Mattel
The Shape of Play
Researching why people play
for an iconic brand—to create a future that’s more playful for all.
Our Roles
Ethnographic In-Home Research
Documentary Videography
Global Quantitative Research
Expert Interviews
Insight Storytelling
Creative Direction & Production
Innovation & Design Advisory
The Work
Mattel’s Global Consumer Insights team runs a state-of-the-art Play Lab and toy testing program that fuels continual design and innovation for their X brands and Y product lines. But for this program, the team had set their sights on a higher-level learning goal– they wanted to understand the current state of play in people’s lives beyond any one specific product, category, or brand, and— they wanted to share the findings publicly.
Mattel partnered with MADO to help craft an innovative approach to ‘Thought Leadership Insights’– future-looking research on an entire facet of human life, play, that moves not only their own brand forward, but by sharing publicly– it can move the broader industry and society at large forward as well.
How are people inviting play into their lives?
Why does play matter in today’s world?
Where is play headed?
We set out to learn…
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Earned Media Coverage (CBS, Buzzfeed & ____)
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Hands-on Toolkit and Workshops
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The Outcome
MADO excitedly took on these questions and designed a large-scale program that brought together deep insights (synthesized from over 33,000 people across 7 countries), with creative storytelling mediums: documentary video, editorial reports, exhibit design, interactive toolkits, workshop materials and keynote presentations. The challenge was to clearly see the storytelling opportunities up front, and seamlessly integrate the creative work with the research work, throughout the entire program.
The result was a bold body of work that will fuel Mattel innovation for years to come, and inspire outside brands, educators, caregivers, and ‘kids of all ages’ worldwide to better understand and embrace play!
The Shape of Play (short reel?)
Through our research, we heard about the stresses and challenges people face—but we also learned about the unique and vibrant ways people were using play as an antidote, an escape, a means of expression, even as a space of solitude. Through this learning, we developed a unifying concept, The Shape of Play.
“MADO is visionary partner who pushed us to be bold and go big on this program! Their creativity and flexibility helped us zig and zag to ultimately create a new approach to Insights for our organization that has created a lot of energy and excitement inside and outside of our walls.”
-Tasja Kirkwood, VP of Global Consumer Insights, Mattel
The Approach
Early on we decided we were going to go big, go global, tell human stories and be all ages. Through a series of framing workshops we quickly aligned on these ambitions and specified their implications– which countries do we want to learn from?
One of the boldest decisions we made was to look full-spectrum at age. When contemporaries like Lego were focused on understanding the benefits of play for children, we knew there were more benefits and opportunities for play for teens and adults too. This also aligned with the mission of Mattel to inspire people across generations.
Motivation was also an important lens MADO identified, because we knew it could reveal a connection to emerging trends, pressures and personal preferences. So ‘Why do people play?’ became a central learning question, and with our initial secondary trend research complete, we already had a hypothesis framework drafted up.
A Broad View
Mattel x MADO fielded a robust quantitative survey with over 33,000 people across 7 countries. The quant research was designed with an extremely wide variety of question types and topic areas, providing an incredibly rich data set for us to learn from.
We found 6 distinct Play Personalities differentiated by their motivations to play and preferences for play, not by age, gender or region. This was an incredibly hopeful and exciting finding as it shone a light on the shared joys of play. It also provided Mattel with a completely new way to look at segmentation– psychographically– which MADO has found, with Mattel and other clients, is a rich generative foundation for innovative thinking and design.
We also found WHAT people consider to be play is shifting. No longer only thought of as toys or schoolyard games, people told us that play can include ‘hiking’, ‘playing with pets’, ‘creating with AI’ or ‘just putting food away in a playful manner’. This opened up the door to new thinking at Mattel and helped prepare us for in-home conversations.
“Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
“Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
A Deep View
How do different Play Personalities approach Play? Why is Play important to them?
The research x documentary film teams traveled to homes in the US, China & Finland (did you know: Finland was rated #1 happiest country, 7 years in a row?). We spoke with both kids and adults across different identified Play Personalities, and found a clearer picture of each of these personalities and each of the underlying play motivations. For example, the Solo Navigators are highly motivated to play for wellbeing. They preferred to play alone, delighting in losing themselves in a game or fantastical storyline to re-charge mentally.
For the qualitative research design a few things were unique. One– we had to balance as small of a video footprint as possible in the intimate setting of people’s homes and yet have enough expertise and equipment to capture people’s stories in shareable, high definition.
MADO designed a custom research tool– the Shape of Play Blocks to prompt in-home conversations around play motivations and behaviors. We found that although the Play Personalities have distinct similarities, much like a finger-print, everyone has a pretty unique ‘shape of play’ or relationship to play. Sidenote– after research, these blocks became an iconic tool used through the Mattel offices.
In-home, we also employed a Foresight tool, The Future Planet drawing activity, which was designed to understand people’s aspirations for play and its potential impact on their world. We found people connected play to the creation of more ‘kindness’, ‘peace’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘intelligence’. Inspiring the Mattel team beyond expectations.
To help provide a visionary perspective, we scouted for and interviewed experts from adjacent fields with progressive perspectives on the changing role of play. These interviews, from the US to Japan and Brazil, fed the program with a rich understanding of the power and potential of play.
Bringing It All Together
The MADO team synthesized all of the data into a cohesive storytelling framework that brought the largest insight forward– that Play is a reason for hope in a stress-filled world– that people everywhere are proactively building play into their lives for Joy, but also for much needed Wellbeing, Connection, Growth and Expression. Play is a light that will keep growing.
“It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
Quote Source
Creative Assets
Video
Report
Exhibit & Pins
Toolkit
Team Shout-Outs
Jack Horne- for wrangling an enormous data set and being
Caroline Hou- for early input and human-centered research advocacy
Jeff Bartel & Jenny Lackey– for dreaming big with us and running with bonkers ideas
Mariah Archer & Anna & Ryan - for beautiful art direction and graphic design
Nicole - for creating ‘the most beautiful quant’ the client has ever seen
Jason Chen– for looking far, staying curious and being a phenomenal spreadsheet master
Brian - for being the hardest working video director and most adventurous travel eater
Jess- for generally crushing it and making absolutely everything smooth
Sarah & Jihan - for pushing us to editorial standards and staying fun too
Tyesha- for lighting a fire for what this work could be and where it could live
Michelle- for working with us on an intense survey design and recruit, but staying flexible