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Yorkshire product development consultancy launches new era of product design with unique consumer insight

Sheffield’s AME Group launches its new product development brand biild, with vital insight into consumer behaviour. The new data shows that a different approach to how brands and consultancies design products is needed.

Buying habits change on a regular basis, but the shift the team at biild wanted to explore revealed some very interesting and unique insight.

biild, questioned UK adults about their understanding and interest in purpose-led products, which is defined as a product with a core mission of solving a wider problem, meeting a need in society, or addressing the planet’s energy and climate crisis.

The survey explored which product features were most relevant to consumers across the UK and what prices people would be willing to pay, and discovered: 3 in 4 will pay 10.6% above the average price for purpose-led products.

• 74% of UK adults want long-lasting and easily repairable products.
• 32% of consumers trust small brands to keep their purpose and sustainable promises compared to big brands.

Even in the middle of the cost-of-living crisis, consumers clearly want products that serve a bigger purpose, as they are happy to pay well-above average prices for them.

In addition, the survey explored which purpose-led product features consumers value the most and people from Yorkshire & Humberside rated their preferences in the following order of priority:

• 65% favour brands that produce products designed to be repaired easily.
• 61% favour brands that produce products designed to be recycled.
• 59% favour brands that help them reduce their environmental impact.
• 55% favour brands that make their products from sustainable materials.
• 34% favour brands that support and champion inclusivity (ensuring everyone is able to use the product).

biild’s Design Manager, Tim Stern, remarks:

“Data from the new survey confirms that our industry and that of our clients are in the middle of a consumer revolution. Previously, purpose was seen as an exceptional feature, this survey proves that consumers want products that respond to the social, environmental, and economic challenges we all face, and that purpose is profitable.

Brands need to respond to and embrace a new way of thinking which replaces profit over consequence with purpose at the heart of things and profit as a natural consequence. We believe purpose-driven product design achieves this. We understand that adapting to this new approach poses practical challenges. We don’t judge brands for being at the beginning of their journey, rather we’re here to help them find a pragmatic way to build responsibly and ensure business growth.“

Innovation Director of AME Group, Paul Howell, adds:

“biild is our response to changing times and empowers us to offer current and future clients the specialist product development support they need. The recent investment into AME Group has opened a whole range of innovation for our product design and prototyping departments. Both departments have incredible potential for growth, which is why we decided to give them a new voice of their own through the two new brands — biild for product development and AME-3D for prototyping and manufacturing.

biild is now at the forefront of the new product development era and we aim to support UK brands by applying a purpose with pragmatism approach to our unique end-to-end service that takes products from an idea to market and all the way through to end life options. We want a better future for everyone.“

Explore more findings from the survey on the biild website: https://biild.co.uk/consumer-revolution-survey

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