Fran Guzman of Kraft Heinz walked through a framework for understanding why CPG innovation so often falls short, and what separates the rare breakout launches from the vast majority that underperform. Drawing on conversations with innovation consultants, prototyping vendors, and case studies from Dollar Shave Club, Harry's, Arm & Hammer, Devour, and Oreo Thins, he outlined the organizational and process forces that constrain innovation and the practical approaches teams can use to improve their odds.
Key Takeaways
- Organizational forces, including reliance on established vendors, familiar channels, and financial commitments already made, are the primary reason most CPG innovation stays incremental rather than breaking through.
- Risk in innovation is not truly inherent. Rapid prototyping, market testing, and stage-gate check-ins can meaningfully reduce uncertainty, and leaders who treat it as 'throwing darts at a wall' are leaving improvement on the table.
- Successful launches tend to identify a clear, underserved consumer pain point, communicate one core benefit simply and directly, and stay true to that proposition through the full commercialization process rather than Frankensteining the idea to satisfy internal constraints.
- Post-launch support through at least year one, and ideally into year two, is critical. Pulling media and distribution investment early because a launch looks slow is a common reason otherwise viable products fail.
- Market test results, especially from smaller regional retailers, are among the most persuasive tools for convincing retail buyers to take a chance on a new product, more so than modeled projections.
- Adjacent innovation ideas (moving a brand into a new aisle or category) tend to clear internal leadership more easily than they clear retailers. Internal approval usually comes down to whether the idea fits the stated growth strategy.
Questions & Answers
- Do you use stage-gate processes in a large corporation, and how does the commercialization process affect decision-making?
- Yes, Kraft Heinz works within a stage-gate process. The challenge is that even when there are concerns about an innovation, if it passes a validation stage the process tends to carry it forward. Organizational commitments and timelines mean that stopping a project mid-stream is difficult, which contributes to the 'Frankensteining' problem where ideas get compromised to keep moving through the process.
- What tools do you use to convince retailers to take on a new innovation?
- The standard approach is building a sell story around metrics retailers care about: foot traffic to the aisle, basket size, and share stolen from competitors. But retailers have seen 80 to 90 percent of innovations fail on their shelves, so they are skeptical of projections. Guzman said the most credible tool is actual market test results. Showing that a product performed well in a test market is more persuasive than any modeled forecast.
- Do you use facial coding in taste testing?
- Not yet in practice, but actively exploring it. The team is looking at methods that capture facial expressions, sweat response, and heart rate during product testing. The rationale is that consumers often say they like something even when their physiological response tells a different story. Repeat purchase is the metric they most want to predict, and how the body reacts during consumption is a stronger signal than self-reported preference.
- Do you find retailers more willing to accept innovations for online distribution than in-store?
- There is growing appetite for e-commerce innovation even for traditional food and beverage brands, which have historically been among the last categories to move online. Guzman noted that the e-commerce channel offers more flexibility on communication, trials, and promotions than physical shelf space, and that the growth in online grocery during the quarantine period has accelerated retailer openness.
- Do you have recommendations on selling adjacent innovation ideas to leadership?
- The primary factor is whether the adjacent idea fits the company's stated growth strategy. Using Planters as an example: exploring a bar format was interesting but did not align with the internal goal of growing within the nut and snack mix category, so it did not get traction internally. When an adjacent idea does fit the strategy, the bigger hurdle shifts to the retailer side, specifically convincing them to give the product incremental shelf space in a non-traditional location.
- Any favorite creative approaches to market testing?
- The scrappiest and most accessible option is leveraging relationships with smaller regional retailers, who are more flexible on trial arrangements than national chains. Guzman also mentioned companies that specialize in small-scale market development, citing Mission Field as one example. His broader recommendation is to run these tests at the front end of the innovation process, before heavy investment, rather than as a final validation before launch.
