and other successes in the space (i.e. Minecraft, Roblox, or LOL surprise dolls) to develop our design and commercial principles.

They led us to develop three key ideas:

It is about creating a vessel that allows kids to fill in with their own imagination, rather than creating a specific outcome for kids to achieve.
Parents may be the gatekeepers, but kids are the ultimate stage gate — we should prioritize kids’ jobs; use parents as a complementary filter.
Activities with divergent outcomes yield greater benefits from a commercial, viral, and kid perspective.

HOW I HELPED THE TEAM

Develop a primer document by collecting data about the industry, the client, and project requirements, then breaking them down into critical information for team consumption; it enabled the project team to develop domain knowledge within two weeks
Spearheaded the research on the best-in-class products across the kids’ play space using a hypothesis-driven approach and developed a framework on their key success factors, which became the basis of our design and commercial principles
Analyzed and synthesized primary research into kids and parents, creating the job-to-be-done framework to guide our strategy and product conceptualization

KEY MOMENT #2

From converging to diverging to converging

HOW I HELPED THE TEAM

We synthesized our jobs-to-be-done framework, insights into kids and parents, principles, and industry analysis into a concept-generating matrix.

Using the matrix, we generated 150+ product concepts over two days. We converged and distilled these concepts into a set of ideation platforms — clear and focused briefs for ideation that articulate the what and the how a product concept might be.

Based on these platforms, we diverged again and conducted multiple rounds of ideation to generate a more focused set of product concepts.

To ensure our product concepts are grounded in research, I co-developed the concept-generating matrix with a team member to guide the ideation process
Led the development of “productive construction” — a platform allowing kids to explore and learn through destruction and mess, without coming at the cost of parents’ frustration and energy
Developed the business case for each platform's commercial potential by sizing the market using research-backed assumptions and conducting a competitive analysis
Through storytelling, I presented abstract product platforms in clear terms and inspired the approval of senior executives at Newell

KEY MOMENT #3

Prioritizing and Validating Potential

Product concepts at this stage remain abstract — a potentially great idea could be easily misinterpreted and eliminated. As a result, we prioritized 150+ concepts based on the Value vs Effort framework as it doesn’t involve complex formulas and its simplicity creates room for discussions.

Each team member independently evaluated the concepts by scoring each criteria in the framework (e.g. Alignment with Needs, Scalability, Right-to-win, Cost, and Effort.) Then, we came together to share their top concepts.

The scores were merely indicative and provided a foundation for further examination of the assumptions and thinking behind each team member’s score. During the prioritization process, we also took apart concepts or combined concepts to form new ones.

In the end, we narrowed down to 5 product concepts for client selection.

Monster Mashup was selected by the client for further prototyping and validation primarily because it required less time for development. We created a testing framework to evaluate specific attributes across various dimensions, such as the curing process, the mystery factor, the mix-and-match feature, and etc.

Due to budget and time constraints, our team opted to rely on indirect research methods.

We created a set of product demo videos showcasing the end-to-end play journey of five prototypes. We employed dial-testing to gauge user excitement, then followed up with questionnaires and max-diff analysis. We confirmed a set of core features:

Kids across age groups crave the mystery element and the experience of “unboxing the surprise”
Parents want to participate rather than guide the activity
The play experience needs to de-risk experimentation and allow for less-than-perfect outcomes

HOW I HELPED THE TEAM

Developed the testing roadmap that coordinated the research and prototype-building workstreams by breaking them down into smaller tasks with clear objectives and determining due dates with inputs from various teams
Led the quantitative research (i.e. dial-testing, questionnaires, max-diff analysis) and extracted insights to support key product decisions
Co-developed the testing framework to clearly define product attributes to be evaluated

The Outcome

A casting-based product line that allows kids to create collectible toys using "mystery molds" — a surprise outcome every time. The oddly-satisfying making experience and the squishy outcome fulfill kids' ASMR craze. The mess-free and non-toxic traits reduce parental involvement. The first product in the product line was launched at Walmart in September 2022. (consumer score: 4.6/5)

EACH IDEATION PLATFORM IS DERIVED FROM A SET OF KEY CONSUMER INSIGHTS ("TENSION") AND JOBS-TO-BE-DONE

A PRODUCT CONCEPT IS BORN OUT OF ONE OR MULTIPLE IDEATION PLATFORMS

The Outcome

A casting-based product line that allows kids to create collectible toys using "mystery molds" — a surprise outcome every time. The oddly-satisfying making experience and the squishy outcome fulfill kids' ASMR craze. The mess-free and non-toxic traits reduce parental involvement.

The first product in the product line was launched at Walmart in September 2022 (Walmart CSAT score: 4.6/5). In 2023, Fast Company recognized it as a Top Five Innovation by Design in the Large Business category.

In 2024, Mix and Match was launched as the second product in the Squishies product line.

THIS IS WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY IF I CAN GO BACK

We should have prioritized creating one high-fidelity prototype to test the holistic experience, rather than many low-fidelity prototypes to test many product attributes. Project leadership placed great importance on attaining statistically significant feedback on all attributes when it wasn’t what the project needed. As a result, our testing objective was centred around understanding reactions to specific traits, such as themes, size, shapes, etc.

I believed the key priority should have been determining whether our design decisions have holistically translated to the play experience we hoped for, rather than building statistical confidence to support individual design choices. The quantitative studies could be conducted as a separate Phase Two project or passed on to the client after the project.
Our testing experience did not align with how kids actually play. They needed to interact with the toys in their hands to comprehend the concept fully. Relying on their indirect interpretation and reaction created a lot of room for biases and misinterpretation.

In addition, we missed opportunities to ask open-ended questions about non-obvious or surprising behaviors about the play journey. Even with the time and budget constraints, it might had been more valuable to do in-person testing with 20 kids than indirect testing with 500 kids.
When we opted to build low-fidelity prototypes, many parts of the value proposition could not be shown — such as the world-building aspect, the ability to mix and match components to create a unique outcome, or the opportunity to trade components with their friends. In addition, imagine doing a licensing play on this product line — kids can mix Ironman's torso with Hulk's arms.

The kids and the clients never saw the full potential of the original product concept in real life. The low-fidelity prototypes were passed on to the client’s R&D team for further development. Momentum suddenly took over — and it became difficult for the R&D team to leave the-path-of-least-resistance through the bureaucracy of a large organization. Eventually, the low-fidelity prototypes became the final solution that went to market.

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