If you think you finally understand Millennials, then you better prepare yourself for the new kids on the block (literally)!

The Innovation Catalysts from the Corporate Capability team at the Fung Academy spent a week in New York with Global Brands Group’s (GBG) Leaders Innovators Opportunities (LIO) program, using design thinking to get to know the next generation of shoppers (Gen-Z) and what the future of retail might look like for them.

Not only was the week revealing for the challenge at hand, but it was proof of the power of design thinking for generating innovative ideas, even under tight timelines and limited budgets.

To imagine the future of retail for Gen-Z (teens between 12-16 years old), we wanted to know not only what their shopping habits were, but also why they were shopping in that way. We turned to empathy-based research methods to help us step into Gen-Z’s world, and see it from their perspective.

In less than two days we conducted three different empathy research exercises, giving us a revealing glimpse into Gen-Z’s world.

We collected hundreds of stories, identified clear patterns of behavior and gained a deep appreciation for the things that mattered most to this next generation of shoppers.

These translated into three big insights and hundreds of ideas, three of which were rapidly prototyped and pitched to an audience of GBG employees. One of the ideas has been progressed for further prototyping with Under Armour!

Great ideas weren’t the only positive outcome, the LIO team described the experience as “life-changing” and “extremely powerful, observing people’s real needs”.

Tags: design thinking , GBG , Innovation Catalyst , Retailing