Overview

Team

Aaron Briggs, Principal Product Manager
Myself, Principal Product Designer

The Family Adventure Club was designed by myself and my wonderful product partner, Aaron. The Co-op has been looking for new ways to engage families because they represent both current customers (young parents) and a next generation of customers (their kids).

In this project, we sought to solve this audience’s problems with a profitable solution for the Co-op that leverages existing strengths (e.g., Experiences, retail) but falls between silos in the organization.

Aaron and I researched and developed this product over a year and a half and it was truly a labor of love. We spoke to hundreds of parents and kids and surveyed thousands to get to the heart of the customer truth and design a solution that would truly serve the Aspirational Outdoorsy Family.

Let’s start with the final product because this case study is long…

Let’s start with the final product because this case study is long

The Family Adventure Club is an omnichannel product that would alleviate the logistical planning burden, allowing families to achieve the outdoor lifestyle they aspire to without the nagging and hassle.

The club features expert-led monthly outdoor excursions, complete with gear, guidance, and exclusive year-round benefits, ensuring consistent, meaningful engagement with the great outdoors (and REI).

Unlike the current day experience offerings the Co-op offers, the Family Adventure Club would be profitable while creating operational efficiencies that could scale and improve margins of existing offerings. By promoting repeat engagement, it not only could increase customer lifetime value (LTV) but also expand REI's audience, enhances brand equity, and create community.

Opportunity size

REI should be a family retailer but we’re leaving the market almost entirely untapped.

REI should be a family retailer but we’re leaving the market untapped.

Total Addressable Problem (TAP)

• Parents spend an annual average of $731 per child on extracurricular activities. Six-figure parents spend a year average of $1,033 per child.

• US parents spend $883 average annually for one youth sport – a $53B annual market. But enrollment in youth sports has declined steadily over the past decade.

• Scouting is still a large market, but in a decade-long decline due to religious affiliation and lack of perceived value for the time/money investment:

• Girl Scouts of America: ~$131M in annual revenue on 1M members (2022). 30% enrollment drop in 2020.

• Boy Scouts of America: ~$114M in annual revenue on 1M members (2022), down from $394M in 2019. 43% enrollment drop in 2020.

Total Addressable Market (TAM)

30MM+ children age 8-14 in 17MM US households.

There are 13M households with children in REI’s store trade areas and 3.1M active members with children in the household. However, consideration of REI with the family audience is low – only 12% awareness for kids gear and apparel, and 4% purchase. There’s a big opportunity for REI to win market share in the family market.

Please see tablet and desktop versions for more information on this section.

Problem space discovery

Discover phase

🔍 Discover Phase Activities

• External Research Scan

• 35 Customer Interviews

• Existing Product Reaction Review

• 3400 Person Quantitative Study

Key Insights

Concern peaks in tweenage (8-12), when outdoor time competes with screentime and peer relationships, but kids are 1) more capable in the outdoors, and 2) beginning to establish sustainable long-term interests worth investing in.
The challenge is motivation: making plans that excite kids about outdoor activity vs forcing “outside time.”
Parents want to offer a variety of novel, interesting, well-planned activities that introduce the outdoors in a variety of ways.
Parents prioritize family time (“making memories”) but know that the social/peer aspect is key to engage their kids.
Vacations are a primary solution, but the pain is highest in the long stretches of routine life between those trips, when local outdoor activity opportunities go unexplored.
The friction in “fitting in family outdoor time” is planning, logistics, and gear needs/costs. Friction makes it fall by the wayside.
Clubs are a tried-and-true tool for fostering interests with kids (e.g., youth sports, scouting, etc), with added social benefits.

Concern peaks in tweenage (8-12), when outdoor time competes with screentime and peer relationships, but kids are 1) more capable in the outdoors, and 2) beginning to establish sustainable long-term interests worth investing in.
The challenge is motivation: making plans that excite kids about outdoor activity vs forcing “outside time.”
Parents want to offer a variety of novel, interesting, well-planned activities that introduce the outdoors in a variety of ways.
Parents prioritize family time (“making memories”) but know that the social/peer aspect is key to engage their kids.
Vacations are a primary solution, but the pain is highest in the long stretches of routine life between those trips, when local outdoor activity opportunities go unexplored.
The friction in “fitting in family outdoor time” is planning, logistics, and gear needs/costs. Friction makes it fall by the wayside.
Clubs are a tried-and-true tool for fostering interests with kids (e.g., youth sports, scouting, etc), with added social benefits.

Discover phase outcomes

To wrap up this phase of research and discovery we took our insights and ran 3 workshops with 18 internal stakeholders and external participants who work with kids and family in a range of disciplines.