Session Notes
The Innovation Landscape: Why Most Launches Underperform
Guzman opened by noting that CPG leadership commonly sets a bar of $900 million or more in revenue within a few years for what counts as a successful innovation. The financial logic is straightforward: fewer, larger bets simplify supply chain, manufacturing, and distribution. But most launches never get close to that bar.
Several market-level forces make the environment difficult. Brand loyalty has been declining over at least the past decade, driven by price competition in categories like peanut butter and coffee, the rise of private label, and a proliferation of options. At the same time, about 73% of consumers say they are open to trying a new brand in at least one shopping category. Yet consumers also report a preference for buying from brands they already know and trust, which creates a real opening for innovation from established CPG players.
Organizational and Process Hurdles
Guzman argued that the bigger barrier to breakthrough innovation is internal, not external. He identified a consistent pattern of forces that push companies toward sustaining, incremental launches rather than genuine category creation.
- Established vendor reliance. Validation work gets routed to vendors already in the procurement system or with familiar databases, regardless of whether they are the best fit for a novel idea.
- Familiar channel bias. Despite e-commerce growth, teams default to established retail relationships and shelf placement logic.
- Financial momentum. Once resources have been committed to an innovation, the project tends to keep moving forward even when early signals are weak. The result is a 'Frankensteined' product that compromises the original concept to satisfy internal requirements and still gets launched.
- Assuming risk is inherent. Many senior leaders treat innovation outcomes as fundamentally unknowable. Guzman pushed back on this directly, noting that iterative prototyping and structured market testing can substantially reduce uncertainty.
- Failing to resolve a real job to be done. Launches that are driven by margin or supply availability rather than a genuine consumer problem tend to produce mediocre products that sacrifice key benefits in order to ship.
Case Studies: What Successful Launches Did Differently
Dollar Shave Club and Harry's
Both brands identified a clear consumer pain point: quality razors and shaving products cost between $25 and $30, and the buying experience was inconvenient. Dollar Shave Club pursued the practical, millennial consumer who wanted good quality at a reasonable price. Harry's extended this by targeting 47 million households that established brands were largely ignoring, built a clean and differentiated retail presence (notably at Target), established a clear brand equity around simplicity and quality, and used a subscription model that fit how the category was already moving. Harry's also opened a barbershop in New York and acquired a razor factory, moves that signaled credibility and control over quality.
Arm & Hammer
Guzman highlighted Arm & Hammer's ability to communicate a single, clear benefit. Their campaign for a laundry product demonstrated the core message so directly that it landed even without audio. The pain point, an inconvenient or ineffective cleaning process, was communicated simply, with odor protection as a secondary equity point. The lesson was that breakthrough communication does not require complexity.
Oreo Thins
Oreo Thins is a line extension, but Guzman pointed to it as an example of disciplined innovation. The team observed the growth of more sophisticated snack formats (biscottis, bark thins, cracker-style cookies) and recognized that a segment of Oreo consumers wanted a more refined eating experience without abandoning the brand. The product was tested in China first, where it succeeded, before a U.S. launch. The team also drew on the failure of an earlier 100-calorie thin crisp launch, which had been framed around health and wellness rather than sophistication. Oreo Thins reached $420 million by year three. The communication focused on the texture and experience of the product, not health claims, though a health and wellness halo followed naturally.
Devour
Devour targeted a specific, underserved consumer: young, single men who wanted filling, good-tasting frozen meals. The existing frozen meal category was not speaking to this consumer. Devour backed the launch with roughly $13 million in marketing spend and $2.5 million in retail programming, and invested in breakthrough packaging designed to stand out in the freezer aisle. Guzman cited this as an example of knowing exactly who you are solving a problem for, communicating directly to that person, and supporting the launch with enough resources to give it a real chance.
