Teresa Bigioli

THE IDEA BEHIND THE PROJECT

CREATION OF A FICTIONAL BRAND AND ITS BRAND IDENTITY

During my year in San Francisco I had to work on a challenging yet inspiring project. Our assignment was quite straight-forward: pick a failed proposal from the tv show «Shark Tank» and make it successful.
Exploring the series, I ended up choosing Nikki Pope’s «Toygaroo», a toy renting service dubbed the “Netflix of toys.» Despite its failure, I immediately noticed the potential of the project, lost on minor issues, miscommunication and misunderstanding of the core values and message of the same.
Considering its potential: how could it possibly fail? Analyzing something’s failure is the perfect start for its success, as the solution lays in the problem, and we just need to find a way to see it. With more in-depth research, I formed an opinion as to why this happened despite its potential. From my point of view, the lack of a meaningful message behind the product caused the service to fail.
Putting my hands on the problem, I found a fictional, new way to introduce the project to its target audience and market.

The meaning I wanted to attribute to the service – which is also the reason why I was interested in this service in the first place – is connected to sustainability. Specifically, in my mind this service should be associated with the idea of preventing toys – and plastic – waste.
I believe that offering this service to young parents is a great market opportunity, both because they are interested in protecting the environment and they don’t believe in the socio-economic phenomenon of consumerism, as well as because it could be a way to prevent objects to inevitably be thrown away.

Shape a better tomorrow beyond your imagination

AN ENVIRONMENTAL SUCCESS

TARGET/ CUSTOMERS & BENEFICIARIES

Young, middle/upper class parents (25-40), who care about the environment and are conscious of the consequences of its deterioration on their children’s future, and  choose quality over quantity.

 Parents willing to give as much as possible to their children while avoiding waste and overconsumption

CHANNELS & CUSTOMERS’ ENGAGEMENT
MEDIA MIX: open

• TV (children’s channels);
• Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, X) also by creating online groups to connect people;
• Websites & SERP

TECHNICAL ASPECTS

In the tv show the founders mentioned that the subscription was very expensive, therefor not affordable for some and consequentially the main and final reason of Toygaroo’s failure. However, I think that through some adjustments (for instance, making the service regional instead of national to avoid the shipping expenses and therefor lowering the subscription price) it would be possible to make the service affordable also to people with lower incomes that wants to help the environment.

EXTRA MARKETING EFFORT

Offer a link where people can measure their average expenses for all toys purchased, comparing those expenses to the (lower) subscription cost of the service.

KEY CONSUMER OPPORTUNITY

• Save the environment
• Avoid spending money for things they will eventually throw away
• Save space
• The possibility of continuously varying the toys with which their children play (no boredom or repetition) without having to buy new toys.