We left those sessions with 4 unique solution concepts that we moved into the next round of testing which was Play Money tests with parents in Nashville, TN,

Then we used these screens to red team with key stakeholders

Then we used these to red team with stakeholders

Participants: DVP Membership, DVP Activity, Experience product leads, and store employees

I asked participants to ideate on two things— if we piloted this concept, looking back, what went well and what didn’t work?

The big barriers to desired outdoor engagement

Ideal customer profile (ICP)

We plotted 17 parents who participated in interviews to roughly understand parent archetypes and build a hypothesis for our ICP. The matrix below identifies 3 possible archetypes and explains how they differ.

Testing & iteration of landing page

Testing the landing page

The next step was to put sharp edges on the concept. I designed this simple, 3-page experience to show internal stakeholders exactly what we were talking about. The branding is intentionally LOUD, Gen-Z-esque, and not-REI. I wanted to get people to really understand that not only can we re-package and re-skin our existing offerings in a new way but we can be younger and more playful. It’s gonna be ok. We got an overwhelmingly positive reaction.

Before taking it into stakeholder redteaming sessions I tested the content on Usertesting to iterate. Shortly after this qualitative round we know we’d be headed into quantitative testing so I wanted to make sure the ✨vibe was right ✨ and everything made sense.

The next step was to put sharp edges on the concept. I designed this simple, 3-page experience to show internal stakeholders exactly what we were talking about. The branding is intentionally LOUD, young, and not-REI. I wanted to get people to really understand that not only can we re-package and re-skin our existing offerings in a new way but we can be younger and more playful. It’s gonna be ok. We got an overwhelmingly positive reaction.

See the landing page mockup in Figma

Aspirational Outdoorsy Family

introducing the

Who the parents are
They aspire to have an “outdoorsy" family identity. They aren’t beginners in REI’s activities, but they also aren’t hardcore adventurers.

“Being outdoorsy is part of my identity.”

Pain points
They feel they’re failing to facilitate consistent outdoor activity. They’re frustrated when their kid’s motivation begins to wane, because it threatens the identity they aspire to have.

“I feel guilty that I’m not planning enough outdoor activities for my family.”

Needs and goals
Parents want consistent, easy, local experiences that help them recreate outside together in a variety of ways each month so they can make memories and live out their aspirational identity.

“I want my kids to grow up as people who identify with being outdoorsy.”

As we explored the current landscape of products, services, and solutions related to the broad problem of helping kids outside, we identified a few key aspects of the market:

The market is heavily fragmented. There are few national players offering a modern non-transactional solution — and also no single reputable brand that truly owns the space for consumers. Legacy national brands like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are rapidly declining.
The market is local-oriented — forcing the consumer to perform due diligence across a variety of local options (often discovered via word of mouth), balance logistics across a variety of options, and work through friction in how to engage with each.
The market largely requires heavy parent input. Many of the solutions available in the market are run on parent volunteers or require parents to manage logistics of getting their kids to a place/time to engage.
The market largely offers temporary service-based solutions. Many of the offerings for kids are highly temporary in nature — lasting a short season or meeting only at isolated times across the course of a year, with little engagement in between.

As we explored the current landscape of products, services, and solutions related to the broad problem of helping kids outside, we identified a few key aspects of the market:

The market is heavily fragmented. There are few national players offering a modern non-transactional solution — and also no single reputable brand that truly owns the space for consumers. Legacy national brands like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are rapidly declining.
The market is local-oriented — forcing the consumer to perform due diligence across a variety of local options (often discovered via word of mouth), balance logistics across a variety of options, and work through friction in how to engage with each.
The market largely requires heavy parent input. Many of the solutions available in the market are run on parent volunteers or require parents to manage logistics of getting their kids to a place/time to engage.
The market largely offers temporary service-based solutions. Many of the offerings for kids are highly temporary in nature — lasting a short season or meeting only at isolated times across the course of a year, with little engagement in between.

Current market landscape

Research that helped shape the Family Adventure Club concept…

Generate phase

🔍 Generate/Validate Phase Activities

• 32 participants evaluating concepts by spending fictional budget

• 30 kid+parent pairs visited store, participated in focus group and qualitative interviews

• 30 participants in 3 cohorts reacted to 1 of 3 concepts

• 1342 members/prospects reacted to Family Adventure Club concept

• Concept event test in Denver, Colorado with 500+ participants

• 25 in-store intercepts in Chicago, IL and Dallas, TX

🔍 Generate/Validate Phase Activities

• 32 participants evaluating concepts by spending fictional budget

• 30 kid+parent pairs visited store, participated in focus group and qualitative interviews

• 30 participants in 3 cohorts reacted to 1 of 3 concepts

• 1342 members/prospects reacted to Family Adventure Club concept

• Concept event test in Denver, Colorado with 500+ participants

• 25 in-store intercepts in Chicago, IL and Dallas, TX

The path to pilot

To clarify, our team defines a pilot as a temporary test— most often taking between 3-6 months to collect material “do” data to inform if the concept should be developed. In this case, we envisioned the pilot taking place over a 3 month season with a cohort of approximately 30 families in the Denver area because of the relationships we build while putting on the Kids Co-op event.

