Samsung has an ambition to connect all of its domestic appliances to the internet (of things) by 2020. However, Samsung were struggling to connect this ambition to a compelling consumer proposition.

We were engaged to work with Samsung HQ’s global product and marketing teams to help research market opportunities, ideate and validate ideas for new domestic appliances that leveraged the internet of things (IOT) to enhance product performance.

We began by mapping the technology landscape, understanding relevant applications for IOT and linking these to consumer needs and behaviours.

We went deep on consumer research in 6 globally representative markets. Not content with just running standard QUANT and QUAL panels, we invested in ethnography to really get under the skin of families usage of their domestic appliances.

We collided these consumer insights with technology and market trends to find the sweet spot for product innovation.

Through fast paced, design thinking led workshops we created a long list of 40 concepts and refined down to a short-list of 8 to refine and validate.

This ultimately resulted in the ‘Family Hub’ fridge concept which Samsung unveiled at CES.