• Purple and white water bottle with lemon slice and ice, turquoise jump rope, cork yoga block

    Mapping category territories to identify innovation opportunities

    Looking to innovate and launch a new drink, IFF wanted to understand the emotional and functional needs that hydration meets. Research was needed to identify hydration territories, test brand perceptions and identify potential areas of unmet needs for new product development. 

    Through a three-day digital taskforce, participants completed word associations, created video diaries, designed mood boards, and even developed their own hydration products. Follow-up discussion groups revealed the deeper territories that hydration occupies in people's lives—from performance enhancement to self-care rituals, from cultural traditions to personal empowerment.

    What emerged wasn't just functional need fulfilment, but a complex emotional ecosystem where hydration represents everything from achievement and recovery to comfort and connection

    The comprehensive insights enabled IFF to understand their market positioning and identify genuine opportunities for new product development, ensuring their innovation would resonate with the authentic emotional and functional needs of diverse consumer communities.

  • Frozen food products in a supermarket; includes trays of ready meals and McCain brand fries packaging.

    Establishing brand stretch: mapping shopper behaviours

    McCain dominate in frozen potato but are strangers in the chilled aisle. How do shoppers navigate this different territory, and where could McCain establish their foothold to increase market share?

    We deployed a multi-method approach: an online survey, intercepts and observations across UK supermarkets, and face-to-face focus groups to test new product concepts. What seemed like straightforward category research revealed the complex mental maps shoppers use to navigate unfamiliar grocery categories.

    Our insight demonstrated that chilled and frozen potatoes exist in entirely different psychological spaces for consumers—different occasions, different expectations, different decision-making processes. Success in chilled wouldn't come from simply translating frozen expertise, but from understanding a completely different consumer mindset.

    Our insights equipped McCain with the strategic understanding needed to authentically enter the chilled category, supporting new product development that would resonate with shoppers' existing navigation patterns and purchasing behaviours.

  • Pouring hot water into a teacup with tea leaves, next to a decorative teapot and another teacup with Asian calligraphy.

    Disrupting daily routines: innovation in tea

    Our client was looking to launch a new tea related product to market and wanted to establish consumer appetite for the product.

    Our client had a new tea concept, but before exploring consumer appetite, we recognised that tea isn't just a beverage, it's a ritual woven into the fabric of British daily life with deep cultural and personal significance.

    We began by mapping the sacred routine of tea: how people make it, the choice between bags and loose leaves, the timing of consumption, and the emotional roles different types fulfil. Only after understanding these intimate rituals did we introduce the client's concept.

    The research revealed that tea consumption follows deeply ingrained patterns of comfort, energy, and social connection. Each person's relationship with tea told a story of heritage, habit, and personal meaning that any new product would need to honour rather than disrupt.

    Our insights enabled the client to position their new product within existing tea ceremonies, developing design and messaging that respected established rituals while offering genuine enhancement to consumers' daily tea experiences.