Innovation

Innovation Success for Pieminister

Oh, it was so cawsome to hear the Piefect news about Pieminister’s – now *award winning* – Souk Chouk chicken and harissa filo pie in the British Pie Awards 2024! (Yes, very delightfully, there is such a thing). It’s always great to see the fruits of the team’s efforts do well, and in this case great to have been part of the  ‘filled-right-to-the-brim’ team at Pieminister that conceived and brought this beaut to market!
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Honestly, if you haven’t tried one yet they’re in Waitrose & Partners, Tesco and Ocado Retail Ltd – very much a case of winner, winner, filo pie dinner. Or lunch.
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Looking to build your innovation pipeline? Call Crow!

Not thinking about innovation? You should be.
In the last year the number of innovation projects we help our clients with at The Crow Flies has stepped up. At first we thought it just a blip, but Helen Edward‘s article in Marketing Week underlines why, when times are tough, you need to have real clarity of focus on what’s important in your marketing mix – and innovation is right up there. As she says in the piece:
“Consumers love brands that don’t stand still. Think Apple, Red Bull, Spotify, Zara, L’Oréal. So, commit. Make 2024 the year you innovate. And by year’s end, you might find that you have not only better ridden out this bleak backdrop of economic and societal gloom, but perhaps, in some small way, actually done something to change it”.
If you’re looking for an innovation partner to build your brand’s pipeline, or need to start from scratch with the fundamentals – we can help.
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caw@thecrowflies.co.uk | +44 (0) 1889 725670
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Link to Helen’s article is also here.
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Don’t Slice Your Salami

I heard the expression ‘salami slicing’ a few years ago by someone describing the effect of small cost cutting steps on a product’s cost of goods, one then another, again and again, over a long period of time. Individually consumers didn’t notice, and research response was broadly neutral, so internally they got approved… again and again. But, fast forward a few years; now consumers have noticed the aggregate effect and have been slowly drifting away. And now, the stark reality of a poor product spiralling irreversibly downwards is a much bigger challenge.

Reflecting on this experience, it seems the lesson is more relevant than ever today. Brands are being battered on two sides; on the one hand, consumers prioritising value and price and switching to own label brands and discounter offerings; on the other, soaring cost of goods that aren’t easily passed on to consumers.

And time and again in our research, we’re seeing consumers increasingly suspicious of manufacturers and retailers, expecting them to cut product quality, or offer less, to make cost savings. They recognise it, but they’re certainly not happy about it

As a brand owner, what to do then? Faced with short term pressures to find ways to cut costs and continue to grow a brand, how can a marketeer achieve not undermine long-term brand strengthening and with it, a sustainable, profitable growth? Here’s what we’ve learnt through our research:

  1. It may come as a surprise, but consumers are open to change on some product areas, so long as they don’t compromise its performance. Of all the Marketing ‘P’s’ – packaging materials and formats (Product ‘P’) are one that if done right can open up new usage occasions, new distribution outlets and even new audiences as well as providing an opportunity to improve a product’s carbon footprint at the same time.
  2. Packaging design, whilst rarely the white knight in shining armour we’d like it to be, in combination with clever pack format changes, on-position refreshed design can really enhance brand perceptions
  3. There are areas where you should never compromise – and most certainly Positioning. Ensure you are crystal clear what your brand stands for in consumers’ minds and what makes it distinctive  from its’ competitors – this should be where your guardrails go up and the investment in dramatizing the positioning (communications for example) protected.
  4. Don’t be tempted to grow your brand by product category stretch – this is a big risk with questionable returns and could easily result in ‘salami slicing’ your resource, your focus, and your product, sacrificing the core of what your brand stands for bit by bit, slice by slice.

If you’re looking for more insight in diagnosing how your brand is seen today, what the options are for the future and then what to do, do get in touch. We’ll help you resist the temptation to slice the salami ever thinner.

Gael Laurie is Brand Building Director at The Crow Flies, a research, brand strategy and innovation company that helps brands find a direct route to long lasting success. gael@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1889 725670; www.thecrowflies.co.uk; @crowflieshigh.

© The Crow Flies, 2023

Marketing responsibly

“What do you do?”

Having spent virtually my whole career in marketing you would think that when asked this question I would have my answer down to a quick, well, honed response.  Instead, I used to say quite glibly “I make people buy things they don’t really need,” having learnt that trying to explain the ins and outs of what I do often results in polite vacant expressions and conversation soon moving on to another topic.

