FROM IDEA TO REALITY: How LAUNCH Innovation helped Persona bring some timely new products to markets

It was March 2020. Our bags were packed, and my partner and I we were on our way out to the West Coast to conduct an innovation workshop through our sister agency, LAUNCH Innovation, for Persona Nutrition. And then, everything stopped.

Literally, overnight, we had to transition from conducting a highly interactive 5-hour in-person workshop we'd prepared for with R&D, Innovation, Marketing and Sales teams, to doing it all virtually. Needless to say, we did it -- and the final results are in market, and we couldn't be prouder!

As part of our strategic partnership with LONZA Consumer Health & Nutrition, we were able to facilitate a highly engaging session that produced almost 100 new innovative product ideas for Persona Nutrition, a direct-to-consumer brand that personalizes daily vitamin supplements through a team of trained nutritionists and scientists -- really amazing products!

Fast forward a year, and three of the products we co-created have been launched into market -- man, that's fast! Kudos to Persona and LONZA for bringing the ideas to life, and fast-tracking to make this possible.

One of the products is IMMUNE BOOST
Immune boost powder combines the power of ResistAid (a LONZA ingredient) and vitamin C to offer triple action immune support that is more effective than vitamin C alone. ResistAid is a natural type of prebiotic fiber sustainably sourced from Minnesota larch trees. It works by supporting the good bacteria in your gut for a stronger, more resilient immune system. 

And the other, BEAUTY SLEEP & BEAUTY WAKE
Beauty Wake helps maintain health from the inside out. It's a small translucent pink capsule that consists of horsetail extract, magnesium and floating hyaluronic acid, along with other ingredients for energy support.

The Beauty Sleep supplement contains ingredients to help promote a more stress-free state. This formula contains collagen, horsetail extract, magnesium, floating hyaluronic acid and L-theanine, and is a complementary supplement to the Wake formula.

For starters, these are great products for immune health and beauty from the inside-out. Not only are they "instagrammable", but they're efficacious and very much needed these days -- we highly recommend.

The Missing Links of Customer Intelligence - Part One

Market research had its 100th birthday in 2020!  In that year, a fellow named Daniel Starch had a breakthrough moment. He realized that, in order to be worth the money, advertising had to be seen, noted, understood, and most importantly acted upon. He came up with the idea of what we today call “creative testing” as a way of measuring the effectiveness of ads in newspapers and magazines.

In the 1930’s, George Gallup invented public opinion polling. His big breakthrough was that you could use a small sample of respondents and project those findings to larger populations. The Gallup Poll became a pop culture phenomenon that influenced politics, entertainment, and even the library choices of the Book of the Month Club; not to mention the polling we do today.

In the 1950’s, Ernest Dichter pioneered the concept of motivational research. A decade later, Paul Green added conjoint analysis to the mix. In the 1970’s, half a century ago, Jerry Yoram Wind and Richard Cardozo came up with the notion of using different messaging to target differentiated segments of consumers; and the practice of customer segmentation was born. 

So, in the thirty years or so between Daniel Starch and segmentation, the fundamental research structures we still use a half century later were pretty much in place. Certainly other tweaks and layers have been added since; the most significant of which has been the most recent harnessing of Artificial Intelligence to the task of data analysis. We can now process columns and rows with blinding speed and with unimaginable capabilities for discerning patterns through algorithms; and therein lies the dilemma.

Simply put, the more sophisticated and powerful the data processing technology becomes, the more it calls into question the nature of the data being collected. In what other part of your life would you intentionally apply a hundred-year-old way of thinking to make the best use of the latest technology? 

The time has come to completely rethink the dimensions of what is being fed into the wondrous analytic engines of today. Starch, Gallup, et al, designed their intake mechanisms around the calculating capacities of their day – adding machines, mechanical calculators, and rudimentary punch-card processors. What questions they asked, and how they were asked, had to be conformed to, and were therefore limited by, those limitations.

We can do better. More on that in Part Two of this series – What Are The Missing Links of Customer Intelligence?

You Need Innovation Now More Than Ever

Innovation is the foundation of economic growth and prosperity for any business, and any industry. Without a key focus on the means one can innovate, it’s virtually impossible to stay competitive and attract the right audiences.

Consumers change their behavior, sometimes rapidly. The market is quick to follow these changes and rewards those who hold their ear to the ground, ready to hop on trends. But in some cases, it’s the business that establishes the trend, and the consumer and market follows.

And this is done through innovation. Though deeply grounded in consumer and market behavior, innovation always comes with an outlook for the future, sometimes looking 3 or even 5 years ahead.

Here are 4 reasons why innovation is important now more than ever, considering the effects of the global Covid-19 pandemic and economic turmoil that could follow.

1. Allows Room to Grow and Improve

Innovation gives businesses enough room for continuous improvement across several different internal operations, but also when it comes to the quality of the products and services they provide.

This, in turn, gives a sense of sustainability to the business and places more value on creativity and out of the box thinking, which could come quite in handy in difficult moments such as the pandemic, when you need creative thinking to adapt operations.

2. Reinforces the Brand

Innovation can often help with brand recognition, as consumers can easily spot which player is shaking up the game. When it comes to your branding efforts, nothing supports this strategy more than being at the forefront of the competition.

3. Allows You to Leverage Opportunities

When you have a dedicated team tasked with business innovation, part of their job will involve identifying market trends, and establishing which are beneficial to the company, and which are not. This can ensure you don’t miss out on some rather important growth opportunities.

4. Receive More Public Recognition

Again, innovation allows businesses to set themselves apart from competitors, which the public will notice, especially if you leverage tools such as social media to spread the news.

This can be especially effective if you innovate in areas that your target audience either expects you to or implement changes they want to see.

For instance, growing interest in modern lifestyle challenges such as mood health, or global issues such as environmental-sustainability, gives businesses enough motivation to find new ways to innovate their offerings. This news could have the potential of strengthening your relationship with an established audience and attract a new one.

Over to You

Innovation cannot be excluded from a businesses’ focus points, especially now that the market is experiencing higher levels of volatility. It’s important to dedicate sufficient thought and effort into improving products, services, and operations, and not just try to advertise more aggressively.

Good thing we introduced LAUNCH Innovation, our sister agency, dedicated to helping you with all of the above. Don’t hesitate to reach out for more information about how we can help.