Challenge
Activia by Danone is a leading yogurt brand sold in over 70 countries worldwide, but Danone felt that it wasn’t performing to its full potential.
Danone was looking at significantly changing its Activia proposition to create the ultimate cereal yogurt, in order for the brand to achieve growth and leadership in both established and new markets.
The Activia Global Strategy & Insights team had been working for 18 months on developing a yoghurt and cereal product to take advantage of a healthy breakfast moment amongst active and health-conscious women, but was not satisfied with the results. They were now under pressure to find a breakthrough innovation quickly.
“Can you help us find a breakthrough innovation in under two weeks?” was the question that the Danone Activia Global Strategy & Insights team put to Kantar.
Approach
Seven, an innovation approach that ensures new ideas are grounded in real consumer insights, was used to address Danone’s challenge. Its promise is to deliver high-quality, validated concepts in just seven working days – a process which typically takes several months.
As part of our Seven approach, we explored the strategic territories where growth opportunities for Activia existed, and prioritised the key insights to be explored in ideation.
Insight
Previous research had identified the strategic territories where growth opportunities for Activia existed among its target audience of modern, health-conscious women. Three key insights in alignment with the brand’s strategy were prioritised.
These insights were translated into a co-creation contest, which was posted to a global community of over 325,000 creators across the world. Over 50 new ideas were generated by the crowd over a weekend, covering flavour, taste, texture, packaging, benefits, and more.
The best ideas were then selected, refined and developed into five fully-fledged concepts ready to be tested quantitatively among Activia's target audience in the USA – a key market for the brand in terms of growth potential.
An existing concept, which had been developed by another agency for Danone, was also tested and used as a benchmark.
Impact
Not just one, but two of the five concepts outperformed the benchmark on several key parameters (trial, purchase intention, uniqueness, relevance, price perception).
Danone found these results incredibly encouraging, considering these concepts were created in just seven days, while the benchmark had been in development for 18 months.