However, in today’s reality of the cost-of-living crisis coupled with climate breakdown my answer of old isn’t one that sits well with me, nor I imagine an ever-growing number of people, and neither should it. What, then, should be the answer to the real question of “What is marketing?” Or better “How do we do marketing responsibly?”

This isn’t about all brands having to have a “social purpose” – but about brand owners and retailers stepping up to ensure people can close the intention gap between wanting to buy sustainably and the reality of what they actually do or can afford.

As marketeers this is, something we’re adjusting to in the moment – still, here are 5 pointers to how we can be more responsible marketeers.

(1) Mean it. Really mean it. Most of us now agree with the science on human-accelerated climate breakdown and recognise the need to act, at pace and scale. But as a brand you’ve got to mean it. If you’re treating it as a tactic, or just sugar-coating a real lack of sustainable action, or if it’s just a way of sneaking out some new-news to attract some focus, then prepare to reap a poor harvest.

(2) Be honest and realistic about where you are and where you want to be. All companies and brands will be at different stages. Be honest about where you are today and confront the brutal truth about what it will take to change. You’re not alone. From talking to consumers in research two things stand out like sore thumbs.

Firstly, brands that are in catch-up and make a raft of sustainable claims without fully owning them get found out. Are they really substantiated? Are they what consumers want? Are they ownable and leverageable? Do they reinforce the positioning and associations consumers know of you? Rather than being an opportunity, it’ll be wasted effort.

Secondly, people want brands to do. You don’t have to solve the world’s problems in one go and no one is expecting you to. Tell people the journey you’re on, where you’re falling short and what you’re doing about it.

(3) Think of all your stakeholders. Ultimately, brands are created when your different stakeholder groups all know what you’re about. Your 30% plastic packaging reduction might shift the needle a touch, but the real win may be in corporate reputation, or a retailer being more willing to back you over someone who isn’t taking action. And this is important, because your immediate return on a sustainability investment may not add up in the short term – you’re going to have to evaluate it against your long-term brand and commercial goals.

(4) Keep it short, keep it simple, stand out. It’s always sobering, but vital, to remember how little people think about your brand, how little it actually means to them. Shopping is done in autopilot, the focus of attention is elsewhere and the world of sustainability – a complex and confusing soup of claims and strange terms, and sadly, hype – makes it even more difficult. Whatever you do needs to be easy to makes sense of, fast. It needs to be consistent against what consumers already know about you. Declutter your pack. Focus on what’s important. Shout it, don’t whisper it.

(5) It’s about ‘and…’ Again and again in research we’re hearing that people don’t want to have to compromise, be it on product quality, convenience, or their favourite brands unless they really have to. But this isn’t about fitting a round peg into a square hole – the ultimate act of marketing responsibly is to see that being sustainably offers us new ways to deliver what consumers want, but better and with fewer negative impacts…. if we’re willing to embrace the challenge to get there.

The Crow Flies are presenting at the Soil Association Organic Trade Conference on 19th October, including on themes of greenwashing and marketing sustainable products during the cost-of-living crisis. If your brand is facing these challenges, do get in touch.

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Gael Laurie is Brand Building Director of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy and innovation company that helps brands find a direct route to long lasting success.  gael@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1889 725670; www.thecrowflies.co.uk; @crowflieshigh. © The Crow Flies, 2022

Fish where the fish aren’t

Part 2 of our series on innovation. Part 1 here.

There are all sorts of stories about innovation “eureka” moments. That flash of bath time inspiration which led to the inventor re-mortgaging their house to fund the wonder product. Or the entrepreneurs scouring the supermarket aisles looking for tired or dominated categories to disrupt. Stories like this lead the narrative but are incredibly rare and only the successes get recalled. More often, sadly, re-mortgaging the house leads to moving back in with mum and dad.

And it doesn’t reflect the situation that most marketeers face – corporate cultures; byzantine approval processes; complex supply chains; retailers demanding ‘one out, one in’; sales teams wanting to be ‘wowed’; fractional differences in product masquerading as ‘game-changers’ allowing competitors to copy fast.

The question is therefore: where do you look to innovate to increase your chances of success?

Here are five thought starters to consider when framing up projects and shaping the challenges:

Frame your start point
Starting with your consumer base, it’s possible to draw up a robust picture of the market opportunities that are ripe for some new thinking and creativity. Start by defining the territory. What’s important to consumers in your category? What are the big needs that people want fulfilled? What are the over-arching attitudes to the category? What are the ‘rules’ or accepted practises that be challenged or twisted? Which brands already ‘own’ needs? Should we tackle them head on or out-flank them in some way? Disruption comes from understanding the order. Creativity from understanding the constraints.

