Ideation workshop for animal care

Background: A client working in the animal care industry came to us in order to organize an internal ideation workshop. The aim of the workshop was to develop new ideas and concepts related to a subcategory of animal care, with the long term goal of launching a new and innovative solution to address consumer needs and beliefs that are not yet addressed by current market products. The client had already commissioned several research projects aimed at understanding consumer needs and beliefs, trends, market specifics, and competitors.

Project timeline: 2 weeks

Approach: The approach was multi fold.

One aspect of the preparation related to distilling insights based on approximately 20 studies the company had previously done.

We also researched and complied best practice examples from the field and identified trends in the field, in order to serve as a basis for the idea generation process.

Several workshop materials were created, including posters and cards with which to interactively work.

Trend cards outlining trends across three topics were created to be used for ideation in the workshop. Trend cards were to be used to help facilitate ideation around relevant trends, as well as to evaluate ideas for relevance.

Need cards were created to be used for ideation during the workshop. These need cards included a photo and two consumer quotes, in order to help participants more easily retain the needs and voice of consumer when generating new ideas and developing concepts.

In addition, competitor products were analysed in order to evaluate what offerings were already available, how they were packaged, and which ingredients they used. This was presented in the form of a poster to serve as a foundation for small group work.

Role: Together with my team, I led the research efforts, preparing everything the material and activities for the workshop. I continually checked in with the client and the moderator of the workshop to ensure that the workshop materials and tasks were pertinent.