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You better start swimmin’ Or you’ll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin’ Bob Dylan, 1964
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INNOVATION IS BROKEN. Heritage brands are struggling to defend their space; budgets are being squeezed; changing tastes threaten the assumptions our brands are built upon. Those who can unpick the puzzle will succeed; those who fail will be disrupted, and their business suffer. Time is of the essence.
STEP FORWARD ORGANIC IDEATION. An efficient, cost-effective design-led approach. Focused on fast action and real results. The perfect marriage of thinking and doing. The key to the brand innovation puzzle. Great ideas, launched.
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A NEW APPROACH TO BRAND INNOVATION. Existing brand innovation methods have become tired and ineffective, in a competitive climate where budgets are being squeezed and success is insecure. Brands are currently losing money at an alarming rate. 56 of Britain’s 100 biggest grocery brands suffered a fall in value in the past year and 61 have seen their on-shelf prices slashed. Some brands are taking action. CEO Indra Nooyi kickstarted change at PepsiCo by recasting the drinks giant’s product development approach around design-led thinking. Thinking of this type is something all brand teams must emulate, if we’re to develop products that escape the norm and resonate with consumers. Yet most brands are stuck using innovation methods mired in tradition and thin on results. If we’re to weather the storm, things need to change. ‘Sugar-Spike Ideation’ is where we should start.
http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/reports/rankings/britains-biggest-brands-2016/533804.article https://hbr.org/ideacast/2015/08/pepsico-ceo-indra-nooyi-on-design-thinking.html http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/reports/rankings/britains-biggest-brands-2016/533804.article
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ORGANIC VS. SUGAR-SPIKE Which one are you? When it comes to generating ideas for your brand, you call your innovation partner. They’ll join you for a day of blue-sky thinking with whiteboards, biscuits and – if you’re really unlucky – ‘games’ to kick things off. But by the end of the day, what have you got? Lots and lots of ideas. Some with promise; many more without. A lack of focus and a lack of quality. We call this Sugar-Spike Ideation. And this is the ‘car park’ - where all the random ideas that aren’t relevant go
JG
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QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY For too many agencies, the metric for a successful day spent generating ideas is quantity. Lots of ideas means more for the money. Quantity equals value. Or does it? In fact, it’s a false economy. Mammoth thought-lists will quickly be whittled down, so it makes sense to skip the disappointment and focus on a small number of big ideas.
Skip the disappointment and focus on a small number of big ideas. PLAYERS PICKED Clients and their agencies typically invite whoever is available to innovation workshops. When the wrong players get involved at the wrong time, the ideation process trips over its feet. Successful innovation strategies make time to seek regular, structured feedback from key players, so the final outcome has wide-ranging buy-in with minimal distraction along the way.
BOOKS BALANCED Other innovation agencies do offer slower, more in-depth approaches to brand innovation. But they make their clients pay for the added time and insight this involves. It needn’ be the case.
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By iterating key ideas and designing throughout the innovation process, agency partners can achieve compelling results at speed, spending their time on the activity that matters most. THE SOLUTION The limitations of existing innovation methods are clear. Organic Ideation takes each flaw and turns it on its head, offering an agile approach to brand innovation that fosters stakeholder confidence and is highly cost and time effective. At its core, Organic Ideation is the best type of design-led thinking; focussed, iterative, organic and continously creative. For companies exhausted by quick-fix creativity and uninspiring design, Organic Ideation has the potential to re-energise brands. For teams of all sizes, the process can achieve bigger and better results more quickly than existing innovation methods – utilising instinct, common sense and clear visual direction. The result is a rounded proposition created rapidly and readied for market.
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“Creative thinking, in terms of idea creativity, is not a mystical talent. It is a skill that can be practised and nurtured.� Edward de Bono, psychologist
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WHO DOES ORGANIC IDEATION WORK FOR?
1. When budgets mean traditional innovation isn’t possible Whereas design agencies once worked to a preallocated fee, zero-based, centrally controlled budgets have turned expectations and opportunities on their heads. Brand owners are under pressure to prove their work at every step of the innovation process. Organic Ideation respects this changing budget landscape. The approach offers high levels of service, historically very expensive, via an efficient, action-oriented approach.
2. When other innovation methods have failed to work After hours of workshops, many innovation agencies fail to produce concepts that pass testing. Organic Ideation is different. Rather than focussing on quantity of ideas and spreadsheet analysis – though undoubtedly important – Organic Ideation is about bringing a sensible number of ideas to life quickly, then evolving these concepts at speed. We generate key insights using a visual approach; then we iteratively develop and refine key routes over a fixed period. Throughout, our aim is to identify and respond to opportunity areas to guide our work. Designing each concept to a shelf-ready state means stakeholders are better able to understand if an idea will work in their market.
