Drawing new ideas from across a pet food business

The question

A pet food maker wanted a broad pool of new ideas for its next innovation pipeline, and it wanted them from people across the business, not only its innovation team.

The ideas could be about what goes in the bowl, how food is sourced and made, or how technology might bring pets and their owners closer, for cats and dogs alike. The team wanted plenty of ideas first, with a clear way to choose the ones worth working up afterward.

Our approach

The ideas came from the company’s own people, in small mixed teams of brand, innovation, R&D, packaging, sales and insights colleagues, since each sees a different side of the product.

Stimulus drawn from the company’s own research and strategy, and pre-work that sent people looking for inspiration, meant everyone arrived with something to build on. Short, varied exercises kept the ideas coming, an illustrator and a note-taker caught them as they emerged, and the teams voted on what they had made.

What the team came away with

Nothing stayed on a sticky note: the company received a written record of every idea, logged by the area it addressed and, often, the observation that sparked it.

The teams’ big ideas were written up on one template, setting out what each idea is, why owners would care, what it could look like, its benefits and claims, and any thoughts on packaging. They kept the teams’ own words and sketches, so each idea still read the way its authors meant it.

Because colleagues from across the business had voted on the ideas together, the team knew which ones already had support behind them. The fuller record stayed available for whenever the pipeline needed more, with every idea traceable to the team that had it.