Rapidly Fostering Open-innovation Partnerships Through Co-innovation
EXPLORING TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY AND CONSUMER RESPONSIVENESS
Service: Growth & Innovation Strategy
Industry: Materials, Packaging & Chemicals
\ Challenge
DuPont had developed a new technology. Colgate was interested in exploring how it might be leveraged in the oral care space. The two had been talking (and talking and talking) over lunches for three years about a potential partnership… Yet, as is often the case, they struggled to define the scope for a JDA.
In an effort to move the relationship beyond the dining room, they asked NewEdge to help them co-create the opportunity landscape and a series of potential ideas they could explore. Ultimately, they wanted to better understand feasibility and consumer response be-fore fully investing in the partnership.
\ Our Approach
We took them on a journey of discovery TOGETHER (without a JDA).
The first step was to engage the ecosystem of opinion leaders in oral care and beauty — for both women and men.
Next, we used our rapid build / test / build approach to imagine, together, the landscape of potential products. Designers took the out-put, and visualized a series opportunities and ideas that consumers could respond to. We vetted these with a combination of early and late adopters, whose perspectives clarified key benefits and products of interest.
The co-innovation process yielded immediate benefit for everyone — further grounding Colgate in the technical potential and parameters of the technology and DuPont in the needs and desires of consumers.
Success!
Learnings from the session lead to identification of a strong opportunity… that was over six times larger than originally thought. They also provided clear direction for a pipeline of projects, rather than a single one-off engagement.
DuPont and Colgate committed! They formed a JDA right away and have continued work together ever since.