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CASE STUDY | HEINZ HOT SAUCE
Working with Heinz on the development of their launch in the Hot Sauces category, our organic approach generated rapid results. Concept development wasn’t agonised over; instead, we piloted and researched ideas on-shelf. Close collaboration with the client allowed us to push the project through ideation, design and pilot phases in a short period, enabling the new range to be shelf-ready within eight weeks.
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3. When a brand is failing to resonate, its identity in crisis Organic Ideation means working to get under the skin of a brand. Often, teams are so close to their product that opportunities to innovate are missed. Bringing a fresh pair of eyes to a brand problem creates perspective, which is why we start Organic Ideation by gathering existing in-house data and insight, then applying resight to draw out new ideas. This allows us to question the fundamentals of a product from the earliest point. We seek a clear understanding of the role of the product, and the value and importance of different attributes, such as colour, or the product itself. Close partnerships with our clients are key to our approach, meaning ideas get nailed, both internally and with consumers.
Chen’s fine. Well, adequate Herschel? Man’s an idiot I mean: look at his teeth! And he drinks like a fish
JG
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CASE STUDY | SPECIAL K
Focused on weight management, Special K’s brand positioning had lost resonance with female consumers. We worked with the Kellogg’s team to develop new product and packaging expressions that reflected a new identity based on personal empowerment. Product structure, ingredients, generosity and scale were all tweaked via an iterative, visual process – culminating in one final concept with buy-in from all key teams. This concept was immediately ready for global testing, the design having been refined throughout the innovation process.
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CASE STUDY | SCHOLL
After 100 years, Scholl’s footcare products led the field in personal foot care. Their fragmented brand failed to reflect this, however, lacking a cohesive on-shelf identity. Partly, this was due to ‘product by product’ pack design, with new lines failing to drive equity to other products.
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Working with the client team and international stakeholders, our design-led strategy pulled a fragmented and bipolar brand personality into a new, unified identity. Exploring the brand iteratively helped the client better understand their offering – and therefore where they wanted to take it.
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WHY DOES ORGANIC IDEATION WORK? Whereas product or brand design typically follows numerous ideation workshops and meetings between client and agency, our approach is designled from the off. We interrogate existing research and generate a small number of promising core ideas, quickly bring them to life through visualisation. We then evolve these concepts over and over until we arrive at one that resonates. So, any developments from Beverage Innovation I can look forward to?
Oh yes. We’ve discovered a new formula that has three times the hydration effect of a glass of water
That’s dynamite! What are you calling it?
Three glasses of water
JG
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PUTTING DESIGN AT THE HEART OF THE INNOVATION PROCESS IS KEY TO OUR SUCCESS: FOR CLARITY When trying to describe an idea, the essence of it can get lost in translation. By constantly iterating new designs during the ideation process, we provide proof of a concept’s worth. Visualisation makes new ideas clear for stakeholders – many of whom are more used to spreadsheets than abstract brand concepts.
FOR EMOTIONALITY The emotional value of an idea is never underestimated. By scamping an idea to life, stake-holders can judge whether a concept feels right and whether it inhabits the values and identity of a brand.
FOR PRACTICALITY Designing and redesigning throughout the ideation process is more efficient than leaving it until the final step. Our design-led process means the concept is already at an advanced stage before it goes to a design team proper. This saves our clients time and money and means the product can be piloted and reviewed by consumers without losing momentum.
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The main stages of the process are as follows:
STEP 1. BUILD A COALITION OF EXPERTS First, we seek to understand the environment for innovation and what success looks like. Existing data on the brand or product is resighted by our team to uncover any initial opportunities. If research is ongoing, we collaborate with and align objectives with our client’s research partner. Next, we build a Coalition of Experts to supplement this research. This is a key point of difference between Organic Ideation and other innovation methods. Stakeholders can derail innovation projects at any step. Lawyers intervene in claim-writing; procurement teams influence the scale and scope of activity. Understanding the aims of each party involved means progress won’t be scuppered later on. We interview brand, category, insight, legal and other key teams before design development begins. In doing so, we gain an understanding of what success looks like for each party. This step goes beyond due diligence. By allowing all parties to air their views, a team is formed around the project. Goals and groundwork laid out, we then set the agenda for the innovation process, working back from the concept delivery date to plan our design rounds.
