Business Need

During the development of their now popular Exilim camera, Casio had questions about features, appeal, and pricing for an American audience. Casio asked Sliced Bread Design to plan and conduct focus groups of American consumers to improve the Exilim camera product and marketing development processes. Since its launch, the Exilim has been extremely successful in the United States and continues to be one of the slimmest, most stylish, and most convenient cameras available.

Strategy & Solution

To help Casio make decisions about their camera features and marketing, we recruited 33 participants and conducted 6 focus groups. During the focus groups, we:

• Handled all logistics and recruiting for the study, which was attended by Casio representatives from Japan
• Observed participants’ reactions to cameras from Casio as well as some major competitors (Canon and Minolta)
• Showed participants displays of different camera features, then discussed these features in order to gauge the participants' interest in various camera configurations
• Discussed each feature—internal memory, cradles, mp3 players, and voice recorders—in depth to determine the optimal collection
• Gathered written pricing and purchase interest from each participant to understand expected price points
• Analyzed and reported the detailed findings, both overall and by key variables, such as gender and age
• Provided a set of design and marketing recommendations for future development