The word “innovative” is one of the most coveted labels in the business world. There are degrees of innovation when it comes to product, packaging, processes, etc. throughout a food business. It can help to think about your innovation pipeline like a portfolio with some short-term and some longer-term plays.
With an unprecedented ability to discover and buy brands from around the country and even the world, consumers are looking for something new. Something fresh. Something that will make their lives better. It doesn’t mean loyalty is dead, it just means you have to work harder to gain that trust as you build your brand equity, so that as you grow and expand your customers will trust you to deliver additional products to meet their needs.
As a food brand, it is absolutely critical to continue to understand the problems, wants and needs your consumers face and bring solutions to market to meet those wants and needs.
Thinking innovatively is not just being creative. It’s about really understanding your consumer, asking challenging questions about their lifestyle, pain points, emotions and how they solve their problems today. Then you list all the ways you can solve those problems better, or differently.
In this episode, Ryan Pintado-Vertner of Smoketown, LLC explains how to start innovating by keeping your focus on your customers. Using the practice of Design Thinking, you look at your existing customers and find areas where they are unsatisfied or unhappy. Find the problems your customers have that you can solve either via your current brand and capabilities, or possibly a new brand.
Using the techniques we cover in this episode, you give yourself a framework in which to innovate. Plus, we’ll focus on how to lever the Design Thinking process in more depth on an upcoming episode.
By creating new ways to solve the existing problems of your customers, you can build satisfaction and loyalty among your core audience, while also drawing in new customers who see the value in what your brand has to offer.
In This Episode:
- Why building an innovation pipeline is so crucial for food brands
- How food businesses can build their own innovation pipelines
- How to create empathy for your customers
- How to balance short-term wins with longer term disruptive innovation
- Why you should focus on solving problems for your customers
Quotes:
“Innovation strengthens a brand’s position with the retailers it sells through. Brands have to be better at innovation than the retailer to show value.” — @rpv
“Innovation demonstrates over and over again in multiple ways the kind of value it can add in a consumer’s life. In doing that, it creates a place in the consumer’s mind that gives the brand equity and permission to go in new directions.” — @rpv
“The idea of being able to disrupt yourself is a big asset.”— @rpv
“Innovation is a process, not a skill.” — @rpv
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