Subaru

Developed new customer touchpoints & tested services at SubieFest 2023

Subaru embarked on a mission to establish new touchpoints with customers that emanate from its brand identity. This comprehensive initiative guided the development of new service ideas, ranging from the inception of innovative business concepts to prototype development, convergence of service concepts through user interviews, and immersive user testing at SubieFest 2023.

INDUSTRY

Mobility

DELIVERABLES

Brand Identity User Research Service Ideation Prototyping Event Exhibition

TARGET MARKET

Global

What we provided

Subaru recognized the need to adapt to evolving trends and market changes, given the ongoing digitalization and challenging transportation market conditions. To maintain its appeal and preference among individuals and broader communities, Subaru sought to test the boundaries of the traditional vehicle hardware and transform customer experiences into exceptional services.

Re-defining the Brand Language

Through intensive workshops, Subaru refined the terminology that defines its brand language. By leveraging mind maps, keywords embodying Subaru's character identity were derived. This helped serve as the basis for user interviews, gathering insights and pinpointing the area of overlap between Subaru and its customers' emotions. This exercise resulted in clarifying the brand values that Subaru should embody and offer in the future.

Conceiving new service ideas aligned with the brand core

From the results of the workshops, we sorted out the areas that will be the foundation of service ideas and ideated the service. Afterwards, we interviewed SUBARU users in both Japan and the United States, empathizing with their wants and needs, understanding their values, and reflecting them in the selection of ideas. In the end, we narrowed down the concepts we wanted to make more concrete to three proposals.

Co-creation and concept refinement

Each of the three selected concepts underwent extensive refinement. At this time, we conducted interviews with American consumers, analyzed their user insights, and determined the direction of implementation. Based on the analysis and results of these interviews, we finalized all the ideas into a single concept. From this concept, we created a short movie and designed a landing page to materialize and visualize the concept and service experience.

Prototype Development and User Testing

Moving forward into the next phase, we developed an interactive MVP (Minimum Viable Product) app prototype for selected users to be able to conduct usability tests, detect software issues, and receive consumer feedback.

Exhibiting at SubieFest and collaboration with Subaru of America

We brought our prototype to Daytona, Florida to exhibit at SubieFest 2023, where we could reach a wider range of Subaru fans and users. In addition, we brought our results and service ideas to Subaru of America, helping to bridge the Japanese and American Subaru organizations together.