We recognize that innovation – from incremental product improvements to establishing an entirely new category – is necessary to maintain market competitiveness, capture new customers, or incite new purchase occasions. We work with you to develop actionable innovation ideas that are rooted in consumer’s needs and pain point to ensure they are relevant and impactful.
A leading manufacturer of high-end home appliances recognized that its current refrigeration products were underperforming relative to competitors in features offered for the price. The brand sought to shift from a "me-too" feature-driven innovation approach to a purpose-driven strategy rooted in consumer needs and pain points. To maintain its reputation for precision engineering while elevating its value proposition, the client needed to uncover consumers’ pain points in interacting with refrigerators during daily activities like meal prep, grocery loading, and cleaning in order to elevate the experience.
Using our Innovation Cycle framework, we conducted a multi-phase research process designed to move the brand from feature competition to needs-based innovation opportunities based on consumers’ behavior and purchasing motivations.
We conducted in-home ethnographies among owners of our client’s brand and among owners of competitor brands to reveal both universal and brand-specific refrigeration pain points. Following the ethnographies, we facilitated a synthesis session with client stakeholders to advance observations into core Innovation Platforms that bridged consumer needs with strategic business opportunities. These platforms were prioritized for ideation based on the results of an online survey among target customers that measured the relevance and purchase impact of each platform.
Finally, the highest-performing platforms were ideated against by our Creative Thought Agents (consumers vetted for their high creative ability) to generate dozens of concept ideas. We then compiled an Ideation Playbook that provided the client with a innovation pipeline with concepts that were organized and prioritized by innovation buckets based on the strongest consumer needs uncovered during the research. Ultimately, the client team will use the Ideation Playbook for years to come to develop and test prototypes.
