We explored the unmet needs of Chinese parents and children to guide Gululu’s digital product line.
The challenge
Bowhead Technology, founded by a former Alibaba Group vice president, set out to enter China’s digital technology market for children aged 7 to 12. Its management team had many product ideas and concepts, which made it hard to set a clear direction for design and innovation.
Our approach
We studied the three groups around a children’s tech product: influencers, through 8 expert interviews on parenting trends in China; users, through 6 in-home ethnographies exploring children’s unmet needs; and purchasers, through 6 in-home observations and interviews on parents’ pain points. We then joined as a product partner, running 2 parent workshops and 3 children’s workshops to evaluate and refine the Gululu concept.
The result
Families’ needs fell into four areas: companionship and social life, safety and wellbeing, education, and habit building. A behaviour-tracking feature won over parents and teachers, and gamification proved key to keeping children interested. Together, Gululu and Brandnographer created an interactive bottle that helps children build healthy hydration habits.
