For the first time in the iconic brand’s history, Mattel wanted to research why and how people of all ages play.
Mattel
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 portfolio of brands. For this program, the team brought on MADO to achieve a broader goal: to understand the current state of play in people’s lives beyond any one product. And they wanted to share their learnings with the public.
So together, we built a first-of-its-kind program for Thought Leadership Insights. The project garnered impressive earned media (CBS, Buzzfeed, and more), led to speaking engagements at major industry conferences (Qual360, IIEX), catalyzed employee engagement, and completely transformed thinking around Play.
This program proves that big, bold insights can fuel internal innovation efforts and external brand leadership, especially if you have a partner who can design for both.
Key Outcomes
A New Foundational Play Framework
Six Universal Play Personalities
Publicity & Brand Leadership
Innovation Ideation
Product Category Insights
Our Roles
Global Quant & Data Analysis
Qualitative Research
Documentary Videography
Creative Direction & Production
Innovation & Product Strategy Advisory
“MADO is a visionary partner—their creativity and flexibility helped us zig and zag to create excitement and drive engagement with these bold insights.”
-VP of Global Consumer Insights, Mattel
The Approach
Establishing a future forward viewpoint with a global lens.
To create an authoritative understanding of the power of play across the world and all different ages, we designed a large-scale program that utilized multiple methods: quantitative, qualitative, trend, and foresight research. Every element of the program was designed to uncover big picture insights that would ultimately establish a sharp vision for the future of Play. What that looks like in action: we surveyed over 33,000 people in 7 countries, met around two dozen families in their homes across the world, interviewed inspiring play experts, and analyzed trends across lifestyle dimensions.
The Outcome
A compelling new framework that sparks innovation and expands brand possibilities.
We discovered that Play is taking on an increasingly profound and broader role in people’s lives. In today’s modern, stress-filled times, play isn’t just for kids (we had a hunch) and it’s not only for the simple joy of it (although it is for that too). We identified four emerging Play Motivations that explain why, on a deeper level, we seek out play today. We also identified 6 Play Personalities, attitudinal approaches to play, that are universal– not specific to age, gender or region. Each part of this framework— the Play Motivations and the Play Personalities are un-packed in depth with data and consumer stories in the full report and video.
At Mattel, this new framework guided product designers, outlined a path to new brand opportunities, and made for more creative, insightful team building and onboarding activities. Sharing the knowledge from this research has unlocked a completely new way of thinking about play for Mattel — as it can for all of us.
The Deliverables
Shareable Tools that
Marry Deep Data with Creative Storytelling.
Our challenge was to integrate the creative work with the research work, with clarity and vision, throughout the entire program. That’s why we established the project’s Art Direction and Story Hypothesis up front, to help envision what would be an insights program that ultimately becomes a cultural campaign. And because people learn in different ways, we delivered those insights in a variety of accessible tools for Mattel, including a Documentary Film, Editiorial Report, Design & Innovation Toolkit, and a Program Exhibit.
The Shape of Play
Documentary Film
The Mattel team strongly values storytelling and celebrating real voices, so we created a mini-documentary highlighting our high-level findings and showing real people at play around the world. The film was the centerpiece of a company-wide Town Hall and national earned media. Elevating real voices and showing people at play in their own spaces, in artful high-definition cinematography, created a powerful impact for audiences.
The Shape of Play Editorial Report
For journalists and professionals in the field of play who want to explore every aspect of the data we synthesized, we released a 75-page report with deep dives into the Play Personalities (including a quiz to find your own), Play Motivations, and more, highlighting real people’s stories and trends across the human lifespan (ie, we explain why pickleball is a hit among retirees and when kids get drawn into social media over pretend play).
The Shape of Play Design & Innovation Toolkit
We designed a gamified toolkit for Mattel product designers, brand creatives, and employees all across business functions to actively engage with the insights — and make it fun! The toolkit has engaged hundreds of Mattel employees, is continually sparking new ideas, and acts as a foundational play on-boarding tool for new employees throughout the organization.
The Shape of Play Office Exhibit
At Mattel HQ, we installed an interactive exhibit for employees and visitors to discover their top Play Personality and proudly don a pin sharing their type. Located in a beautiful, high traffic lobby, the exhibit engaged employees stopping by spontaneously and teams who intentionally set meetings there to team-build and connect through the program insights and Play Personalities.
The Shape of Play Research Blocks
We designed a custom (and playful) research tool that helped study participants better articulate their play priorities through sorting, stacking, designing and storytelling. The tool helped us to better understand the wide variety of people’s motivations to play. People loved the Shape of Play Blocks so much that we produced a larger, limited-edition run, and they instantly became an iconic tool used throughout the Mattel offices– promoting play, insight connection, and team building.
“Through the research, we learned that play doesn’t just make life more fun—it makes it more meaningful. That truth is a powerful reminder of the role Mattel’s designers play in the lives of people everywhere, no matter how they play.”
Resarch Lead, MADO
Thank you to our amazing partners
in this work:
Tasja, Allison, Angela, Diana, Brynn & Robyn at Mattel, for being amazing partners with optimism and vision for the power of play in people’s lives
Jeff, Jenny, Mark, Mariah, Anna, & Ryan at NEMO Design, for dreaming big with us and leading video narrative, report art direction, graphic and motion design
Brian and Jess at Little Rumble, for bringing an expert, inspired eye to video producing, directing & editing
Sarah & Jihan at Flamingo Communications, for pushing our editorial standards and bringing play to our report
Michelle at Dynata, for working with us on a deep and rigorous survey recruit and fielding
Jack Horne, for wrangling an enormous data set and being our data science wizard
Nicole Lavelle, for graphic design mastery and creating “the most beautiful quant” the client has ever seen
Jason Chen, for looking far, staying curious and being a multi-talented research ops master
Caroline Hou, for early input and human-centered research advocacy
Tyesha Snow, for lighting a fire for what this work could be and where it could live
