How Innovation Fuels Fmcg Industry

By Author: Alice Coope
Total Articles: 213
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According to Mr. Gary Hamel, Chairman, Strategos “There is no way to create wealth without ideas. Most new ideas are created by newcomers”. Ideas that originate from employees provide an unlimited source of competitive edge and value by companies and are leveraged as incremental improvements and strategic innovations. Strategic innovations cover aspects such as business model innovation, radical innovation also termed as the Big “I”nnovation.

Market research highlights that leading FMCG brands today are making the most of strategic innovation by sourcing out ideas and creative thoughts from consumers. The reason for this exhaustive idea management tactics is to attain higher brand recall value and develop better consumer connect.

FMCG brands such as Frito Lays and Procter and Gamble (P&G) have realized that their target consumers are the storehouse of thoughts and ideas. When streamlined well they can work wonders in offering a revolutionary growth or a survival strategy for the company. FMCG companies are capitalizing on “consumer ideation” through open contests ...
... and idea submissions.

Frito Lays, the food division of Pepsi Co. Holdings, India, went in for mass idea capture by welcoming consumers to contribute potato chips flavors with imaginative names to go with it. Remember, the commercials during the World Cup and prior to that, where Lays welcomed chip’s flavor/ names from its target audience. This competition made consumers from all over the world mail in their flavors expecting to win a flavor to their name and credit. The outcome was overwhelming, as the campaigns gained press coverage’s worth millions. Furthermore, the brand was successful in its objective of establishing deep consumer connect.

Idea management and innovation has acquired a greater dimension over the years and jotting down points in pen and paper are things of the past. This aim to foster a culture of innovation and knowledge sharing helps a company to enhance its brand value and loyalty. Simultaneously, it enables in resolving crisis and boost sales.

FMCG major Procter and Gamble (P&G) faced the problem of faulty packaging in laundry detergents being sold in the European markets. To solve this issue, the brand resorted to crowdsourcing (outsourcing the task to a distributed group) and identified an open innovation service provider named NineSigma for a solution.  NineSigma forwarded this issue to its “solvers network” and sent a “request-for-proposal” to candidates welcoming their ideas. Finally, the solution came from a mediocre Britain based company involved in agricultural concentrates like pesticides and herbicides. The solution was suitable for P&G’s detergent products.

Sometimes brands use creative ideas, welcoming audience participation purely as a PR initiative, to keep the brand name in immediate recall. In such cases, brands capitalize on the “feel good” factor that they give to the consumers. Dove soap, is welcoming its users to post their photographs on their website, if they feel a noticeable glowing change in their skin tone after using the soap. The company also said that it’s going to choose the next Dove face from this set of photographs. The objective here is to enhance sales and in the audience a “feel good factor” of being the face of a leading personal care brand.

Idea management is an evolved version of the famous “suggestion box” concept. The objective is to harness the full power and potential of employee and consumer creativity and motivate them to share suggestions. FMCG brands today have realized that the modern day consumer comes with his set of viewpoints and opinions on a product. When these creative inputs are streamlined using innovative idea management solutions a brand can achieve competitive edge over other market players.

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