Innovation Speed Dating at Kimberly-Clark
Kimberly-Clark recently used an innovative approach to market research called Rapid Innovation Sessions (RIS) to create, design and evaluate innovation ideas. This technique incorporates several rounds of consumer feedback for fast iterative prototyping on products, concepts and packaging. Observers abandon the backroom and engage with consumers directly -- think "speed dating" with ideas."It was critical to move away from the typical sequential and siloed approach to innovation and focus on parallel-stepped, full team innovation," says Andrew Meurer, vice president of Adult & Feminine Care at Kimberly-Clark.
With RIS, approximately 67 new product ideas were evaluated, refined and designed by about 300 consumers over three weeks. The project team evaluates the resulting ideas for fit with brand strategies and quantitatively tests them for business viability via BASES SnapShot from The Nielsen Company. Here, Meurer details the RIS process in four steps:
Step 1
Idea Screening: To avoid "garbage in = garbage out", the project team screens many ideas through online qualitative research before working with consumers face to face. By conducting the research online, they can gain a quick, iterative national sampling of consumers.
Step 2
Preparation & Training: Beyond the usual logistics of finding a room, screening consumers and creating a discussion guide, the team must create both the initial stimulus (concept boards, packaging and product mock-ups) and create the prototyping and packaging design infrastructure to enable rapid iteration. Because the team interacts with consumers face to face, training on the do's and don'ts of interviewing and how to capture the consumer's experience (not just what they are saying, but their body language, and other non-verbal cues) is required to get the most out of the team's interactions with consumers.
Step 3
Conducting the Session: Consumers are brought into the room, briefed on how the process will work and each person chooses a station to start. A team member manning each "idea station" introduces the idea and exposes the consumer to the concept, product mock-up or package illustration. For 10 minutes, the consumer and idea owner discuss the idea, while a note taker who is paired up with the consumer collects the feedback. After 10 minutes have passed, the consumer rotates to the next station, and the process begins anew. After the consumer visits all stations, final feedback is collected and the consumers are dismissed. Then, a team of designers and engineers update, adjust or create new product mock-ups/illustrations, package designs and written concepts based on consumer feedback. That way, by the time the next group of consumers shows up a few hours later, the stimulus is already improved.
Step 4
The Final Evaluation: After completing four iterations with consumers, the team regroups to discuss the plight of each idea. The ideas working well with consumers are deemed ready to be evaluated inBASES SnapShot. For others, the idea is killed or shelved.
For some ideas that had been tested previously, significant improvements were realized pre-session versus post-session. For instance, one concept saw purchase intent jump from 30 percent to 46 percent and a 43 percent jump in volume projections.
"This process was critical to advancing the pace and size of innovation within Kimberly-Clark," says Meurer.
Words of Wisdom:"By delegating consumer interaction responsibility to the entire cross-functional team, it allows everyone to align and calibrate on the target consumer."-- Andrew Meurer, Vice President of Adult & Feminine Care, Kimberly-Clark
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Company at a Glance
Insights gained from customers, shoppers and users drive Kimberly-Clark to continuously explore ways to increase speed to market with new-to-the-world essential solutions, like Huggies Pure & Natural diapers and U by Kotex.
Rapid Innovation Sessions
Kimberly-Clark's innovative approach to market research incorporates several rounds of consumer face-to-face feedback (room layout pictured above) and advances unrefined ideas into full concepts in just two to three months.