Building a growth map from a drinks business’s own research

The question

Demand was growing fast in one part of the category, and the business wanted to be part of it, with a strategy for the whole portfolio and a pipeline of ideas to take into testing.

It wasn’t short of evidence. More than forty studies and documents from across the company already recorded what it knew.

Our approach

We started from what the company already knew. Rather than repeat research it had paid for, we read its existing studies together and turned them into one growth map of where the opportunity was.

We added only what the archive couldn’t supply: the wider category’s trends, how neighboring categories talk and pack their products, a light reading of the signs and codes in the space, and interviews with the company’s own stakeholders.

From the map, the company’s teams generated ideas with us in an ideation workshop. We then shaped the strongest into concepts with drinkers in small sessions, so each was written in their language before it went near a survey.

What the team came away with

A growth map that brought the company’s own research into a single view, a set of opportunity areas, and concepts written and refined for quantitative concept testing.

The map was built as one shared starting point for the teams: what the business already knew, and what it still needed to find out.