Framing your start point and clearly mapping the terrain gives you the space to innovate in not just in one campaign, but again and again – the base from which to build a meaningful pipeline of new products or services.

…but be happy to go off-piste a bit too
When you understand the shape of the market, you understand when you’re taking a flyer too. There’s no harm in investigating what may turn out to be cul-de-sacs. By exploring the odd snickets and ginnels of consumer need and desire, you may find a new path to the prize; indeed, you may find a whole new area of opportunity. But stay in control too – you can spend a lot of time with the metaphorical machete cutting through the undergrowth of possibility, only to quickly wear yourself out and lose the alignment and focus of the group.

Improving lives not stealing share
This might sound like it’s stating the obvious but really – really – start with your consumer. Don’t start with your issues. Don’t start with your target. Be mindful of course of your company needs, personal aims and ambitious goals, but if you start from there, you’ll pursue categories that are big and competitive today rather than those that can be big tomorrow and where you can lead not follow. But more than this, if you start with the question of ‘how can I make my customer’s life a little bit better?’ you’re much more likely to come up with ideas that work for them and you. And it is about improving lives: however small, however insignificant you may think it is – that’s your role as brand steward and that’s your responsibility to the category too – to seek ways to expand consumption in meaningful ways, not just slicing the salami ever thinner.

Needs, desires and problems to solve
There’s a whole marketing narrative around digging deeper for insights. Asking ‘why?’ 5 times…and then ending up with an ‘insight’ that is often unusable. There’s a need for balance here. Yes, be curious and ever watchful about why people behave the way they do around our products and why they hold the attitudes they do. But don’t miss the obvious. Don’t miss the opportunities masquerading as itsy-bitsy usage patterns that can drive significant commercial growth. Why isn’t it resealable when the product goes dry? Why aren’t there enough in the pack for two servings each? How do we make it lighter? How we can improve the spout so it pours better? How can we improve the closure so people don’t crack a nail when opening it? How can we show more easily that the product is ready to serve?

Budweiser changed the best before date from a ‘use by’ date (= old) to a ‘born on’ date (= fresh), knowing that beer drinkers want to drink beer as fresh as possible. No change to the packaging other than some letters on the date code. But with some serious investment in consumer comms, brand equity was grown and consumers knew what to look for to check how fresh their beer was.

Finding the trend transitions
It’s human nature to get excited about some fancy name given to three spots of some weird behaviour in Boulder, Colorado. It’s altogether different to identify a pattern of behaviour linking people in Bathgate, Bournemouth, Ballymena and Brecon. And even harder to calculate whether it’s a trend that hasn’t been exploited yet and is going to have consumer traction going forwards. But that’s what you’re after, the transitions from something that’s emerging to something that’s mainstreaming. To fish where the fish aren’t now but will be tomorrow.

 

David Preston is founder of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy and innovation company that helps brands find a direct route to long lasting success.  david@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1889 725670; www.thecrowflies.co.uk; @crowflieshigh.

© The Crow Flies, 2021

Nosey Crows!

The Crows are currently immersed in one of their favourite tasks: looking for data and insight that can lead to some sparkling innovation. Cue deep dive into investigating product launches, product failures, insight reports, virtual shopping and some remote Consumer Connections. Piecing together the parts and testing hypotheses. there’s no doubt: Crows love being nosey!

Get in touch if you’d like to know more about our approaches to building rock solid foundations for innovation or brand building Caw!

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#innovation #research #noseycrows #investigation #curiosity

Leading for innovation

In tough consumer markets, management teams often look to innovation to plug gaps in their plan and grow the top line in new and different ways, never more so as economic downturn threatens. Yet the promises and hype of innovation soon mean that myths & questionable practice can be confused with innovation reality. It’s all too easy to lose sight of the hard yards needed and the challenges to be overcome in the warm, coddling, glow of promises of ‘easy’ business success.

There are no quick fixes, no “hacks”, that guarantee success from innovation. Innovation is betting. You make your bet, you hope your number comes up. On balance, failure is more likely than success…but innovation success isn’t just luck either.  You can influence the odds in your favour.

And the place to start is with leadership.

Leaders play a crucial role putting the preconditions in place that make innovation success more likely. Working across different challenges, we’ve identified 5 innovation leadership success factors:

Words and Behaviours
The desire to innovate has to be more than a grand gesture or a noble wish. It has to be more than one person’s passion, even if that person is the CEO. And it definitely has to be more than words, even if those words are spoken with heart-felt belief. Purpose, strategy, structure, working practices, behaviours, targets… all have to add up, incrementally, to make launching great ideas more inevitable.

