IN A NUTSHELL
type
multinational company
length / size
2 weeks from brief to wrap-up
7 people on client side
scope
BENELUX
INNOVATION
ideation & concept
partners
creative team (advertising agency)
Thanks to its ideation and concept development methodologies, beez helped Coca-Cola fill Chaudfontaine‘s innovation funnel and identify new consumer products that were launched 18 months later.
Chaudfontaine has been a leading mineral water brand in Belgium since 1924. In 2003, the Coca-Cola Company bought the Mineral Water Company of Chaudfontaine. The water source comes from the eponymous commune – Chaudfontaine – located in the province of Liège (Walloon Region).
Distributed exclusively via retail channels before 2003, Chaudfontaine is more and more present in the Horeca sector (e.g., hotels, restaurants, and cafés). It is also supplied in Coca-Cola‘s vending machines across Benelux. As a result, just by expanding its sales channels, Chaudfontaine doubled its turnover.
In March 2018, following his appointment as New Growth & Commercial Senior Manager, Thomas Oth contacted beez to identify new venues of growth and fill Chaudfontaine‘s innovation funnel. He was looking for new sources of growth for its water brand in the context of the sugar backlash and a consumers’ aspirations for healthier lifestyles.
beez proposed to go straight into the ‘create’ phase, as beez had already conducted a full reframe of Chaudfontaine in 2015. The latter included:
- a brand positioning audit,
- data-informed consumer personas, and
- insight platforms.
Create
beez first sought and booked an inspiring venue outside Brussels to organise a 3-day hackathon. On 4-6 April 2018, seven managers came together from different company departments: marketing professionals from Belgium and The Netherlands, consumer & market insights specialists as well as R&D people.
Prior to the hackathon, a pre-reading document ensured all participants were equally informed on the subject and inspired to engage actively in upcoming discussions (as we know from neuroscience that the brain starts processing the information)
- On Day 1, the team went through several divergence – creative & explorative – sessions.
Participants brainstormed on the basis of different data briefs:- consumer profiles (personas),
- communication platform,
- consumer need states
- consumer consumption moments and
- consumer trends.
The day ended with a convergence session. The participants jointly evaluated and selected ideas against a pre-defined evaluation matrix. Day 1 closed with 16 new ideas.
- On Day 1, the team went through several divergence – creative & explorative – sessions.
- On Day 2, a creative team – copy and designer – from an advertising agency joined the team to provide support in writing up and visualising the different concept routes.
Deeper exploration of the pre-identified ideas from Day 1 led to improved consumer insights and innovative value propositions, as well as new ideas in terms of sales channels, packaging, and formulation (recipe).
To help the team approach innovation more comprehensively, new ideas were structured into concept matrixes. Day 2 ended with 18 concept routes organised in consistent concept matrices that one could visualise thanks to moodboards and packaging roughs. - On Day 3, the team evaluated the feasibility of these 18 concept routes with the support of a feasibility & capability matrix. The team then built Chaudfontaine‘s innovation funnel for the next four years by distributing the 18 routes based on feasibility.
Day 3 ended with the decision to test quantitatively 13 concept routes with consumers in Belgium and The Netherlands.
- On Day 2, a creative team – copy and designer – from an advertising agency joined the team to provide support in writing up and visualising the different concept routes.
Outcome
The next day, beez compiled and sent a comprehensive wrap-up to the marketing and innovation teams. Out of the initial 13 that came out of the hackathon, the company board selected 3 concept routes to be further developed in XXXX. In the first quarter of 2019, Chaudfontaine launched its new products on the Benelux market.
