Innovation
We help FMCG innovation teams turn promising ideas into clear, compelling and commercially grounded propositions - then work through the choices needed to take them successfully to market.
Because an idea is only the start. A proposition needs enough substance behind it for consumers to understand it, customers to support it and the business to actually back it.
Innovation teams understandably get excited about ideas. That is the filling in the innovation sandwich.
But ideas alone don't create value. They still need the bread around them: the strategic thinking that gives them a reason to exist (see Innovation Opportunity Blueprints), and the commercialisation thinking that turns them into something real.
This is where a lot of promising innovation starts to weaken
The core idea may be strong, but questions around the business model, route to market, execution, pricing, customers or scale are left until later. Often inputs coming in too late from different functions can lead to ideas being compromised and their edge eroded into mediocrity.
Strong ideas can also weaken or even fail to progress when the new idea is measured against established products on KPIs such as percentage gross margin.
By then, the difficult choices have often become much more expensive to make
We think those questions belong inside the proposition development process, not after it
The words are often used interchangeably but we think there is an important difference:
A concept
Expresses an idea
A proposition
Has been pushed further. Pressure-tested, developed and made more real. It combines the consumer idea with the commercial and executional thinking required to bring it to life
That means answering questions such as:
A proposition should have enough substance behind it that your teams can take it and run with it. That is the standard we at Mangrove work towards
1
The team falls in love with the idea
Innovation teams naturally become attached to the thing they have created. That can make it harder to challenge the assumptions sitting underneath it.
What started as an exciting idea can gradually become a project that everyone is trying to protect rather than objectively improve. The job is not to prove the original idea was right, it is to keep making it stronger.
2
Consumer thinking and commercial thinking happen separately
A proposition may test well with consumers and still make little sense commercially. Equally, something can look very attractive in a spreadsheet but give people no meaningful reason to buy it.
The strongest propositions bring those two perspectives together early.
3
The how gets left until too late
Teams often spend months developing what the product or service is, then start thinking seriously about route to market, customer requirements, economics and execution only as launch approaches.
Sometimes the most important part of an innovation is not the product itself, but how it is delivered, sold, distributed or experienced.
We think the how should be part of the creative idea from the start. A disruptive route to market, business model, customer experience or way of delivering the proposition can make the idea stronger, more distinctive and harder to copy.
4
Launch becomes the finish line
A lot of innovation processes effectively end at launch. However, once something is live, it has to build awareness, earn distribution, generate repeat, scale and often change behaviour.
That requires choices about investment, patience, measurement and how the proposition will be nurtured after launch. Getting something into market is not the same thing as making it successful in market.
Our Game-Changing Propositions help teams stretch promising ideas into propositions that are both creatively strong and commercially credible.
We keep the original idea at the heart of the work, but build the thinking around it. There are two sides to that:
1
Execution
Make the idea real
Giving people something they can understand, react to and believe in
An idea can feel compelling inside the project team while remaining vague to everyone else. We help give it form - not just so it can be researched or sold in, but so teams can start to explore how it could show up differently in the real world.
That might involve:
2
Commercial Logic
Build the commercial logic around it
Work out how the proposition will actually create value
Alongside the consumer proposition, we work through the commercial and executional questions that will determine whether it can succeed.
Business model
Who pays, how value is created and where the economics need to work.
Route to market
How the proposition reaches customers and consumers - and whether that route needs to be different from the core business.
Customer proposition
Why retailers, distributors, operators or other partners should want to support it.
Creative & disruptive execution
Exploring how the way it's delivered, sold or experienced makes the proposition more distinctive and valuable.
Investment
What level and shape of support will be required - not simply at launch, but as the proposition develops.
Path to growth and profitability
What success looks like over time and when the business should realistically expect to see a return.
1
We connect creativity with commercial reality
We do not see those as opposite forces. Good commercial thinking should make the creative idea stronger.
2
We push beyond the concept
We are interested in what would actually need to be true for somebody to build, sell and scale the proposition.
3
We ask the difficult questions early
It is much cheaper to find the weakness while an idea is still on paper than after the organisation has committed to launch.
4
We think beyond launch
The proposition needs to work in the market, not simply reach it.
In-market failure rates for innovation have sat between 80% and 95% for three decades, largely untouched by the money and resource businesses have thrown at the discipline. In our experience, the problem is rarely the ideas. It’s almost always the system managing them.
Innovation failure rates have sat between 80% and 95% for three decades, largely untouched by the money and resource thrown at the discipline. For innovation to survive the existential threat it currently faces, it must front up to the performance challenge.
When competitors attack, planning a coherent response in the heat of the moment is always harder than it looks. Drawing on three very different competitive challenges from recent client work, Justin Wright explores the strategic choices available – and why the best time to plan your response is before the threat arrives.
Thinking ‘outside the box’ is overrated. In our experience, there is always a box in which you need to operate – and being consciously constrained can be a powerful positive for innovation teams. Justin Wright makes the case for restricted innovation.
If you have an opportunity or concept with potential but need to work out how to make it stronger, more commercially viable and more executable, we can help.
