The team partnered with a leading Chinese outdoor manufacturer known for its OEM expertise at a pivotal moment — when glamping (aka. glamorous camping) emerged as a major lifestyle trend in China. Recognizing the growth potential, the brand sought to reposition itself and explore new opportunities for market success.

Grounded in human insights, we leveraged design as a strategic tool to create a future-facing brand for the glamping era. Our comprehensive approach spanned value proposition, brand architecture, visual identity, marketing communications, and product portfolio strategy. 

The client needed to shift from a product-centric to a brand-centric focus, requiring internal teams to embrace a more brand-driven mindset.

I designed an immersive, experiential research approach that engaged a diverse range of camping styles, outdoor enthusiasts, and inspirational consumers. Through this, the team uncovered rich and contextual insights that informed creative, authentic storytelling and brought the human-centric vision to life. This approach had a lasting impact on the client’s perspective of consumers and fundamentally transformed their way of working.

My research design consisting of varying camping styles also contributed profoundly for the team to strategize a powerful framework of “outdoor landscapes” based on the level of contrast between that of the urban landscape - a grounding anchor that drive prioritization and discussion with the client’s founder and teams.

During the final deliverable phase, I also translated these insights into actionable design principles for product development and communications. Additionally, I partnered with external teams to integrate these insights into a cohesive brand video, ensuring a powerful and unified narrative that resonated across all touchpoints.

Key research activities:

• Client stakeholder interviews

• In-store visits

• Immersive on-site camping across 3 locations in China

• Interviews with 20+ outdoor/camping enthusiasts and KOLs from classic outdoor to glamping domains, from amateur hobbyists to hardcore aficionados

Process Highlights

• Started with a blank-slate mode to explore the relationship between urbanites and outdoor/nature on an ideological level

• Participated, observed and immersed with participants to experience and feel

• Mapped key outdoor scenarios based on level of contrast to the urban landscape - used as a key framework to drive client discussions and decision-making
  

The design research phase had a profound impact on the client’s mindset, reshaping their understanding of customers and transforming their internal ways of working.  

The value proposition and most brand VI assets, delivered in the form of a brand book, were seamlessly implemented by the client across official online and offline channels, also guiding the launch of the client’s new flagship store in Ningbo, China.

“I’m very impressed with the co-creation process. The presentation of user interviews, photos, and stories helped us understand their needs and aspirations and influenced the way we work. Over time, we’ve become more attuned to the needs and challenges of our collaborative partners.”
- Director of Distribution Center 

“In the past, when we made products, we would often rely on our own perceptions. But now, we conduct user consultations, such as collecting feedback from loyal users on platforms like Xiaohongshu, to better understand where the real pain points are. IDEO’s early-stage design research gave us a lot of inspiration. Later, our team began to conduct user interviews on our own, speaking to users face-to-face. This process ultimately influenced our product development workflow and mindset.”
- Director of User Development 

The official case study of the project could be found at IDEO’s official wechat article in Chinese:

牧高笛品牌新路开拓之旅：在城市与自然的“反差”中，握住精致露营机遇