When designing a mobile health insurance product in Nigeria, the IDEO.org team used the collage method to help end users express themselves (and their values) openly and creatively—ultimately setting the tone for the final marketing strategy.

My team at IDEO.org was asked to help create a marketing strategy for a client that sold health insurance through a mobile money platform in rural Nigeria. We wanted co-design the messaging with our audience, but the challenge was, explaining this service could often get confusing. Most of our audience had never heard of health insurance, much less mobile money. We decided to start with the most basic explanation and let our end users design a campaign from there. How did we do this, you might ask? Through an incredibly simple design research tool – collage.

What We Did 

We asked 25 workshop participants to show us what “community health” looks like by making a collage. We picked the term “community health” because it felt like the ultimate goal of this service we wanted to market. We provided images, words, and magazines and told them simply to create something. 

What You’ll Need

Magazines, scissors, glue, paper, markers, and of course, a prompt. The prompt should be simple, yet evocative. It’s best if the magazines are full of imagery, have some relevance to the topic you looking to learn more about, and are purchased locally. If you have specific images you think are relevant or interesting – then feel free to print those off in advance like we did on this project. In addition, you can also print some key words or phrases if you want to test language or voice.

What We Learned

Going into this process, we assumed our audience would want to see medical imagery like doctors, clinics, and medications – images that spoke to the credibly of the service. What surprised us, however, was that community health was far more nuanced than that in the minds of our users. People were drawn to images of marketplaces, fruits and vegetables, exercise, families, and community events. When we asked people to explain why they chose these images, they said that health goes far beyond having access to modern medicine. They pointed out that the few of them had been to the doctors office in the past year, and they wanted to invest in something beyond a trip to the doctor. They told us that any product promoting better healthcare should consider what makes a healthy lifestyle, not just the doctors office. 

This mentality of holistic health also applied to our messaging. Of the few dozen messages we provided, a few really stood out. In particular people were drawn to the phrase, “Invest in your health and strengthen your community.” This was because “health insurance” had an entirely different connotation than it often does in the states. Instead of being perceived as coverage for “worst case scenarios,” many people thought of it as a community health pool that an individual bought into, which everyone would eventually benefit from over time. This message ended up being the center of our final marketing strategy. 

Why It Counts 

When you put the creative process into other people’s hands, it is not only inspiring, but can create more meaningful and considered solutions. Asking people to express themselves verbally can be a challenge at times—not only does language often stand in the way, but those who don’t see themselves as creative can have a hard time expressing their opinion. When someone is asked to collage, however, they are able to own the creative process and often express themselves more freely. This activity never failed to transform a room of quiet participants into a lively and animated bunch, each person proudly holding up their creation at the end of the session.