Practical Recommendations for Innovation Teams
Move Market Testing Earlier
Guzman's current focus at Kraft Heinz is shifting market testing from a late-stage validation exercise (done when a product is nearly ready to ship) to a front-end filter. If an idea seems promising, run rapid prototypes and a scrappy market test first. The cheapest way to do this is through relationships with smaller regional retailers, who are more flexible than national chains on trial arrangements. He also mentioned companies like Mission Field that specialize in small-scale market development. The honest challenge he flagged: in most large corporations, if a product has already gone through the full commercialization process, it is very difficult to kill it based on a late market test result, regardless of what the test shows.
Explore System 1 Methods for Product Testing
Guzman noted that traditional CLTs (central location tests) rely on consumers self-reporting whether they like a product, which produces limited signal. His team is actively exploring approaches that capture facial expressions, sweat response, and heart rate during taste testing. The insight driving this is that the body reacts to food at a micro level in ways consumers cannot easily articulate. He sees this as particularly useful for measuring repeat-purchase likelihood, since how well someone actually experiences eating the product is the strongest predictor of whether they come back.
Commit to Post-Launch Support
A recurring theme across successful launches was sustained media and distribution investment through at least year one and into year two. Guzman described a common failure pattern where companies pull support early because a launch looks soft, which then makes the launch look even softer. The framework he recommends is to plan support through year two as a default, not as a contingency.
Selling Adjacent Innovation to Retailers vs. Leadership
Guzman drew a distinction between internal and external hurdles for adjacent ideas. Internally, leadership approval for adjacent innovation usually comes down to whether it fits the stated growth strategy. He used the example of Planters exploring a bar format: the concept had some merit but did not align with the internal strategy to grow within the nut category, so it did not advance. Externally, convincing a retailer to place an innovation in a non-traditional aisle (his example was Wonderful Nuts earning placement in the fresh/salad aisle as a salad topping) requires showing that the product will drive foot traffic, grow basket size, or pull share from a competitor. Market test results are the most credible evidence for that conversation.
Transcript
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kick this guy off welcome everyone to round 2 of the quarantined virtual insights conference for those of you who joined last month's conference uh it went great so you know we had a great attendance great feedback so you know here we are in still social distancing mode so we decided to do it again and that's what today is going to be all about I got a really great series of presenters and presentations lined up for you really excited about getting into this I mean here we are a bunch of insights professionals with an opportunity to get together and talk a little shop you know all of the conference's that we're scheduled for in-person or obviously not available for at least a foreseeable future so you know this is what we have but thank goodness we have you know these types of opportunities so really excited about kicking off and listening to to the presenters that we have you know I'm going to spend a few minutes just kind of giving an overview of what to expect today but I don't plan on talking a whole lot at least at this point so you know I'm gonna pass it off pretty quickly to our first presenter but a few slides and a few rules that we're gonna kind of run through first thing I want to do is just you know give a quick kind of intro of our agenda you know who's presenting and you know what to expect throughout the day so what we're doing is a series of webinar presentations we're gonna start every hour on the hour beginning right now through through the end of the day starting with first presenter is fran guzman from Kraft Heinz he's gonna be talking to us about innovation lesson in lessons and things from successful CPG launches he's gonna be followed by yours truly I'm going to be going over a nifty case study that that we've done over the past few months here at accelerant you know on the subject of meal delivery service something that obviously all of us are experiencing quite a bit these days I'm gonna be followed by margarita go solace from the Golf Channel she's gonna be talking about SCO on a budget then Rodney Dalton from dine brands is going to be talking some more insights for innovative product development followed by Kendra speed from Dropbox practically scaling research for maximum impact then John from Amazon is going to be talking to us about engaging respondents via email then we've got a co-presenters from Sinclair Broadcast Group Ginny and Kirby are gonna be talking about automotive marketing and the impact of Copa 19 on the domestic vehicle production and sales and then we're gonna be batting cleanup and that's gonna be Priscilla McKinney she's gonna close us out with her presentation people buy from people pandemic or not so you know kind of a wide swath of subjects I'm excited about it because it presents you know different learning opportunities for different types of researchers we've got folks joining us from all up and down the spectrum we've got you know market researchers in cycles folks database analytics we've got corporate we've got supplier side agency side we've got academics and