  • Invest time on putting solid foundations in place before you leap into resourcing up or creating ideas. Take the time to get everyone, properly, truly aligned and bought-in. This will not happen overnight, and it certainly won’t happen by e-mail the day after a leadership away day.
  • Create a purpose for innovation that flows from the company purpose. In fact, it will be a cornerstone in delivering it. An innovation purpose acts both as a guiding star and guard rails. It should motivate and keep you honest and on track.
  • Be clear on innovation strategy. What do you aim to be, for whom, by when? What are the handful of enablers that can propel you forward or blockers that will hold you back? Address them relentlessly.
  • Structure for innovation. Set aside investment. Set aside time. Set aside people, being clear on what they must deliver versus the responsibilities of everyone else. Recognise that how you measure and incentivise their success may be different to others, as innovation will always have a longer-term focus.
  • Think about working practices; innovators need the space to be creative but the urgency of knowing they must deliver at pace.
  • Be clear on how behaviours will need to differ to allow innovation to flourish versus that of your other marketing teams.

Failure: the fuel of success
Innovation is rarely smooth. There will be bumps in the road and commitment to the cause will wobble. At the moment when a new product or service fails, or when you pull the plug, the whole strategy is put under the microscope. Doubters surface and get vocal. The whispering begins. Quash it. Immediately.

Recognise that failures are the fuel of success. Failures can lead to profound learnings about how to make something a success. This is when your leadership and your strategic alignment to innovation will be tested most – and in many respects it’s the real test of the innovation leadership mettle of the business.

Nothing to something is more than ideas
Of course innovation is about coming up with great ideas. But, thinking about the whole journey from nothing to something, ideas are really just a small part of it. Beanbags and chocolates play a role but are a small part of it. Brainstorms are part of it, but just a small part.

The whole journey is about understanding where to innovate (and why), who for (and why), what (and why), and the how… turning something from an interesting thought, some well-chosen words and beautiful sketch into a prototype and ultimately about committing resources into making that thing happen. Innovation is more than grand gestures. Committing resources isn’t just a creating a new role and allocating some loose change to bring things to life – it could be a new packaging line – and they don’t come cheap and they don’t come without absolute commitment to the cause.

Rhythm and routine
In innovation, increasing your chances of success means establishing a rhythm and routine in creating new concepts. If you lose a bet you have another chip to place. If your big bet doesn’t pay off today, you have another for tomorrow and the day after. Success in innovation comes through quality and quantity. Success comes through having ideas, concepts and prototypes all along the innovation journey. Getting the business into a rhythm and routine creates confidence. Spotting insights, creating ideas, developing concepts, validating with consumers, launching, learning and going-again. And again. Accruing learning. Building competence. Building some swagger.

Process and chaos; loose and tight
Innovation needs process but not to be strangled by it. It needs discipline, but the space to break some rules. It needs fag-packet calculations and 5-year NPVs. It’s the constant tension between process and chaos that allows innovation to thrive. Too much process and you will stifle creativity and execution. Too much chaos and you risk throwing darts at a dartboard backhand whilst facing the wrong way. You may hit the bullseye, but the chances are slim and you won’t know how to repeat it. It’s the recognition that innovation is a dance between looseness and tightness that makes the chances of success more likely. Innovation needs flexible guidance, not dogmatic rules.

All this, and not one idea created yet. That’s innovation for you. The success is in the hard-yards that few people give you credit for. It’s in the foundations for the house that are never seen. But without them, the glorious palace comes tumbling down. Innovation leadership, strategy and culture. Without them, the odds are against you.

 

David Preston is founder of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy and innovation company that helps brands find a direct route to long lasting success.  david@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1889 725670; www.thecrowflies.co.uk; @crowflieshigh

Success for Whitworths

It’s always great when work that impacts the market gets recognised and one of The Crow Flies long-standing clients, Whitworths, has had just that. We’re delighted to have played our part in the wider team that helped turnaround the Whitworths brand – we’ve partnered with them on research, strategy, innovation and planning . Read more about it in the Telegraph (below).

This was a great example of brand building – a team effort working with great partners (a big call out to Springett’s and Chapter), consistent focus on consumer and commercial insights, and then making some tough choices to free up the space, time and resources to impact the market.

If you’d like to chat to us about your brand building challenge, be it strategy, research, innovation or brand planning, we’d love to talk. And well done to Big Phil and the team at Whitworths!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/business-club/consumer-retail/whitworths-brand-repositioning/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_li

The problems with ‘Pipelines’

As trading environments intensifies, slows or tightens, so the pressure to focus more energy, investment and time onto innovation and its lustrous promise inevitably grow. And what signals healthy innovation plans more than a pipeline – packed to the gunnels with new product, packaging or brand ideas; some ready to go, some looser, meeting an unmet need a couple of years from now, others, little more than outline thoughts about the art of the possible, off in the distance.

