The first key element is having a
clear ‘vision’ about your target
consumer - what interests and
motivates them. These interests
and motivations would be clearly
set within a particular consumer
category or categories your business operates
within. Most importantly, it is vital to have a clear
position on where the target consumer’s mindset
is heading. It must be future-facing. This involves
some extrapolation of current behaviour.
I refer to this as the relevant ‘consumer drivers’.
There are a number of scientific approaches that
can be used to develop this vision about the consumer
- using both desk-top and bespoke consumer
research and data. The second element is
the formation of strong commercial partnerships
whereby consumer experiences and learnings
can be openly shared. Having these partnerships
at your fingertips can be extremely useful when
your company is entering an untapped market
segment. Through a consumer or trade experience
shared, your organisation may be able to
apply some insightful thinking or technology into
your new innovation/situation. It is critical to nail
down the overall product development process.
This will ensure you really do turn potential consumer
opportunities into reality. A good process
will include:
• The tabling of relevant and robust consumer,
trade and category insights;
• Creating a variety of concepts to test with consumers
and trade that tap into these insights.
It is really important to gain a clear conclusion
from the concept testing;
• The projected business commercials, ease of
execution (route to market) analysis, alongside
capital and infrastructure considerations need
to be rigorously checked using a mix of data
sources.
Once these steps are ticked off there is a reasonable
chance of success for the business to push
the green light to a launch phase. Harraways
Oats, based in its Green Island headquarters in
Dunedin, is certainly following this structured approach
to product development. There are some
pertinent learnings and experiences from some
recent innovation projects that can be shared
to illustrate some of the points I have made. At
Harraways, we identified some clear consumer
interests and motivations for our target markets
who collectively buy into our Oat Singles range
– the ‘active mum’ and ‘health conscious baby
boomers’. The key areas of interest identified
for ‘active mums’ are: ‘make it easy for me’, ‘I
love berries and protein added’, ‘I am buying
less quantity per shop, but purchasing more
often’, ‘I am generally looking to trade myself
and my family up to more discerning
OAT COMPANY
FUTURE-FACING
IN INNOVATION
Successful innovation and renovation with
consumer products occurs by productively
applying a couple of key elements within
a robust product development process,
Harraways marketing manager Peter Cox says.
38 JULY 2018