Our Work

What drives the ‘youth of today’s’ media choices?
The media habits of 14-24 year olds are often reported on as one homogenous group ‘millennials’ – a meaningless term for a diverse bunch complete with a whole load of stereotypes sprinkled on the top. With a lack of ‘factual’ data, Thinkbox wanted to explore what was ‘myth’ and what was ‘real’ and look at the role of TV in young people’s seemingly ‘complex’ media lives.

Platypus Research devised a compelling methodology to throw light on the changing video lives of young people.  Through a blend of qualitative techniques, including video ethnography, online communities and depth interviews, we discovered the factors that set this group apart and have made AV content an ingrained part of their lives and development. 
We also conducted joint analysis with a specialist media psychologist to unpick some future predictions.

With over 25% of children in Orbit’s communities growing up in poverty, reducing the number of those living in poverty by ensuring they provide services and homes that meet these families needs is central to their future plans.

Platypus were chosen to help Orbit understand the lives and needs of children and parents living in poverty to help them to fulfil this mission.

Workshops were held in community centres across the UK and were designed with a flexible and open approach to take into account the mixed make up of the groups and to break down any worries or concerns about taking part.

Children’s sessions were carefully designed to take into account a wide range of ages using a variety of visual, creative and verbal methods.

Orbit have used the results from the research to push forward with their campaign to tackle child poverty, working through the insight gained and some of the recommendations made by the team. This report is being shared at the Houses of Parliament in March 2018.

Oxford University Press (OUP) have a worldwide reputation for producing engaging home learning resources for primary school children. But with an increasingly crowded marketplace and a wide variety of school schemes, how do OUP maintain their strong position?

Our tasks were two fold; 1) Identify what information parents want in order to identify the most relevant resources and motivate purchase 2) Highlight the design elements needed to increase children’s engagement and enjoyment in order to enhance their learning across the curriculum.

Quantitative surveys were used to provide a concrete base of understanding and narrow down design and character options.

Every detail of the resources from messaging, tone and design were then evaluated in an iterative ‘test-amend-test’ process involving a two week long online forum where parents and children gave us their feedback via video and interactive tasks and missions.

A final sense check via face to face workshops was conducted to inform any last minute tweak before launch.

Ready meals form an important part of 2 Sisters Food Group’s meal solutions and with a greater than ever choice of these available, research was needed to explore and understand the opportunities for kids ready meals, to ensure 2 Sisters continue to grow and provide ready meals that keep parents happy and hungry little tummies well fed.

We needed to understand how family life affects meal choices today and the role of ready meals for children aged 4-8.

For one week we carried out ethnography via our digital to understand family meal choices in and outside of the home. Parents and children gave feedback to a number of tasks, via written responses, photos and videos.

By exploring real life in the moment, we were able to understand why different meal solutions were sought and how parents and children felt about their choices. Coffee morning sessions with parents to explore the rationale for their decisions in more detail were used to support this.

As a final reality check we observed family meal times, to see first hand the challenges.

The results were debriefed via an interactive workshop, where thematic analysis was presented to inform on the meal choices made and importantly the context of these choices.

This allowed 2 Sisters to ensure their development of kids ready meals in M&S was driven by feedback from those buying and eating their meals. Helping them to provide new & innovative solutions, rather than ‘me too’ products.

2017 was an incredible first year for All Stars Cricket (the English Cricket Board’s initiative for 5-8 year olds) with over 37,000 kids taking part in 1,539 All Stars programmes across England and Wales.

But with the sign up a success was the scheme doing what it was designed to do? And how could All Stars build on this momentum for 2018 to retain current All Stars and recruit even more?

We used an approach that meant young children and parents could get across exactly how they felt about all of the details of the sessions – the good and bad.

Running the research at the All Star fixtures meant the experience was fresh in their minds and we could observe the actual sessions. With 5-8 year olds prone to short attention spans and a tendency to latch onto one aspect we turned the interview into a game and kept it flexible in content and length to feed into the different capabilities of children within this age group.

We were able to identify the aspects that needed to be maintained for the next year of ASC.

We also gave clear direction for improvement based on the communications, coaching and game content which has fed into training plans and marketing for the coming year.
Specific improvements around how to engage different groups of children e.g. girls were also taken on board