Sparking that Innovation Mindset

As insight professionals, we bridge the gap between data and decision-making. Our ability to understand consumer behavior, market trends, and the competitive landscape is vital, but today’s fast-paced business world requires more. Insight professionals are no longer just answering “What’s happening?”— we also need to uncover the “so what” and provide actionable insights that fuel decisions.

This article explores the mindset that leading innovators adopt in their work and how we, as insights professionals, can apply them to help drive innovation.

1. Cross Pollinating Concepts

Innovators bring together ideas from different fields to create new perspectives. This ability to connect unrelated ideas from diverse industries, coupled with experience in many categories, is often the key to breakthrough insights.

Case Study: Infusing the world of Beauty into Homecare
While working on the Comfort Supersensorial SEA Innovation, I noticed an untapped opportunity to blend the world of Beauty with Homecare. Coming from a background in beauty at Estée Lauder, I understood how luxurious fragrances and sensorial experiences can elevate a product offer and helped bring these same ideas into the Fabric Care space.

By borrowing from the beauty industry’s cues on long-lasting fragrance, the team did a 360 degree repositioning of Comfort from a functional laundry product into a sensorial experience. The pack design was transformed to mimic a high-end offer, the product was reformulated to have encapsulated technology, and experiential claims like “fragrance that lingers” were introduced - terms usually associated with parfum.

This shift transformed our otherwise mundane product into a premium experience for the home — connecting the worlds of beauty and homecare in a way consumers found exciting and appealing. The outcome was a Supersensorial offer that commanded a 125 price index to the Core and a premium range that soon equaled the market share of the Basic range.

How to Apply:

Look beyond your own industry and think about how innovations from other sectors could be. Foster cross-industry sessions, encouraging teams to draw connections between seemingly unrelated fields.

2. Disrupting the Default

Great innovators challenge assumptions and question the status quo. They ask tough questions, challenge existing assumptions, and approach problems from new angles. This behavior is key to unlocking fresh opportunities and solving complex problems.

Case Study: Ayala Land’s Redefinition of Urban Living

(in collaboration with Melissa Schmidiger, former Ayala Marketing Head) 

Ayala Land, a leading real estate developer in the Philippines, demonstrated how challenging assumptions can lead to innovative solutions with their Serendra project. Traditionally, Metro Manila’s urban developments are dominated by high-rise condominiums, focused more on density than quality of life. Serendra broke away from this model by introducing a low-density, garden-style development that combines the tranquillity of resort living with the convenience of city life.

Serendra’s 60% open space design was groundbreaking, featuring green spaces, pools, and gardens in the heart of the city. This eco-friendly development also integrated energy-efficient features, reducing the need for air conditioning and creating a more sustainable living environment. By challenging the conventional model, Ayala Land demonstrated that urban spaces could be both sustainable and community-oriented without sacrificing modern amenities.

How to Apply: 

When faced with a problem, ask “Why?” repeatedly to uncover underlying assumptions. Encourage your team to reframe questions and think outside the box. Ask, “What if we did the opposite?” or “How might we address this challenge differently?”

3. Finding the Overlooked

Innovators notice subtle patterns, behaviors, and trends that others overlook. This ability to “see what others miss” is invaluable for identifying emerging needs or anticipating changes in the market.

Case Study: Zara’s Time-Critical Value Proposition

Zara has built its success on the value proposition that it is able to keep up with the ever changing fashion trends by designing, producing, and distributing new fashion items in 2-3 weeks. By spotting the trends, observing behavior in store and tracking sales data, Zara rapidly adapts to shifting consumer preferences.

Zara ships only a few items in each style so inventory is scarce which leads to constantly changing collections and consumers tend to “buy it when they see it”, even in Asian soil. This agility, combined with real-time consumer feedback —allows Zara to see what is usually overlooked. They made trendspotting and agility to meet consumer demand, their competitive advantage.

How to Apply:

Invest time in ethnography to observe consumer behavior in a real-world setting. Leverage social listening tools and analytics to spot emerging trends before they become mainstream.

4. Weaving the Wisdom

Innovation thrives when diverse ideas and perspectives are brought together. Innovators tap into external networks and collaborate across disciplines to accelerate product development and solve complex problems.

Case Study: The Unilever Foundry - a Singapore Startup Ecosystem

(in collaboration with Lucius Young, Google Accelerator Mentor and Former Foundry Head SEA and ANZ) 

Unilever has harnessed the power of open innovation through The Foundry, a global platform that collaborates with startups to co-create solutions for the future of consumer goods. A key enabler of innovation and discovery is its ecosystem, which connects startups, venture capitalists, and Unilever’s business units across the entire value chain, spanning Brands, Supply Chain, Media, eCommerce, and Customer Development, to engage and develop solutions for prioritized business challenges.

When a viable solution is identified and has accomplished a successful paid pilot. Unilever then progresses the startup across different scaling milestones accelerating scale at a controlled momentum to mitigate risk given the startup’s early stage.

How to Apply: 

Build networks within and outside your organization. Collaborate with startups, academics, or external experts to bring new ideas & technologies. Look for opportunities to co-create solutions with partners to drive innovation forward.

5. From Mockup to Mastery

Innovation requires experimentation, and good innovators understand that trial and error are essential to the process. Rapid prototyping and iteration enable ideas to be refined and tested in real-world settings, helping uncover the best solutions.

Case Study: Gojek’s Iterative Approach to App Development

(in collaboration with Fitria Sabaruddin, Head of Research at Gojek) 

Gojek’s journey to become Indonesia’s leading on-demand app highlights the power of rapid prototyping and iteration. When Gojek first launched, it only offered a motorcycle ride-hailing service. Through iteration and real-world testing, Gojek expanded its services based on evolving consumer needs, adding new products such as Online Food Delivery, 4W ride-hailing, Goods delivery, E-groceries, and E-wallet.

Here are the steps: the Gojek Product team first starts with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test acceptance and usability of the concept. User feedbacks were gathered to guide continuous improvements: from simplifying user interface to adding complex features. This iterative process not only refined the product but also helped Gojek identify consumer pain points.

GoPay, for example, was first launched as an e-wallet for closed-loop payment methods for Gojek services. It was introduced to facilitate the cash-payment system by helping drivers who may not have the right change all the time. The product then evolved in different ways - leading to services such as bill payments, micro loans and insurance. Today, GoPay has developed its own app to cater to needs beyond the Gojek ecosystem. Gojek’s success demonstrates that rapid experimentation and constant refinement are crucial to create a product that resonates with users and solves real-world problems.

How to Apply:

Test ideas early by launching MVPs to gather user feedback. Embrace real time iteration—make adjustments based on data and insights to improve product incrementally. Keep refining until you achieve a solution that meets your audience’s needs effectively.

Transforming Insights into Innovation

By embracing these key behaviors, insight professionals can not only provide answers to the "what" but also deliver the "so what," offering innovative solutions that drive business growth.

Let us ask ourselves:

• How can I bring diverse perspectives into my research process?

• What questions am I not asking that could uncover new opportunities?

• How can I prototype and test ideas to see if they resonate with the audience?

By adopting these behaviors, we will be equipped to transform insights into innovative strategies that have a lasting impact – valuable contributions to our organization and a greater role in shaping its future.