HH Care global
Innovating bottom-up for the ‘next 500 million households’ in emerging markets globally.
THE CHALLENGE
Unilever had historically innovated in ‘developed’ markets in the Household Care category and pushed those mixes into ‘emerging’ markets. Most of these did not work because they did not address consumer needs.
CLIENT FEEDBACK
A valuable experience for me personally and my team going on this journey….There has been a lot of learning for us on the way.
IMPACT
A mindset shift about emerging markets.
OBJECTIVES
The objectives were three-fold. First, to understand how the ‘LSM 4-9 ‘ (middle income) in emerging markets was different from the ‘LSM 10+’ (high income) in developed markets. Second, to scope out 2 or 3 big D&E consumer-relevant ideas, leveraging the existing brand portfolio. Third, to identify value mixes that might also be relevant to developed markets and LSM 10+.
WHAT WE DID
We first synthesized from over 300 documents available from across markets to identify growth opportunities as a function of physical conditions and social/ psychological needs. We prioritized the information sources and markets (Focus and Reference) to start out with to identify broad opportunities, scope these out, and finally to fill in the nuances.
We then conducted innovation workshops in Mumbai for the Asia region and Turkey for the rest of the world to share the insights gained, crystallize fresh insights, generate new ideas, develop product concepts and rough sketch models.
THE OUTCOMES
5 high level insights about how LSM 4-9 was unique, and the opportunities it presented.
20 distinct market segments across Brand (positioning) x Product (problem) opportunities.
An insights’ bank, ideas’ database containing 558 ideas, and 15-20 product concepts shortlisted from each workshop.
20 breakthrough concepts that were taken forward for development.