Innovation

New innovation launch for Pieminister: Handy Pies

Whoop! Here’s another amazing *new* innovation from our pie-fectly formed friends at Pieminister and lovely to have played a small part in developing the idea and getting them to market.

It’s time to dump the lunchtime soggy sandwich, sad slice or joyless wrap and feast on these handily handheld, deep filled, and seriously delicious Handy Pies.

There are four delicious flavours including a veggie and vegan option and they’re piefect to eat hot or cold.

Available in Ocado right now, Tesco to come very soon!

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Links:

Pieminister webpage

Pieminister insta

New innovation launch for Florette: Gourmet Slaws

We loved working with the green-fingered team at Florette UK&I on the idea generation and concept development for the new Gourmet Slaw range, launching today in Sainsbury’s, and next month in Tesco, Booths (and more to follow).

The insight revealed a simple unmet need: people like coleslaw but get frustrated that too often, they’re pretty bland and often slathered in cheap mock-mayonnaise.

Not these: three flavours; fresh ingredients… ready to make or complete any meal, from a light lunch to a tasty dinner. So cawsome, they’re slawsome!
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If you’re looking to develop new products so good they should be against the s-law, get in touch!

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) 1283 295100

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Link to Helen’s article is also here.
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Crow Chronicle, Autumn 2023

Yes, those bikini clad days are now a receding memory. The warm evenings sipping a Piña Colada with crunchy worm wafer are – alas – gone for another year. But the upside is that Crow has been busy, busy. It’s interesting how tough times have really underlined the critical importance of innovation to businesses – not just to grow the top line, but also to refresh, revitalise and reinforce precious brand assets.

So here are a few thoughts on overcoming common innovation mistakes to help set you on a straight path to long-lasting brand success. As always, pull up a chair, pop some twig topped bread into the toaster, then smear on a generous dollop of crunchy worm butter because, yes, it’s here, it’s the Crow Chronicle Autumn 2023!

OUT OF THE PARK!!

What a great way to end the week for us Crows! Working together with a very lovely Crow client Friend, we’ve just learnt that of the 6 concepts that went into volumetric testing with NielsenIQ BASES, we’ve scored 6 out of 6! We had 3 ‘targeted plays’, 2 x ‘Brand Growers’ and 1 x SUPERSTAR! Boom!

We’re now off for a well-earned bag of weekend Worm Treats and a pint of cold and frothy Twig Brew, but if you need some winning NPD, get in touch! (Hey! On Monday – that Twig Brew is calling… caw@thecrowflies.co.uk)

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#innovation #success #NPD #homerun

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) 1283 295100; 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) 1283 295100; www.thecrowflies.co.uk; @crowflieshigh

Time For Action

Pull your brand through isolation and come out stronger

These are distressing times, unprecedented times and times when the needs of the community and those most vulnerable in it rightly have to be placed above those of businesses. Nothing supersedes this. For marketeers and brands however, this adversity presents opportunities to get brand and marketing plans in the best shape they’ve ever been. Planning can’t be rushed but that’s invariably what marketeers are asked to do. Few if any marketing teams are given enough time to develop, refine and sell their plans.

Proper time. Not the snatched moments between the multiple distractions of corporate office life. Planning sessions are squeezed in when a calendar gap allows. Instead, the focus becomes getting plans done, getting them sold in. It’s little wonder there are gaps and inconsistencies. It’s little wonder that there are different agendas pushing the brand in different directions post ‘sign-off’. We see six common issues:

Not all consumers or even business stakeholders fully understand the brand or really get behind it
There are too many different views on what the brand stands for and how it should be behaving
Plan activities spring out of nowhere. Ideas get their boots on before strategy has woken up
The plan tries to tick every box (& can’t). Everyone’s been appeased but the brand makes no impact
Different agendas. Plans are derailed by a lack of shared unity on the strategy or the focus of activities

For brand owners, the commercial world slowing from its usual pace means that there is a rare opportunity to stop the fire-fighting and get deep and strong brand foundations in place. Foundations, that link powerful insights to purposeful activation, focusing energy on activities that genuinely impact the consumer instead of endlessly discussing and tweaking.

Home working and isolation are a potential liberator. Working this way is more efficient and effective. It creates the time for you to delve into and reflect on the category, and to properly plot your competitive strategy and review your brand positioning. It frees precious time to get closer to your target audience, to review & refine your consumer segmentation or even test innovation concepts (research is alive and well incidentally, and consumers who would otherwise be unavailable or harder to recruit suddenly are more open to spending some time with you).

Don’t miss this opportunity, use it wisely and you’ll never look back:

Spend time understanding your consumers: don’t just re-read an aging insight report. Immerse yourself in their world, properly understand them, talk to them. Pinpoint your target audience, prioritise their needs and place irrefutable insight at the heart of your strategy.
Review your positioning: do consumers, customers, stakeholders and colleagues truly have a shared understanding of the brand, what it delivers & how it delivers it? Is it powerful, consistent and differentiated? If it isn’t, now is the time to make changes.
Create a brand plan that stands up to challenge: are the key insights clear? Do they run like a vein of gold all the way through to actions? Do they confront the brutal truths or address the differentiating opportunities? Look at what you’re planning: are you ‘salami slicing’ and investing too little in too many activities? Have you forced sacrifice to execute with scale?
Get innovative: you’ve finally got time to be creative, do so. You don’t need to be in groups to come up with ideas. Time to reflect is stimulus in its own right. Idea generation sessions can be held digitally, innovation frameworks can be agreed to focus efforts on areas with the greatest commercial scope, ideas can be tested, refined and prepared for launch.
Build the big sell: an insight is nothing if it doesn’t grab people. A strategy is nothing if it doesn’t create action. Innovation is nothing if you can’t bring the ideas to life. A brand plan is nothing if it doesn’t inspire. Focus time on creating the tools that will sell your brand and your plan not only to customers but also internally, to stakeholders and sales teams. Buy in is everything, don’t leave it as an after-thought.

When we all return to offices and ‘normality’ you don’t have to return to a culture of justification and endless debate, you can return with a brand and business strategy that unites, inspires and frees you to focus your efforts on delivering it. It may feel odd to say it, but there’s rarely been a better opportunity to set up your brand with foundations of stone as good as this. Grab it.

Thanks for reading and stay fit & healthy

David, Rob and the Crow team