students and we're all sort of coming together and you know talking a little bit about the industry that we live in you know some of our presentations are you know specifically geared toward you know the conditions that we're in right now with with pandemic and and stay at home and all of the implications they're there in some are just more general research best practices and and you know expertise that folks are going to be sharing and I kind of like that you know just from a diversification standpoint it's we're gonna be kind of all over the place and that's that's a good thing we can learn from from industries or or verticals that are not our own necessarily but I think what we can all do as researchers and research and users is see the value in what's being shared and how we might apply it to the things we're working on either right now or you know may have geared up in the future so before we get into our first presentation I'm gonna go to some very quick you know conference ground rules as it were this is obviously a remote conference not in person but we're going to try to capture the essence as best we can we're gonna try to make this thing you're as close to your in person you know hanging out with others kind of conference right but I will mention that you know we're we're using zoom and YouTube streaming for for this conference you know knock on wood last conference went really well for us for from a tech standpoint but you know stuff happens right we are at the mercy of the technology if you know something craps out if there are you know issues all of our speakers are working remotely these days and stuff happens we're all you know we're all using the the same grid right now and sometimes you know issues come up we're gonna roll with the punches we're gonna be perfectly fine with that it's kind of you know the essence of what we're dealing with here so for dog barks if somebody you know somebody's kids walks in the frame no big deal this is this is what it is right that said and that kind of goes into the second bullet point here which is just you know be respectful I don't really worry about this so much I think you know just the group of folks that we have coming together here we tend to you know to be respectful right but you know the anonymity of not being in person not running the risk of bumping into someone you know in the buffet line at the conference um you know sometimes gives us I don't know license to troll a little bit let's try to avoid that that's not to say that we can't be you know critical ask questions we're talking about researchers here right so these are folks that are used to having to to defend findings and and you know talk through implications of what they're doing but again be respectful you know last thing is let's try our best we're all remote but let's try to to network to the extent possible so if you're joined in the in the zoom conference we've got a live Q&A we've got a live chat function feel free to use that to to talk with us to talk with the presenters we're all will all try to monitor as best as best we can and engage throughout the day we've got a lot of folks that are not joining in the direct zoom conference that are doing so via like a live stream YouTube for example what we're gonna ask also that is that folks you know try to get on to LinkedIn to get on to Twitter using the hashtag QV I see 20/20 let's use that as kind of in lieu of us being able to shake hands with one another and talk and get to know each other let's use this hashtag and these methods to to engage and with that I'm going to get out of the way and I'm going to hand off to to our first speaker who is Fran Guzman I'm gonna stop sharing my screen I'm gonna unmute Fran if you'll bear with me for just a moment he's good to go there we are alright so I'm going to stop sharing my own screen hopefully go hi Fran you're up you get to take it away very funny creative way to not only you know continue networking people in the industry but also just share some knowledge I think it's a great sense of normalcy so this isn't how you should be thinking about this framework you know it's something that really started a couple years back in terms of trying to understand the innovation world and how much emphasis gets on the uniforms right those launches 900 million plus in a couple years etcetera so this is something that somewhat started a couple years ago has been refined and developed and I continue even presenting to my own team in terms of my bu secondary thematic approach again framework we did a lot of a lot of innovation houses we talked to prototyping and testing vendors the new species of the world right a lot of ancient houses and innovation consultants and then also focus on understanding from you know the people who've been able to do this successfully in the past four to five years so I'm going from there [Applause] [Music] some successful CPG innovation launches over some themes that we gather from this just this is something that we always hear and it's the desired outcome from a lot of CEOs and leadership CPG a minimum rate and a lot of this is really tied to the financial performance it's not only and you're able to do fewer bigger bands like chain your operations but your margins your distribution cetera it streamlines and everything when your focus on you know successful to some financial components either because of supply chain manufacturing etcetera but ideally has been at least seen and heard on innovation in my career you also know that consumers are very much - in general right so we know many of them are 73% of them considering a new brand at least one shopping category local consumers CPG companies is that consumers are actually looking to buy products from familiar brands right so