I led in-depth research in the field, with employees, current customers, and former customers to understand Allbirds’ existing strategy, customer base, and gaps to help shape the vision for the step, stretch, and leap strategies for Allbirds to revitalize their product discovery experience for new and former customers.

  • Boost visibility and relatability of Allbirds as a brand and their products

  • Reduce friction in finding, evaluating, and identifying with Allbirds products

  • Increase user adoption of Allbirds products into their daily lives

September 2024 - December 2024

Design Strategy, Allbirds

Lead Design Researcher, Design & Innovation Strategist

Stakeholder Research, Innovation Strategy, Design Strategy, Contextual Inquiry

Alex Lansing, Audey Shen, Cypher Wang, Noble Jones

Since peaking in 2022, Allbirds has lost a significant portion of its customer base because Allbirds products are no longer the symbol they once were.

Question: How can Allbirds redesign its product discovery process to remain competitive in today’s footwear and apparel market?

  • User Need: Brands and products need to be socially and causally relevant in order to warrant engagement from customers.

  • Business Need: Increase and sustain product discovery and adoption to ensure long-term brand relevance and loyalty.

Phase 1: Research

Secondary Research

  • Competitive Analysis - Researched analogous and competing footwear and apparel brands like Hoka, On, and New Balance to understand what drives their popularity and continued discovery from buyers.

    • These brands embed into trends, social circles, and partner with prominent figures to maintain relevancy.

  • Trend Analysis - Analyzed trends in the overall retail and clothing spaces and focused more within footwear brands to understand what trends are governing business and consumer decisions

    • SET Factors - Utilized SET Factors framework to gain clarity of Social, Economic and Technological trends within Allbirds, competing brands, and analogous brands.

  • Competitive Analysis - Researched analogous and competing footwear and apparel brands like Hoka, On, and New Balance to understand what drives their popularity and continued discovery from buyers.

    • These brands embed into trends, social circles, and partner with prominent figures to maintain relevancy.

  • Trend Analysis - Analyzed trends in the overall retail and clothing spaces and focused more within footwear brands to understand what trends are governing business and consumer decisions

    • SET Factors - Utilized SET Factors framework to gain clarity of Social, Economic and Technological trends within Allbirds, competing brands, and analogous brands.

Primary Research:

  • Field Studies - I co-led immersive field studies of Allbirds, Rothy's, and REI stores using the AEIOU framework to understand how these brands were bringing in customers through the retail experience.


  • Contextual Research - I conducted real-time interviews with staff members, salespeople, and customers in-store using environmental stimulus and an interview guide to understand the retail experience, messaging, and customer engagement within Allbirds and competitor stores.


  • Exploratory Research - I co-led 6 one-on-one virtual interviews to understand how buyers discover, engage with, and purchase footwear products.

  • Exploratory Research - We conducted 4 virtual interviews to understand caregivers' experiences, motivations, struggles, and needs.

  • Evaluative Research - We conducted 4 virtual concept feedback and co-creation sessions to understand care-receivers' feature priorities.

Findings:

  • The “Lost Buyer” emerged as a critical group: Many former Allbirds buyers disengaged once the brand stopped providing the sense of social validation they sought.

  • While discovery once thrived through word of mouth and community, those connections no longer reach or resonate with lost buyers.

  • Competitor brands sustain relevance by embedding themselves in social conversations and demonstrating their causes with evidence.

Key Insight:

Lost Buyers seek validation on two fronts: confidence through social connection and pride through cause alignment — but Allbirds’ current messaging delivers neither.

How might we help lost buyers rediscover and re-engage with Allbirds products through social and cause validation?

Phase 2: Concept Exploration

Ideation:

Generated 40+ concepts for concept feedback and strategy shaping. Brainstorm focused on different aspects of HMW statement to capture social validation, cause validation, or both in each concept.


Mapped concepts based on new vs existing offerings and new vs existing users to determine most impactful, desirable, and viable concepts. This helped us narrow down to 8 concepts.

Direction: A community and sustainability centered initiative that focuses on showing new and lost buyers how Allbirds aligns with their values.

Phase 3: Refinement

Refinement:

Further developed concepts based on value propositions, tying back to the key insight and the business model canvas to formulate a unified step-stretch-leap strategy.

Walk-the-Walk:

A community driven walkathon sponsored by Allbirds and in partnership with cities, sustainability organizations, and sustainability influencers to reconnect with lost and new buyers.

Allbirds’ Walk-the-Walk initiative enhances product discovery through a sustainability-focused Walk-a-thon that builds a validating community.

For the Lost Buyers who seek social proof and value sustainability, this instills social validation, cause validation, and pride when wearing Allbirds.

Step (3–12 months):


  • Sustainability front and center.

  • Revitalized referral and rerun programs.

  • New sustainability influencer and events partnerships.

Stretch (12–30 months):

  • Partnerships with sustainability orgs, cities, and local businesses.
    Launch of Walk-the-Walk event.

Leap (3–5 years):

  • Allbirds evolves into an all-encompassing lifestyle brand rooted in sustainability and community.

  • Re-energizes product discovery by embedding Allbirds into community, cause, and culture.

  • Builds relevance across active, lost, and new buyers by offering social and cause validation.

  • Aligns short-term activation with long-term brand vision.

  • Gained an understanding of design thinking on a larger, less concrete scale and learned how it can inform business decisions.

  • Learned how in-depth contextual research across all stakeholder channels can reveal disparities between a brand's intended messaging and its customer perception.

  • Design Strategy is a critical way for designers to get a seat at the table when it comes to systemic decisions for products, brands, and businesses where research drives change on a holistic level.