---
title: "Supplements innovation pipeline, from discovery to ideas | antedote"
description: "Review mining, semiotics, digital ethnography, ideation and pack research for a vitamins and supplements maker building a multi-year innovation pipeline."
url: "https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/a-supplements-pipeline-built-to-be-tested/"
author: "antedote"
---

# Setting priorities for a supplements innovation pipeline

A vitamins and supplements maker needed a pipeline of ideas strong enough for its quantitative screens. We explored the category from several angles and built ideas with its team and suppliers.

**Client**
Vitamins and supplements maker

**Industry**
Vitamins and supplements

**Market**
North America

**Kind of work**
Innovation and concept development

**Our role**
Category discovery, ideation and pack research for a multi-year innovation pipeline

## What happened next

One idea from the program went on to full concept testing.

## The question

At this company, every new idea had to pass a quantitative screen before development began, so the pipeline needed ideas relevant and different enough to clear it.

Before any ideas, the innovation team had to agree where to look: which health needs, and which kinds of consumer solution, deserved its attention two and three years out.

## Our approach

We came at the category from several directions before anyone wrote an idea.

Discovery joined the business’s own knowledge with what people write about products in online reviews, a semiotic reading of the category’s codes, and a digital ethnography that followed people as they looked after their health.

With the innovation team, we then set priorities among the health needs and solutions that discovery had mapped, so ideation started from ground everyone had agreed.

Ideas were built with the client’s team and its ingredient suppliers, and consumers helped develop the strongest of them. The pack for a new product had research of its own, with a semiotic reading of the category’s packs alongside.

## What the team came away with

The innovation team had opportunity areas and springboards for ideas, ideas built to go through its screens, and pack research for the new product.

Because the priorities were agreed before ideation, every idea traced back to a need the team had chosen to pursue.

Who we heard from

People across the business and consumers looking after their health, in interviews, a digital ethnography, ideation groups and focus groups

## Related work

[View innovation and concept development case studies](https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/?work=Innovation%20and%20concept%20development#library)

- Health and wellness

    ### [Choosing where to innovate in health and well-being](https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/where-to-innovate-in-health-and-well-being/)

    Several ideas went forward for execution, and the group took up five opportunity areas for its new value propositions.

- Home appliances

    ### [Deciding how much help a cooking appliance should give](https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/cooking-appliance-research/)

    Features in the areas we researched later reached market.

**What we do**
[Innovation](https://antedote.com/what-we-do/innovation/)

## Deciding where to grow, or what to develop?

Bring an ambition or an early idea, and we’ll talk through where to start.

[Talk to us](https://antedote.com/talk-to-us/) · [hello@antedote.com](mailto:hello@antedote.com)

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