they know and trust your brand already especially here in the world like komen it provides an opportunity for innovation because they have trust in your friend now lastly we've seen that brand loyalty in ten years declining here over here at least among us consumers when it goes for the CPG role and we're seeing that categories for various reasons one right is areas like peanuts and coffee etc that are very much more rice driven and price structure driven the rise of private label overall and then just the inundation of options so willing to try it and to the world that intends to sustain him nature a lot of the innovation that you see launched is basically improving on current offerings and just a very familiar way we see that you know line extensions is very much a high innovation space even though we know that that's not necessarily and something that we do see where this whole sustaining in nature is that even you know one of the biggest hurdles in nature is really driven not only by the process for me are extremely strong and what we mean by this right establish expertise we we do a lot of our validation on defending of an innovation with an established vendor either because you know they're already in our system and to do a procurement or they have a database that we like or they can do XYZ we tend to focus on familiar channels right despite the growth of EECOM we know that we have established relationships and within brochures or just retailers in general just you know and I tell people the larger the organization the larger these forces of conformity tend to be the last thing that comes from the process of actual breakthrough innovation so a lot of the times what we end up see is that consumers have a lot of potential mandates that they can use or a nuance right so a lot of the solutions I keep being produced and products I keep trying to hit that innovation unicorn status tend to be mediocre and that base Accra Feist something of the benefits in order to launch right so a few small companies really have the ability to say we're gonna stick through the idea of what it is and if it's not something that we can produce we just drop it again that's not usually the case in a lot of corporations I can tell you from my experience at least if we've dedicated you enough time to an innovation and unfortunately I'll Frankenstein throughout the process we still have to launch it just because of so many factors that go into it very much process driven over innovation components that we see from the process that are very much hurdles that we have to deal with once you're trying to do innovation these two things one of them is assuming that risk and uncertainty is inherent I do you know talking to a lot of especially when it comes to breakthrough innovation or just VPS of marketing or there's this sense that we'll never know if something's gonna hit or not I don't believe that that's the case there's a lot of ways to do a lot of testing and iterations and I'm not talking about you know just doing a you know some theses for example I'm talking about actual prototypes market testing feedback modifications that could come out of that there's a lot of ways that we can do stage dates and check-ins to make sure that we're actually delivering on the product and minimizing risk along the way but I do get the sense that from an organizational perspective a lot of leadership really still thinks that it's just inherent risk you're just kind of throwing darts at a wall and hoping that something lands which again I would argue is not the case that it fails to resolve a job to be done and the reason I justify this as a organizational component of it right is because for Mike a lot of times teams are moving along because it has to be done because of finances margins that we have lack of supplies availability there's all these things that go into the commercialization process and we know that a lot of ideas succeed and I'm getting assorted and failing because of that so a lot of the time when these innovations get launched a lot of brands dedicate a heavy support maybe for year one doesn't support disappears or it's very much minimized again a lot of the conversations here has come on chicken in the egg of like supporting a launch post year one it's key to be able to see how well it can potentially perform giving it time to get into the market to get trials to get repeat to get awareness and companies in its one innovative line right and I think Oriole sins is something that we can talk about and understanding that it's still very much soil trademark component Peregrine but it's very much a line extension right I think is decided to revolution lies you know a new product line right and reaching that 420 million mark by year three very fast adopter and transistor to like hello when it came out and I surprised that it's not 245 million dollars by year 30 again it created a new category but definitely much Tancred in consumer pain points and solving something in the marketplace so again these organizational these facets hurdles what we know it's possible so one of the big questions is how do we look at these success stories and what can we learn and understand from them right so this is actually one of our favorite themes at least with me and my team is really about on the shoulders in terms of the framework products that you know shaving cream and a razor it can be anywhere from twenty-five to thirty dollars right that pain point in having a good quality razor something that resonated across the spectrum again they sold an experience on February so it was very much to a target audience Dollar Shave Club already had kind of the up-and-coming millennial affordable target here they're going for the practical consumer again I'm good quality at