Brief
Utilise the Amazon Innovation Process to
- Create a digital first product
- Attract a daily audience
- Generate revenue
Process
Strategy
Work directly with Amazon AWS to learn & understand their Innovation Process. This is also known as ‘Working Backwards’ – focussing on the customer, and their needs. At every step.
Identify
Start with the customer
Identify their needs
Using The Telegraph’s extensive database and studies of its customer, we were able to determine a key audience to target. We found that Telegraph Puzzles clearly met the last two brief items, but was clearly not a digital first product. We also uncovered that the demographic was biased towards older people.
This led us to postulate, and verify, that the puzzles audience were time rich, and stimulation poor. Therefore they used puzzles to both stimulate the mind, and pass the time. Puzzles clearly met both needs – taking deep thought & concentration – and in some cases several hours – to complete.
The younger audience, on the other hand were time poor & stimulation rich. They were in full/part time employment, and spending most of their day in already stimulating situations. The types of intellectual puzzles available from The Telegraph were not relaxing, and could not be completed in the limited available time.
However, the younger audience wanted something to pass the time on the limited ‘spare’ time they had – particularly during their commute time. They would often spend this time browsing social media – leaving them unfulfilled. They wanted intellectual, but with a low cognitive load.
Brainstorm
Generate ideas
Working in small groups, we generated a large number of questions – to allow us to narrow down ideas quickly.
Questions raised included
- What time of day would work best?
- What format should the product be? A game? News? Topical?
- Should we only target the younger audience?
- How long should a customer spend on the product?
- How many times a day should they ‘need’ to engage? What could they do if they wanted to engage more?
As a group, we then debated these questions. We were encouraged to disagree – but then, as a group, agree with one answer and commit to that answer. This allowed us to rapidly meet a group consensus – and an aim that everyone was committed to.
Evaluate Opportunity
Answer the 5 questions
- Who is your customer?
- A younger person, who engages with The Telegraph content
- What is the customer problem or opportunity?
- They are time poor, but intellectually stimulated because of work.
- What is the most important customer benefit?
- To fulfil them intellectually during their limited downtime
- How do you know what your customer needs or wants?
- This has been verified through research & data analytics
- What does the experience look like?
- It is a 15 minute, post lunch activity that allows them to engage with current affairs & topics, with a low cognitive load.
Innovate
Discover solutions
Knowing what product we were aiming for, we produced a number of crazy 8’s, voting and honing our ideas to generate a single product produced by group ideation & consensus.
We came up with the idea of a daily video show, that would discuss the biggest stories of the day – allowing The Telegraph’s experts to explain the news in a digestible manner.
Select solution
Create PR, FAQs, Visuals
The crux of the process was – based on the consensus idea – to create three key documents to gain audience & stakeholder feedback.
Press release The single page document that would – on the day our product would eventually be released – be sent to the press. This must stimulate the reader into understanding the product at a basic level – and sell the idea enough to convince them to write and publicise it.
FAQs This multi-page document answered any questions raised through the process – together with a number of questions raised by the team to aid clarity to the product. What did it do? How much would it cost to make? How big a team would we need Would we sell it or give it away for free? etc.
Visuals This multi-page storyboard explained the product visually. It focusses around the user – how and where they would interact with it. What it would give them etc.
Refine solution
Iterate
Potential customers and business stakeholders were presented with the press release & visuals. They were given time to read and digest the document, and annotate them with any questions or concerns they may have. Debate & challenge was encouraged.
Through the stakeholder conversations it became very clear that our product would be costly to produce. This could jeopardise the product release cycle – or derail it completely due to budget.
As a team, we reconvened, and iterated the idea – whilst keeping our core 5 questions fixed. How could we tweak the product to reduce the cost of production. Our agreed solution was to alter the product to be a single show – one video broadcast live. This would significantly reduce staffing costs.
Iteration of our idea led to Q15 – fifteen questions that would be answered by a single, different, presenter each day. These would be chosen from the various expert external contacts as well as Telegraph reporters.
The questions would be raised – and voted upon – by the audience. This would encourage users to engage with the app at various times each day – seeing what questions had been raised, voting on their favourite ones – or raising their own.
Then – at 3 o’clock each day – a time decided to coincide with a tea-break – the show would be broadcast live. The top 15 questions would be answered within 15 minutes. This would encourage the ‘talent’ to answer succinctly, reducing waffle & opinion.
Implement
Finalise solution
Continually revisit PR, FAQs and Visuals
Further meetings with customers and stakeholders allowed us to iterate and refine our ideas. We confirmed that this solution would require a significantly reduced operating staff level, and therefore have a more acceptable budget.
Production & distribution
For testing & demonstration purposes, we produced a high-fidelity prototype. This included testing the production process – producing three iterations of the live show, utilising existing experts from The Telegraph newsroom.
Transition to operations & scale
To finalise our product, we produced detailed budgets & production schedules. This included a number of launch stages, allowing us to minimise costs whilst understanding maximum customer engagement.
This was presented to key stakeholders in the business for them to raise questions & investigate further investment in the product.
View prototype video
View design details