Gaming
Survey data told them what customers said. Their living rooms told a different story.
The bet
Investing in new product categories without knowing what actually drives a customer's purchase decision. Bet wrong, and the spend is gone.
The challenge
Figure out what really drives gamers to buy, beyond the obvious performance story, before committing to new product categories.
What I did
Visited the homes of 6 enthusiasts to observe real habits, not interview-room answers: watching how people actually set up, used, and talked about their gear in context
Validated findings with a survey of 3,000+ respondents to confirm which patterns held at scale and which were artifacts of a small qualitative sample
Facilitated an innovation workshop where 40+ product concepts were evaluated against what the research had actually surfaced. The workshop wasn't a brainstorm. It produced a 90-day prioritized roadmap, not a list of ideas.
From the project
What changed
From what customers say to what they actually do.
The research exposed a gap between what players said mattered (competitive performance) and what actually drove their purchases (aesthetics, impulse, social identity). That gap wasn't just a product insight. It changed the brief for the innovation workshop, the framing for new category exploration, and the language in marketing. When customers describe their own motivation accurately, you can use their words verbatim. The team did.
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