By EMELY ARROYO
Universe Staff Writer
Students tend to be pretty good at daydreaming. For one business student, this really paid off.
A marketing class discussion concerning unfulfilled needs led to a discussion about unfulfilled spiritual needs. This inspired a group of students to use concept testing to create a product that would help families read the Book of Mormon together on a regular basis.
“We saw a spiritual need and wanted to create a product to fulfill that need … rather than having a product idea, we had a concept idea,” said Todd Hudson, a senior from Victoria, Canada, majoring in business, and president of Hudson Family Productions.
Hudson and a team of volunteer students then went to Deseret Book stores in Utah Valley and interviewed customers, trying to generate a customer-driven product.
“We asked people questions regarding what motivated them to read the scriptures, how they perceived Book of Mormon characters and what price range would be the most ideal. Although we tested several products, people’s response to ‘The Book of Mormon Heroes and Villains Reading Adventure Pack’ was phenomenal,” Hudson said. “The thrill of being able to discover intrigued people.”
The reading adventure pack resembles an advent calendar and covers the first quarter of the Book of Mormon. Behind every door lies three questions at different levels regarding material found in a certain chapter.
After players open a cluster of four miniature doors by answering all the questions, a picture of a character from the Book of Mormon is revealed on a trading card. The back of each card includes a mystery name and character description. There are 15 cards total with each containing statistics of its character.
Hudson’s wife, Rebecca, wrote most of the descriptions found on the back of the cards, and they shared the responsibility of writing the 180 questions. “It was a team effort from the beginning,” Todd Hudson said. “By developing questions at different levels, we hope to appeal to every member of the family.”
“What I loved about the whole process was the opportunity it gave us to really explore the characters of the Book of Mormon,” Rebecca said. “We tried to get to know the characters so well, we could identify each personality … it was really exciting to see each character acting consistently within a personality type throughout the Book of Mormon. They became living people for us.”
Although the Hudsons have been developing and working on this product since 1994, the adventure pack can not be found in retail stores. In fact, the only way to purchase the game is to contact the Hudsons personally.
“We are using informal networks to promote our product … mainly by word of mouth and personal selling,” Todd said.
If the Hudsons used retail stores as a distribution channel for their product, the price of the game could possibly double. “We would rather keep it at $10 dollars and allow it to be more accessible to people than to sell them through stores,” Todd said.
However, they are preparing to sell it over the Internet soon. Currently, they have sold approximately 1,200 adventure packs. The Hudsons’ focus now is to raise funds in order to produce a video adventure pack.
“Really this is not a game, families are able to read the scriptures together and find answers to real life problems,” Todd said.
If people are interested in purchasing the adventure pack, they can contact Todd & Rebecca Hudson, 3201 19th Street, Vernon, B.C. VIT 4B6, or call them at (801) 812-3482.
