The Impact of our FEI Process & How we Get Results

Because we work in innovation and we keep our client’s efforts a closely held secret, we don’t often get to announce the specific results of our Front End Innovation (FEI) processes and efforts… and though we can’t share any concept specifics today, we do want to highlight some of our more recent accomplishments and how we get to those results with our clients.

First - the background: in 2019, we ran 3 unique FEI projects for 1 client across 3 brands that play in 3 different categories. We were tasked with taking the client’s strategic objectives and then translating them into consumer-led innovation opportunities that would help extend each brand into new consumers, new categories and new opportunities. We brainstormed the possibilities, developed concepts and platforms, designed the packaging and food imagery (interlacing with the client’s R&D & supply chain) while making sure we only ideated opportunities that could be executed, and then iteratively refined the ideas in co-creation sessions with consumers. Each project had objectives of outputting ~8 new ideas that would then be tested by Nielsen and validated for future investment.

Second - the results: >60% of the concepts we developed across all 3 projects achieved an Outstanding probability of success as defined by Nielsen, many qualifying as SuperStar ideas with others as Brand Growers and Emerging Plays.

Third - insights on how we achieve those results: 1) Clarifying a Fuzzy Front-End – part of the overall process of all of our FEI projects comes from the disciplined thinking, re-work and revisions we conduct up-front to help the client clarify the client’s innovation strategy. That pre-work, while often messy, makes both our internal, and our client’s thinking clearer and helps get us aligned to execute killer brainstorming & co-creation sessions. 2) Aligning with Key Stakeholders - many of these projects require wrestling down the various Points of View that exist within an organization and making clear those insights are honored and inserted into the innovation process. Part of that means listening to stakeholders who want to stretch and others who need to keep things close -in for efficiencies. Part of that means understanding the capabilities of R&D and supply chain in order to develop ideas that will be successful internally if they ever get developed. 3) Providing Time to Creatively Explore Possibilities / Stretching Boundaries - the more the innovation process allows for time to dream and explore, the more it can stretch the boundaries of what the client thinks is its outer limits. Mission Field has a firm belief that you’ll never get to breakthrough ideas if the outer boundaries of how far your brand can be pushed are either too unclear or too highly restricted… and we give our consultants time to explore those possibilities. And lastly, 4) Iterative Co-Creation with Consumers - no matter how good the creative team, we all need feedback from the end target audience to nail the right idea. Our methodology allows us time and freedom to iterate with multiple waves of consumers while updating and upgrading everything they see, touch and sense. The more we pivot and iterate, the more we have the opportunity to nail the right idea for both the brand and the consumer.

If you are facing challenges with front end innovation on your brands, let’s connect and discuss how we can help. Delivering high achieving and realistic possibilities of innovation is why many of our clients leverage Mission Field in their FEI processes, and we’ll be happy to help you as well.

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