Approach
We started by looking for the sweet spot between their core capabilities and foresight-informed adjacent categories and found a unique competency with the potential to unlock one of the trends we presented: products with functional benefits. The year was 2019, and this category was gaining traction in the US. But since it hadn't yet reached the mainstream, it was the ideal place to start looking for innovation opportunities where our client would have the right to win.
Excited to learn more about this category our clients didn't know much about, we designed a Safari into the streets of Los Angeles, California. In this wellbeing cultural mecca, we guided R&D, Insights and Marketing participants through an interactive tour of pre-selected retail, restaurant, and nightlife experiences. They also experienced facilitated in-depth panel discussions with our Think Tank experts, all pioneers in the products with functional benefits category.
This highly action-oriented Safari armed us with 20 crucial insights that informed a series of innovation sprints that filled their pipeline with consumer-validated propositions. Ultimately, the program shifted the business's perspective and unlocked innovation capabilities where they had the right to win.
Insight
Leaders looking to accelerate innovation must go beyond merely acknowledging the trends shaping consumer behaviours and preferences; they must personally immerse themselves in the trends to understand their full potential. Our Los Angeles Safari provided our clients with a faster and more effective way to ignite their innovation agenda than anything they had previously attempted. The first-hand experience convinced them to explore innovative avenues they had never contemplated before with determination.