a reasonable price they turn consumers into advocates so they gave all the consumers of tools and information to really just be the place right a lot of social media activation and within their creative emphasized expertise you know very much activation very much experiential marketing right but they opened up a barber shop in New York at the end of the day they empty body factory which again I think one of the biggest things that needs to be emphasized here is at least on the manufacturing side and the world that I've been in doing any pencil writing formal tactics investment requires it's a big gamble right and it's usually something that doesn't necessarily got approved and I've been here right PNG would have been told or you know by razor company in Germany they probably was just because of what that looks like when they knew they were the experts in this place and that's why they did that and I think the key driver for success there right they leverage in common the subscription model that's happened to the category in anyway you know the subscription model have been it's still a little in need and have been around but they definitely took them says each other we can do this so the Eco and that also helped along the way with their communications and something that really just resonates the thing that we want to you know that popped for Harry's was their ability to break through storytelling advocating and just differentiating themselves so I don't know about you guys but any time I have been going to a target and the uncial was owned by Harry's it was a very innovative it was very much activation design and what we see here is obviously very clean I think that's just a universal feeling that everyone even knows they were very much focused on going to an untargeted consumers so they knew that 47 million households in America right not many brands were speaking to these consumers you know a lot of the innovation was on odor protection or some form of a line extension so they really had a free range of talking and communicating with these consumers and then at the end of the day they were also able I love heard a very clear brand equity and odor right I think it's another one French for a minimum in terms of odor protection and it's so strongly now it's within this category and the one thing that we want to highlight here is basically the simple communication of the clear benefit one thing is you know the no screaming no there's no worries very much clear notion of the purpose of this product existing is to basically simplify the weekly process or whatever cadence to use of cleaning the calendar right and I want to show this commercial and hopefully their shell and I actually love the fact that it still communicates the key message without even being able to hear it so either like they're encouraging you to try the new product and switch over because it actually solves the same point that you've been complaining about the most right it's a very clear communication secondary and tertiary higher keys of messaging are there right about production which is their equity and whatnot the communication was very clear and concise and targeted to any toner that is encouraging them to shift this over because it will simplify their life or solve that pain point or target the new consumer was about aging off the brand so those really indulged authorial but we're looking for a more sophisticated cookie in the same taste what does that mean and then rewarded I mean I'm firm right we you saw the rise of Biscotti's of bark fins of all these categories are or this new conception category that came out that was very much sophisticated more towards the millennial consumer targeting females as well so what they ended up doing was they basically were able to turn very much childhood product and age it up right Amazon's very much differentiated in terms of taste and texture knowing that their preferences they were consuming had also changed right so that's something that we had to land an interesting leaned up right into that and they chose very true and honest to what they were trying to accomplish and these actual cookies were designed and you know they know that 50% of their consumers do that but they weren't trying to target their consumers they're trying age of the brand and go after those more sophisticated Oriole globsters goes back to that notion of risk being in product in China they saw how successful was then they also did a lot of prototyping to make sure that they are hitting on those consumer preferences I also learned - learnings from previous launches right so winds for example launched their hundred calorie thin crisps that wasn't necessarily successful but I was very much tied to a health and wellness messaging not necessarily more sophisticated so I think it's more about a sophisticated experience so so wordy and applying that right they've done this before they've been looking at a smaller portion when they know that passed the trend but they have failed in the past because of the proposition necessarily there and looking at their communications again right Center very much about the Christmas of it more like a cookie a biscotti a cracker versus a and at the end of the day though that also does communicate health and wellness halo so it's a pain point here was really about consumers enjoy or that they should be eating I you know I think a lot of you know that this category really of convenience and people needing meals and that's kind of how this frozen meal category and blew up right they're going out they're very specific consumer your honor a single male convenience male seeker so what does that mean right these these are they'll be able to use a little loan or with roommates potentially right but they're single