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“Organic Ideation, for us, means hacking the forms and formats of products: changing the way products are delivered to consumers, and how ideas are communicated on packs.� Senior Director, Global Innovation
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STEP 2. DEFINING ‘STREAMS’ Here, we introduce the second key element in the Organic Ideation process: Streams. Taking our stakeholder and marketplace insight, we develop an agreed number of initial concepts to be refined during the design development process. For each project, the number of streams will be different. What’s key is that each one represents a different direction for innovation to follow – each tied to the goals of the Coalition of Experts. These streams are presented to the core team, who choose the concepts to be taken into design development.
STEP 3. DESIGN DEVELOPMENT Finally, our team refine the ideas in the chosen streams to create a set of functional designs. These streams are reviewed in regular meetings. Successful ones go into successive rounds of development. In this way, the design and review process is an iterative one. As the cycle repeats itself, we inch closer to the final, most successful innovation by a process of elimination and inspiration. Because the needs of the Coalition of Experts is made clear up-front, better decision-making follows. Full transparency means clients know every detail of the project, making them well-equipped to sell the final concept to external stakeholders.
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Full transparency means clients know every detail of the project, making them well-equipped to sell the final concept to external stakeholders.
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HOW LONG DOES ORGANIC IDEATION TAKE? What makes Organic Ideation exceptional is the speed at which results are achieved. Stages 1 and 2 take place over one week. Then, we typically iterate through three rounds of design, each lasting two weeks. As such, a typical innovation project can be wrapped up within eight weeks. Organic Ideation allows us to commit to delivering a defined goal within a strict timeframe – something highly unusual for any agency. Research, ideation and design process is disciplined and dependable. And because it’s quick, costs are kept low.
© Random House
Everybody wins.
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© Eon/United Artists
“If you want to create stories for people, you have to give them quite a few things to hang onto. In trying to figure out all the different ways people can receive a story, we do lots of small stuff and see which bits stick” Dan Germain, creative director, Innocent
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GUNNA DRINKS We developed the brand and packaging for new soft drink brand GUNNA. Founder Melvin Jay gave us his view on Organic Ideation: The brief Soft drinks is a very competitive market, where there are tens of thousands of products and players big and small. We’re a startup company with a small budget, so we needed our brand and packaging to do pretty much all the marketing for us. Looking at the category as a whole, the brands are quite samey. They follow the same codes; bright colours, pictures of delicious looking fruits. We wanted to create something that bent the rules – something that people wanted to pick up and find out more.
“We wanted to create something that bent the rules” Melvin Jay, Founder, Gunna Drinks
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GUNNA DRINKS The process Starting with a set of initial concepts that – in another startup situation – might have otherwise become the final result, we first spent a day bringing new packaging concepts to life. As we moved through the design development process we became increasingly more daring, until we felt we couldn’t go any further. At the beginning, we were just trying to understand what the different packaging routes were. To achieve anything, you need to understand more about what the packaging is actually doing for you and the brand, and then you use that to write the brief and start disrupting.
“As we moved through the design development process we became increasingly more daring.” Melvin Jay, Founder, Gunna Drinks
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GUNNA DRINKS The result In the last stage of research, we asked people to tell us how much they liked the packaging, but also how different it appeared to them. That way, we knew we had something that felt radical but was still assuredly soft drink packaging. Normally people favour packaging which is familiar over that which is radical and new. The overall ‘liking’ scores for our packaging are well into the 70% bracket – a highly successful result created in a short space of time. Rare are very, very willing to listen to the client, work with them, and to really understand what they’re trying to do with their brand. They’re thinking about brands and what they stand for – and how packaging and design can move those brands forward – which I don’t think is common in the design world. That’s what sets them apart. They’re part of the brand development team on the clientside, not just a bunch of people with pens and Macs. GUNNA launches in Autumn 2016
“The overall ‘liking’ scores for our packaging are well into the 70% bracket” Melvin Jay, Founder, Gunna Drinks
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LIKE WHAT YOU’VE READ? To find out more about Organic Ideation, contact James Hirst on 0208 127 1770 or email jamesh@rare-design.com. Rare Design is on a mission to put design at the heart of the brand building agenda. With over three decades of experience, we work with challenged and challenger brands globally to find consumers where they are – and to deliver innovation that drives success.
organicideation.com @OrganicIdeation
raredesign.london Rare 55 Riding House Street London W1W 7EE (+44) 208 127 1770 hello@rare-design.com Cartoons by Jake Goretzki © 2016 Rare Designers Limited
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“I think we’re going to have to forget the radio and go back to word of mouth.” Joe Strummer, 1976
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