In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone in January (1st generation). By the start of 2011, mobile phone peripherals & accessories brands have begun to flourish. Our client, Mcdodo, is one of them.
Mcdodo was founded in 2013 and had been focusing on the B-end market. In 2020, Mcdodo decided to upgrade the brand and want to enter the C-end market - Mainly focusing on Gen Z. (refers to the generation that was born between 1997-2012, following millennials.)
Building, maintaining, and growing a "brand" is no easy task in the rapidly changing and competitive brands and opportunities. How do we establish a unique brand perception that reflects who they are today?This project aims to ensure future market competitiveness by reexamining the brand assets and updating the brand strategy & experience to provide more significant growth for Mcdodo.
* To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in this case study.
All information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Mcdodo and Designest.
From strategic frameworks to targeted communications to design systems, after 4-month efforts, I led the branding team and partnered with clients to evolve the overall brand experience.
Founded in 2013, MCDODO is a design-driven, multi-creative global leader in consumer electronics. It is rich in digital peripheral products, including cable, charger, power bank, car accessories etc., and committed to providing quality and practical electronic products to consumers around the world.
Product category analysis is a combination of competitive analysis & inspiration gathering. We selected representative brands in the industry, and different brands occupy the track based on their differentiated strategies. In this way, it helps us have a holistic perspective of the composition of product lines.
While the Product Category plays a significant role in giving a holistic perspective of the composition of product lines, we still need to clarify which tracks Mcdodo can enter in the industry. To best find out the market niche, we took another holistic view of consumer scenarios - understanding the context of the use.
Scene positioning aims to categorize all the products in various scenarios. It provides a holistic picture for us to understand the context of the use.
I drew this chart below for covering most of the scenarios: Specifically, the horizontal axis is from private living space to public space, and indoor to outdoor as the vertical axis. We concluded 11 activities and obtained 211 ways how people use mobile devices.
Through the full-scenario analysis, we came to the five major tracks of the industry.
Combining product composition, we got the competitive status of mainstream brands on the five major tracks.
Through the combination of Product Category and Scene Positioning, it provide a niche that is a relatively independent and differentiated for Mcdodo.
In this project, we mainly help the brand to establish the emotional values and figure out which values should Mcdodo focus on. To better understand consumers' needs in this industry, we selected the existing users that the client recommended to us with an in-depth qualitative interview (basically online). Our goals were to understand the feelings, the needs, and the context of using digital accessories.
Three main research questions in this interview:
01.
What roles do they think digital accessories products play in daily lives?
02.
What features do they value when purchasing?
03.
What is their attitude towards this type of product
When a colleague asked me to borrow my cute cable, I was reluctant to lend it to her...
The charging cable can get in the way when playing games
My favorite phone case at the moment [...] I love the design how they place the logo
Gen Z they are the generation looking for self-symbols. For them, the cable is not just black and white; they pursue everything that reflects their personalities. For example, one of the interviewees purchased her USB cable via Pop Mart, art toys blind-box collectible company in China. She collected different colors of these cables and "takes great care" them. Another interviewee also mentioned: "Digital products are relatively unified and standardized. I hope the accessories can look better."
For the features, they hope these accessories can "understand" them. An interviewee said when he is playing games on his mobile phone, the electricity is used very quickly, and it needs to be charged while playing. As a result, the USB cable prevents him from playing games. Similarly, they stated that the function of the accessories is to protect their digital products and make their life much more convenient.
Looking at the general cognitions and needs of the consumers mentioned above, we can roughly summarize some core trends that are different from the past: having higher use stickiness with daily work and life, higher functional value, coordination, and connectivity. The future enriches life experience, and the product itself is given a higher value.
In this phase, we usually plan a presentation to clients to talk about the insights we learned and introduce the brand's future direction. But I think something is missing here—it is necessary to co-create the brand values with the clients since stakeholders' intentions are critical. I proposed holding a workshop intended to gather further input and get them involved in creating brand values and explored some brand methods that can apply in a workshop.
I aimed to find an efficient and suitable way for the workshop process. To bring the stakeholders into the design process, we better understood the founders' thoughts and aligned them with the brand values. It was a fun process :)
保持好奇心。 Curious.
用心发现用户最深层次的需求。Dig out deeper needs from people.
不断探索易忽视的细节。Explore details that are easy to overlook.
将生活的平凡之物做到极致。Make the best of simple things.
善于做明智选择。 Making right smart choices.
懂用户。Understand Users.
更懂你生活的数字周边好伙伴。A good digital peripheral partner.
在产品上，追求细节，做精致的产品。Exquisite product.
在颜值上，懂当下主流的审美。Contemporary. Trendy.
关注你的生活。Care about your life.
你想不到的，What you can't think of,
我们帮你想。 We will do for you.
持续提供贴心的产品和服务。Provide a thoughtful product and service for you constantly.
以真实需求为出发点。Shaped to your needs.
连接消费者的数字生活。Digital life connected.
定义产品功能与价值。Define Product function and value.
提供更易用性、高效的产品。Ease of use. Simple product.
整合更周到的服务体验。A thoughtful experience.
互相联接，共同成长。Together. You, me, we.
How to bring the brand concept to the design team is one of the most challenges in this stage. I explained the brand concept and co-created with brand designers to develop a brand system: including logo, colors, typography, illustration style, social media icons and banners, business cards, and more.
With the idea of “Connection," we established a design system — built around the iconic ”M“ logo curves —that combines the digital experience with real world physicality to create an easy-to-understand visual language.
How to maintain consistency within the client's team without us? This is how the grid system comes into our mind, a rigid framework that is supposed to help designers in the logical and consistent organization of information on a layout.
This helped us simplify the layout design of every product while building consistency that new designs would perform.
Combining the business positioning, the company's current status, consumer needs, insights, and the founder's expectations, we proposed an appropriate brand direction for Mcdodo.
We were proud to partner with them to find their product lines, elevate their brand, and create an extensible visual system that supports the brand’s movement through impactful storytelling.
Mcdodo participated in Gift Fair with a brand new image in Shenzhen on April 2021. The booth attracted many buyers to experience it. The clients told us that the buyers did not hesitate to praise: the product and brand design conform to the current aesthetics and are extremely practical.
They are professional
The brand director of the client team said this comment to the founders on the day of the brand announcement at Mcdodo. I think this is the highest evaluation of our team.