and they're younger and they want actual filling good tasting food that ideally is frozen and easy for them to consume right they've been dissatisfied what's in the marketplace because of that what we did see from devour is that it didn't have a lot of strong media support right it has 13 million dollars in marketing spend and about 2.5 and retail programming literally activating apps for so there was a lot of support behind this launch right and then one of the things that really worked for them was also looking at breakthrough packaging at Shell it was really much a unique like packaging something that made it stand out especially in the freezer area that whole Drive that success controversial I imagine the process right but a product that is 30 and tastes good and good quality food you know the point of having to clean the mess and the frustration and just how annoying that is is a clear pain point of that Harmon hammer is going after you know that's just he and something that must be realistic that must be put on there is it really solving a problem or is it just putting a bandaid on something or creating a nuisance right expectations right they can't cut corners so what does that mean example for slide so you know and being able to actually deliver on the claim of making that process a lot easier right so a lot of the times at least within larger corporations from my experience we have that isn't packaging as an RnB so you know requirements innovation breakthrough innovation for for so that's like well who are you trying to go after right like if we're trying to go after younger consumers it's really about health and wellness drinks and what's different and looks better you know you're looking after 55-plus like you know the fast diet category etc it's more about understanding who you're really trying to solve an issue for devour again I think a great example right they were targeting young men that were single to understand how to communicate to them where to communicate to them simple concise and targeted messaging everything that they were messaging you or telling you about and it says you should try this out and recommend it it won't fail you is really about supporting the launch ray again innovation has a lot of chicken and the egg questions when it comes to like media and distribution what I've seen time and time again is really that support tends to if it's a lackluster launch so you know they will kind of media investment heavily they were distribution and selling components of the new innovation just because it's not hitting them work but again I the norm should ideally be and then the framework as you guys are thinking about innovation is and I salute this launch a past year one and ideally through year 2 mm that's pretty much it I think one of things that I loved from one of the consultants that we talked to in the innovation space which has stuck with me for a while is if you have to summarize what is innovation and then how do you describe the innovation process like overall we need to do as we as we explore looks like we had that question from Charles that came through while you were presenting and he was asking do you stage-gate especially you had a large corporation and the commercialization process and what that looks like a lot of the times that decision-making is also influenced by a lot of the organizational components that go into it right so we might need hitting something or there might be some concerns but it passed the validation stage so we move forward with it right but yeah like any other large corporation that's something that we work within and also have to figure out that that is part of the advance are we part of the organization Myrtle's but that is where a lot of organizational hurdles what tools do you use to convince retailers to go forward and really trying to prove that out everywhere I've worked right when you're putting a sell story together is trying to highlight this is gonna try foot traffic to the aisle this is gonna steal from another bigger basket there's these big metrics that we try to show and try to tell a retailer that they are going to be successful if they have this innovation that's up though right they're also used to seeing 80 to 90 percent of innovation spell their retail outlets so one of the big things that we're really exploring and trying to leverage is actually market test results we've been able to get a very nimble about it and if you're able to show that it performed very well on a test market it is likely to perform very well in your store so that you know instead of validating show me and again I think a lot of people are concerns of how expensive that can be but there's definitely a lot of creative ways that you can do test market components on that validation trying to move towards system 1 capabilities that we're exploring especially even when it comes to CL T's right where we're testing products to understand how they taste how do we leverage a lot of system 1 approaches that are being developed by industry experts around facial recognition actual how your brain reacts to a food that you're having exploring positive aspects but when it comes to retailers again it's more about the market test so you mentioned the creative ways to go about market testing any any favorites mr. Clair's yeah I mean at the end of the day the scrappiest whompin is usually when we're able to leverage smaller or relations with smaller retailers right and that's the easiest the easiest in terms of setting up at the heart in terms of the leg work that needs to be done right there's also our working in that space one of my having conversations with extensions area now for example is mission fields and they specialize in suits to men's development so definitely recommend