LEVEL UP YOUR EYES
FROM $0 TO $1,7M IN A YEAR
WITH PURE CREATIVITY
Due to the confinement more people than ever before turned into video games. Search trends for consoles, accessories, and video games recorded an unprecedented boom. At the same time, another interesting trend began to emerge: people searching for solutions to eye strain due to excessive screen time. Blue light protection glasses were a natural solution to the problem so we decided to cross both tendencies and launch a blue light glasses brand dedicated to solve gamers needs, with an identity, design and models that appeal to the gaming market.
TOOLS USED
SERVICES DELIVERED
CREATIVE DIRECTION
ART DIRECTION
BRANDING
UX DESIGN
UI DESIGN
UX RESEARCH
VISUAL DESIGN
INTERACTION DESIGN
MOTION DESIGN
VIDEO EDITING
VIDEO PRODUCTION
AUDIO DESIGN
PHOTOGRAPHY
STRATEGY
BUSINESS DESIGN
MY ROLE: I was part of this project from formulating an hypothesis to researching, testing, prototyping, launching and iterating it with the objective to create a viable and automated business. This project is still active, growing and generating sells to date.
01↓
HYPOTHESIS: The purpose was to create a new business, and this had to start through observation. Within all the problem pool that we analyzed, we realized that due to confinement, more and more people used their free time to entertain themselves with video games. Myself included. Increasingly I was hearing that my fellow gamers complained of eye discomfort. This led me to research about this problem by looking for information on search trends. The result was explosive: a 100% increase in searches for terms such as: eye irritation, eye discomfort, and other related terms. The same with video game search statistics and consumption, an increase of 25% just in the first months of the pandemic in Mexico. We had something worth exploring. The answer was to create a solution for the discomforts of these new gamers.
02↓
A – RESEARCH: We started by interviewing close people with gaming habits to validate if the need and the problem were real. We started with a round of 10 interviews with potential buyers trying to follow an initial “proto-persona”: Men and women between 19 and 24 years old, intensive users of video games and digital screens. These interviews allowed us to validate our hypothesis and continue with the creation of a final user persona, an identity and a prototype to validate the business. During this interviews we discovered that a specialized gamer glasses brand could appeal to them and that they would use the product during their gaming and even during work and study hours.
RESEARCH SUMMARY
+20 Users interviewed. (including validation and iteration phase)
Scripted Questions.
Questions around digital screen time consumption, health problems, eyecare habits and needs.
Zoom and Hangouts as communication tool used.
Following an interview guide designed for this purpose.
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH GOALS
- Identify user profiles, goals and motivations, patterns and behaviours to create a user persona for potential buyers
- Gather in depth feedback from user’s habits and problems
- Verify our hypothesis: Casual gamers screen time is above the average and that translates into health problems
- Verify if a specialized gaming glasses brand is attractive to potential buyers
- Gather information around potential buyers and their relationship with glasses
- Verify blue light blocking technology aknowledgement among gamers
- Identify potential buyers online shopping habits
SECONDARY RESEARCH GOALS
- Trends benchmark
- Gather information about existing online healthcare providers.
- Identify design pros and cons for design inspiration.
- Identify the competitor’s value proposition.
- Define the potential buyer shopping decisions.
HIGH LEVEL RESEARCH QUESTIONS
- How do you divide your screen time between work and entertainment?
- Do you suffer from any eye strain related problems?
- What have you done so far to take care of those problems?
- Which eyecare brands can you identify?
- Have you ever bought or thought to buy from any of this brands? Why?
- What would you think of a specialized gaming glasses brand?
- Do you usually buy online? If you do, how often?
USER PERSONA
JORGE
31 Y/O
MEXICO CITY
ACCOUNTANT
SINGLE
Jorge is 31 y/o and works as an accountant for a government institution. During the pandemic he was sent to work from home. He usually is very social and loves to gather with friends and co-workers after work, but since it’s not possible to physically meet his friends and there is not a way to spend time outside he turned into video games that allow him to keep in contact with friends while having fun. He spends 8 hours a day in front of his screen working, and after that he can spend from 5 to 10 extra hours playing video games with his “squad”. His screen time consumption has increased dramatically because of that and he reports having trouble sleeping and eye strain related problems for which he have been looking for solutions. Gaming is now an important part of his life and he would appreciate anything that helps him improve his gaming skills to shine in his squad by becoming the Most Valuable Player.
INTERESTS
- Everything tech related, he always want to own the latest technology and that applies to his gaming habits.
- He has changed his home office setup by buying a better screeen, led lights, a gaming computer, a pro controller and a gaming chair.
- He is also interested in F-1, Soccer and Airsoft.
- He spends most of his free time gaming or watching streamers and gaming videos.
INFLUENCES
- After the pandemic Jorge’s interest run all around gaming and he watches streamers during his free time.
- He wants to turn as good ad them and he would apply any recommendation this pro streamers bring to him to be the Most Valuable Player in his squad.
- He also takes his friends recommendation very seriously and all of them usually buy the same producst and watch the same content.
OBJECTIVES
- His main objective is to become the Most Valuable Player in his squad, have the latest gear, skins and time to practice to achieve that.
- He reports have been looking for solutions to his recent eye-strain problems.
- He doesn’t want this problem to prevent him to be in the top of his squad charts so he is urgently looking to solve it.
NEEDS
- Jorge needs a solution to his recent eye-strain problems.
- He needs gear to help him to get improve his gaming skills.
- He looks for accesories to make him look more related to the gaming.
