Subaru
Developed New Customer Touchpoints and Tested Services at SubieFest 2023
btrax helped Subaru create new customer touchpoints and innovative service ideas, tested at SubieFest 2023, bridging Japanese and American markets with user research and brand refinement.
INDUSTRY
Mobility
TARGET MARKET
Global
DELIVERABLES
Brand Identity User Research Service Ideation Prototyping Event Exhibition
Challenges
Developing innovative ways to connect with customers that align with Subaru’s brand identity.
Addressing the evolving trends and digitalization in the transportation market.
Creating and testing new service ideas that transform customer experiences.
Conducting user interviews and testing to refine service concepts.
Bridging the gap between Subaru’s Japanese and American organizations.
Our Approach
Conducted intensive workshops to refine Subaru’s brand language, using mind maps and keywords to define the brand’s character and values.
Conducted interviews with Subaru users in both Japan and the United States to gather insights and understand their values and needs.
Generated service ideas based on the refined brand language and user insights, narrowing down to three key concepts.
Refined the selected service concepts through additional user interviews and analysis, finalizing a single concept to develop further.
Created an interactive MVP app prototype for usability testing, identifying software issues, and gathering consumer feedback.
Exhibited the prototype at SubieFest 2023 in Daytona, Florida, to reach a broader range of Subaru fans and users.
Presented the results and service ideas to Subaru of America, facilitating collaboration between Subaru’s Japanese and American organizations.
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.
Developed New Customer Touchpoints and Tested Services at SubieFest 2023
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.