looking at companies like that again it's something that you can easily do yourself that's not the case for these process and recommending them right if we're doing this house market ideally it should be my point of view is really that this should be up front and the innovation process right you think that this idea of my resonate and you that's when you do the test market you do some rapid prototyping and just get it out to figure out and they will succeed if it doesn't then you know it's not something they should produce the way that market tests at least current papers are falling is that we already knows commercializing we might be ready to launch in a couple months to try to get that information but the big question comes to are you really not going to launch a product if it does not succeed the market test because of the processes that we have to follow in the animation goals and and guidelines that we have as a company so no success in that phase yet but ideally Michael right now is to try to move in to a different process or a different phase of the innovation process develop front of course is a validation right now the selling and that makes any sense we've got another coming through do you find retailers more willing to accept innovation for own distribution than do you find retailers more willing to accept innovations for online distribution than in-store I mean a lot of those conversations I in the retail component of it we've seen a lot of success right now and there's a lot of appetite for that even when it came to our traditional brands right you got to think about food and beverage has probably been one of the last ones impacted by EECOM and that growth grab tonight I could say that the industry has grown you know maybe the best eight weeks kind of given the quarantine flexible with communication and trials and promotions in the Eco space then their actual physical retail shelf space right which is that's where it looks like we have another question from Patricia she's asking do you use facial coding in taste testing not as something that we're actually currently exploring as we're looking at this renovation for for the process right and again it's someone so the conversation that we're having right now is and doing this process their facial expression there's sweat response and their heart rate and what we've been finding out is actually that you know a lot of the times we do traditional CLTS and try to understand evaluator product and consumers are likely to just say yes I like this or no I don't while we're finding out that you know even though you guys are I don't think that as a consumer are our bodies react via sweat and heart rate to things that we like we do at a very micro low and that's one of the things that were really exploring as a way to validate this innovation process because one of our thinking's around this is we are confident that our product could be good right like we can test to that level so we're not necessarily as concerned with a truck oh you can drive that with media we could drive that in any way shape or form the biggest aspect is repeat and the way that you're likely to repeat something is by how well you handle the chewing do you have any recommendations on selling adjacent innovation ideas to leadership since that is farther from recommendations and selling adjacent ideas to leadership I guess not sure I understand the question Charles how fast so I mean we I'll give you an example I guess I'm not business right now right one of the things is warehouse snacking versus not category plant is on there and one of the things that we also own these balls they were definitely a fan favorite but it's an adjacent category and Jason Isle but they fall under the same trademark right so at the end of the day leadership always wants to get Jason sees in different aisles and different placements as well so it's never usually a hurdle to sell that into leadership internally it's more hurdle less with the retailer's of trying to get incremental space right okay so and how that can be very successful I think their case study of that is probably wonderful nuts I think was able to get into the fresh eye all right we're salads are because they're salad topping so convincing the retailer's to do that as warm hurdled and at least convincing internally leadership at least from my experience selling ideas farther from core so internally right baptize to our strategy that we have right so when you're looking at growth and innovation how much of it is ideally out of your category and adjacencies right again I'll give you an example when we were very we've been talking a lot one of the things that we were interested in is is there an opportunity for a brand like planters to go into a different one of those things would be something like the bar story right kind of came out they did all this and we're really moving forward in exploring that idea of an adjacency and going through what we ended up having the conversation around those like what is our growth strategy within nuts and planters and that doesn't really tied to where we need to be ideally more more than the not heavy category or mixtures so Landers going into bars while great and to have some equity and extent it didn't necessarily align with our internal strategy though we also have you know pre son for example is another thing we're really looking at innovating outside of the line extensions and the juice parameters that we have so internally it usually just ties to strategy and that's usually the siting factor ideally right outside of the organizational politics components and I think that's it for questions presentation so let's give everybody a chance to have a cup of coffee this was great really appreciate you taking the time