MOTIVATIONS
Every Monday night Jorge used to play sosccer with his friends. His main motivation during pre-pandemic times was to be the best in his team. Now that the league is closed and gaming is where he spends most of his free time, his motivation is the same: be the best and look for tools that allow him to achive it. He is also concerned of his recent sleeping and eye strain issues that are affecting his performance at work so he want to find solutions to fix these problems.
FRUSTRATIONS
Jorge’s frustrations are related with his recent sleeping and eye-strain problems which prevent him to get his objectives to be in the top of his squad chart and is making working more difficult. He is also frustrated to be forced to divide his on-screen time due to this limitations.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Casual gamers spend a large amount of time in front of digital screens since they work and or study remotely and after that they spend the same amount of time gaming. That prevents them to spend as much time gaming as they would want to be more competitive. The amount of time they spend in front of screens ends up causing them health problems such as sleeping disorders, headaches and eye strain. They want a practical solution for this problem.
B – INSIGHTS AND FINDINGS: During the different rounds of interviews i found several insights that helped to shape the business model, refine the messages, get to know our buyers better and build a final user persona closer to the real Skood buyer. Here’s an example.
INSIGHT
Skood is perceived as a pro-gamer brand. Casual gamers are looking for professional gaming products to fulfill their casual gaming needs. They consider this kind of products as superior and they feel that any pro-gamer product will match or exceed their expectations.
QUOTE
“If it works for a pro-gamer it works for me:
i know gamers spend way more time infront of the computer than me, so it sounds like the perfect product to take care of my eyes”
Arturo M. – 32
FINDINGS
- Our buyers perceive Skood as a pro-gamer brand.
- It’s a product that allow them to show a part of their personality and hobbies.
- It’s a product that allow them to switch between working/studying mode to gaming and relax mode.
- Our target audience is older than initially expected by around 10 years.
- They like to spend their money in gaming accesories.
- Some of them collect the glasses together with their “squad”
- Gaming is a really important part of their life and any competitive advantage is appreciated.
- They believe that Skood glasses give them a competitive advantage.
03↓
THE IDENTITY: Gaming has very particular aesthetics and i needed to match it in order to create a brand that made sense for potential buyers in the gamer market. First we needed a name, it needed to be short and sticky, so after some brainstorming and a set of testing i came up with “Skood” related with the spanish word “Escudo” (Shield). During the initial testing session we also shown several logo options to get a winner: A tiger head silhouette that was described as “dynamic, strong, fun and gamer related”. The logo was complemented with a vibrant and contrasting color palette that helped to boost the gamer look. The only thing remaining was to define the voice of the brand, and a fresh, informal, fun voice was defined for the brand. Clear, straightforward and gaming related messages resonated the most among our testers.
DIN Next LT Pro
LEVEL UP YOUR EYES
COMPLEMENTARY IDENTITY: During desk research we found that each different brand called their “blue light blocking technology” differently despite always being the same. I decided to create a complementary brand called “Eyemor” (Eye+Armor) for the name of our own technology and accesories. This brand is the “serious and formal” part of the brand, looking more technical and professional to communicate credibility and professionalism.
PICTURES: For a wearable pictures are very important. We didn’t had the budget nor the time to pay for photo sessions so i had to create pictures of models wearing our glasses and make them look as realistic as possible. For that i made a selection of stock images and blended them with different backgrounds, lighting, and to finish i have positioned the product to show our buyers how it looks.
04↓
PROTOTYPE: The best way to try our idea was to take it out to the wild at a small scale. We decided to start with a couple models that were the winners after a round of testing and create a very simple store in Shopify with a couple of 3d renders, and clear, simple descriptions to test the concept. We printed stickers and bought some cardboard boxes to be ready to ship to the first customers in case sales started to pop in the prototype store.
05↓
MARKETING STRATEGY: I created a set of video ads to implement a simple digital marketing strategy. Launching the video to get views and from there create a look-alike audience to run a larger campaign focused in getting sells with a wider range of materials, such as carrousel ads, image, video, search and remarketing outside Facebook through google ads and other platforms. Within the first 20 minutes after launching the campaing we got our first sale.
06↓
DESIGN ITERATION: After a couple months of running the first campaing and using our prototype we decided to create a better homepage, introduce more models and scale the brand. I created better graphics, pictures and mor inoformative messages that helped us to dramatically increase our conversion rate.
GRAPHIC ITERATION: The design iteration also applied to our packaging, new models, logo and POC materials.
POST LAUNCH RESEARCH
We used the prototype for a month, while getting the first sales we ran surveys through Whatsapp with a special focus on users who abandonend their carts. That allowed us to get important insights: Users wanted more models: we added more models to the catalog.
Users wanted a way to try the glasses before buying them: for which we created instagram filters.
Users wanted social proof: so we started to promote reviews and to give real user comments a more prominent space.
Most users visited us with good internet connection and high-end devices: so we knew we create a more complex web experience.
Users were very satisfied with customer service: so we built messages over that to add value to our experience.
07↓
INFLUENCER MARKETING ANS USER GENERATED CONTENT: Based on the research. We found that many of our users watched streamers, we decided to launch a different kind of campaign, adding streamers and gaming influencers to help us promote the brand. That resulted in a dramatic increase of sales (100%) and an important optimization to the advertising budget. At this point we had several postings generated by our buyers and we decided to start using that content to reinforce our advertising campaigns. At this point we had several postings generated by our buyers and we decided to start using that content to reinforce our advertising campaigns.
08↓
RESULTS:
4,000,000 IMPRESSIONS
1.6% CTR
53,400 VISITORS
3.6% CONVERSION RATE
1,922 SALES
$1,729,790 IN SALES
(MEXICAN PESOS≈USD$84,000)
35% PROFIT
