With a rainy spring here in Colorado our latest project mocked David and me. We are both longtime tennis players, though we have both strayed a little from the sport. Okay, maybe more than a little. Over the last few months, we both found ourselves thinking about grabbing our tennis bags and a new can of balls – then looking outside at the seemingly season-long rainstorms. With summer now here, and the dryer weather taking over Denver, we can finally get back out there to practice our forehands – weaker shots for both of us.

What rekindled this desire to play tennis? Our recent project that will help a client in the tennis industry develop new messaging – and potentially products – to engage female tennis players.

This project was perfectly in keeping with our recent recalibration in approach – to focus on the ways our experience can help clients answer important questions and let the learning goals drive the research methods. We needed to understand what kept our clients up at night – and work to answer those questions. After some discussion around what the client wanted to understand most, we shifted the project focus from player engagement with a range of different paddle sports (pickleball, Padel and tennis) to a deep dive into the motivations for playing tennis and on the shopping journey around tennis equipment.