Yet innovation failure rates are increasing – and the push for ‘the pipeline’ is part of the issue.

To be clear, a well-stocked catalogue of NPD or renovation projects has clear advantages. For the leadership and the staff in the business, it’s engaging, exciting and gives confidence that new-news is coming through. For the brand teams, it is a demonstrable indicator that their charges are in good health. For others, there’s the ‘value’ of the pipeline: the financial projections for the money it will it deliver over the life of the plan: what can I report to the Board? What can I tell the analysts?

But innovation pipelines create false confidence.

First, there are the behavioural issues. The innovation team bust their guts to identify insights, ideate, develop concepts, validate and test. Strong, consumer-led projects are phased in to cover the next few years. The pipeline is filled with its innovation ‘oil’.

And what draws the eyes of the decision makers? Not the project for next year. Nor the one for 18 months out. No, it’s the “game changer”, slated for 4 years away. It is way more exciting. So the process of wrangling and re-analysing takes place; previous agreements are disregarded and the silver bullet is pulled forward. “Stage & Gate” processes are cast aside; project managers gently cough and look away as hitherto unassailable Sales & Operational Planning red lines are politely worked around.  Ignore the additional technical risks; ignore the dislocation to other activities – the biggest, shiniest jewel wins through. And…. it’s quite possibly the right call (at least if it can be delivered safely). If something is motivating the business; if something excites a buyer, then major hurdles are already overcome.

Next, there’s the question of resource deployment. Pipeline thinking means salami slicing and prioritisation. Prioritisation sounds good, but with innovation it’s not what’s really needed. What’s needed is sacrifice. Pipeline thinking is built on allocation of resource, right throughout the chain – teams being briefed on 40% of their time here, 30% there, 20% further out and 10% for fire-fighting; same for investment. Not only is this allocation approach never realistic, more fundamentally it stops the discussion around elimination. Let’s not do this activity at all. Let’s put 0% effort into it. Let’s spend nothing on it. It’s not that it’s a bad idea; in fact it could have lots of possibilities, but this one could be a real disruptor. Big bets – not salami slicing is what’s needed – after all, it’s big bets that smaller, more nimble market entrants and future competitors will be making – they have no other choice than to be bold and single-minded.

Pipelines for CrowsAnd then there’s the tyranny of choice. It sounds counter-intuitive, but the issue for innovation currently is generating too much choice. Think about a typical supermarket today. Do you really want more choice? What we need are better choices. Pipelines drive quantity. What’s needed is quality. Single-minded ideas that meet desires and needs better. That establish a brand’s positioning more powerfully. Simple solutions to the simple problems that so often we ignore or miss in our closeness to our categories.

A pipeline, after all, is a metaphor for continuous flow and supply. That’s not needed for ideas. That’s needed more for insights: finding those illusive springboards to growth. Yet so often, the process of insighting is compartmentalised: ‘we’ll do accompanied shops once a quarter’; ‘we’ll have stimulus sessions twice a year’.  And yes, you can get some useful outputs from it, but essentially insight development is emergent. It is always on: being curious; poking around; asking questions. That’s where a pipeline is needed.

If insight needs a pipeline, innovation needs a refinery: a factory where ideas are refined. A place where focus is given to the raw materials you have at your disposal. A place where you choose to make different products suitable for your needs. At some point with innovation, you need to get everyone round the table, everyone who has skin in the game, distil the ideas you have and thrash stuff out. Make calls. Kill ideas. Not prioritise. Not fill a pipeline – eliminate. Ask: what are we going to back here?  What’s good, but not good enough? What’s risky – or stretching – but could change the rules for the category?

If you can credibly bring more than one ideas to market, plan them based on when you can actually get them to market not on some hypothetical timing. Build in some red lines. Avoid the false confidence.  Step back and look at the world as a consumer sees it. We’re seeing the outputs of pipelines polluting categories in a slick of OK product choices. It’s time to stop. Build a refinery and make big, bold bets on the real problems your consumers face day to day.

 

David Preston is founder of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy and innovation company that helps brands build foundations of stone.  david@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1889 725670.   You can follow The Crow Flies on Linked In (http://www.linkedin.com/company/the-crow-flies-ltd?trk=company_name), on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/thecrowfliesltd). 

© The Crow Flies, 2017