Shaping the pilot

After sharpening the edges of the concept and redteaming a potential pilot with key stakeholders it was time to create the pitch deck. I’ve already shared most of the information in the pitch deck but just in case you’re curious— you can flip through the deck below.

Aaron and I presented this to the the leadership teams of the Denver flagship, Experiences, and Marketing. The response was enthusiastic and we planned to do the pilot in Spring of 2024. Because of economic circumstances and labor relations issues discussions continued into December of 2023.

Next steps?…

Although this is an active project, economic uncertainty has put it on “pause” until Q1 2024 (at least). If we receive budget and a green light then I’ll promptly kiss my family goodbye and retreat into my design-cave to begin the monumental task of building out the digital and IRL pilot experience. It’d be a lot of work and it’d be a blessing. It’s been a dream to be given infinite trust and the space to run free and solve this problem in the best way I know how.

If you made it this far— thanks! It was a long one. This was truly a labor of love and while this case study only has a fraction of the amount of work we’ve done over the past 2 years I hope this gives a sense of how I think and work.

As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions on how I can make this novel easier to read please give me a shout.

bodhidovestewart@gmail.com

I also mapped a first version of the pilot’s user journey. It includes everything from marketing campaigns to end of season surveys.

Please see tablet and desktop versions for redteaming the concept with stakeholders.

Kids at the concept test we did in Denver, CO. We has a lot of families with younger kids but appeal of the Club remained consistent which is a good signal for desirability outside our target customer.

Kids focus group in Oakbrook, IL. The focus group started as a conversation and ended with kids creating their own club! It was so helpful in figuring out what kids consider fun and engaging.

First iteration of Family Adventure Club for in-store intercepts in Oakbrook, IL.

Key customer learnings

• Customers will pay for a Family Adventure Club solution that helps them achieve the “outdoorsy” identity they desire, primarily by getting outside as a family consistently.

• It must be sticky. A direct communication platform + gamified engagement mechanic will reinforce the value of the Club, drive repeat engagement every month, and propel word-of-mouth growth. Parents want to feel like their kids are pulling them into outdoor activity— not the other way around.

• Customers who engage with Experience offerings have much higher attachment rates and we have reason to believe that this concept would significantly increase LTV.

• Kids crave variety just as much as parents do but contrary to core REI belief, not all “outdoorsy” activities need to be outdoors. Both kids and parents expressed strong interest in attending smaller activities like camp food testing and short film nights.

Key operational learnings

• Our current model of selling Experiences is transactional and one-off. Most Experiences customers only engage in an Experiences product line one time. A Family Adventure Club will introduce a model for repeat engagement in Experiences, and will create new operational efficiencies (e.g., demand gen, inventory management, and engagement data measurement.)

• In the past few years, stores have been made to scale back special classes and offerings. These programs were passion projects for Green Vests and boosted morale. It’s clear that a program like this could help make employees happier at a time when unionization talks have increased the tension between leadership and store employees.

Generate phase outcomes

Through all our research, testing, and concept iteration one thing was clear: families were really interested in signing up for the Family Adventure Club. Everything from the “shark tank” sessions to kids to seeing family dynamic at our a gamified Kids Co-op event yielded valuable insights that helped us more clearly define what the club must be for parents and kids.

Please see tablet and desktop versions for information on operational learnings.

Branding

As our leadership team discussed, Aaron and I found an amazing agency called Season. They had done illustration work for REI before and they had the organic, funky, energetic style I knew the club needed. Over 3 months I worked with them closely to develop the brand and character illustrations. To be clear— Season did all the incredible brand work! I just helped to guide it with mood boards, feedback, and workshops.

Modeling a profitable club at an acceptable price point

Modeling a profitable club at an acceptable price

Because the operational model of this club is so different than what REI does today we got lots of questions in the line of “but is this going to be profitable?”. John York, our teams data guy(and MVP, let’s be honest) spent weeks reviewing existing P&L and modeling out different variations of our club so clearly show the path to profitability for this product and how we’d need to price the club to achieve it. A huge caveat there is that we would need to do more testing to see if we could make changes to our existing experiences without it impacting customer experience (an example is people to guide ratio or duration of an activity).

We also explored different approaches we could take to building the club at scale. Ultimately we decided approach 2 made the most sense. While it would be great to have a highly scalable digital version of the club, we knew REI won’t make any sizable investments in tech in the foreseeable future so we made sure to call that out in stakeholder meetings.

Please see tablet and desktop versions for information on modeling a profitable club at an acceptable price point.