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Clean Label Product Development Short Course at IFT18

Clean Label Product Development: Balancing Consumer, Regulatory, and Science

Hilton Chicago, Waldorf Room 8-5
Saturday & Sunday, July 14-15

For many consumers, clean label has become the norm. For others, clean label may only inform a part of their purchasing decisions. In this course, we will look to uncover the nuances that exist between different consumer personas and the impact this has on different clean label purchasing behaviors and the implications for manufacturers.

While consumers want many different things when it comes to clean label, it is imperative that manufacturers understand the regulatory and legal guidelines to minimize and eliminate risk. This is a challenging task considering the ingredient landscape for delivering against consumers clean label requirements continues to evolve. As part of this course, you will interact with a consumer panel, and hear directly from brand representatives about overcoming the challenges of going clean label.

Program Focus:

  • Product Development & Ingredient Innovations

Appropriate for Intermediate-Level Professionals In:

  • Product Development
  • Research & Development
  • Technical Service
  • Sales & Marketing
  • Regulatory/Legal
  • Sensory & Consumer Science
  • Education (Students, Teachers, Educators) 

REGISTRATION:click here to register.

As part of your registration, you will receive course materials, lunches, refreshment breaks, and a certificate of attendance. Course presentation materials are distributed electronically; bringing your laptop or tablet is recommended.

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Webinar 11 – July 2018- “Don’t Use That! Clean Label Movement: Non-Food Personal and Home Care Product Impact”

Presented by:  Sarah Kirkmeyer, Sr. Director, Client Partnerships and Karen Lynch, Sr. Director, Qualitative Insights.

Presented Thursday, July 12, 2 pm ET

View Webinar Here

Clean label consumer decisions extend beyond food and beverage industry… Today’s shoppers—and the Clean Label Enthusiasts (CLE) in our online research community—are also looking for clean labels on the products they use for personal care and in their home. We are now conducting deep dives with consumers in specific non-food categories to uncover deeper, faster insights for product innovation and development in these sectors.

In the context of non-food categories, during this webinar we’ll share with you:

  • How CLEs define a clean label
  • Brands that are doing a great job of meeting CLE needs
  • Ingredients manufacturers should avoid to maintain a positive perception among this growing segment of the population.

Please join us for a webinar which will highlight some of the key findings from our research with Clean Label Enthusiasts in five non-food categories: Oral Care, Home Care, Hair Care, Fabric Care and Body Care.

Hope to see you there!

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Getting innovative at IIeX North America!

We are headed to IIeX2018 North America June 11-13, and hope you are too! InsightsNow will be at booth #31—stop by, say hello and learn more about what we've been up to lately. 

Be sure to mark your conference calendar to attend our fun, interactive workshop on Monday, June 11 at 11:00am ET. Our team will be leading you through exciting, quick learning approaches in "Go Agile! Accelerating Innovation via Rapid Iterative Learning Sprints."

Plus, we will be running an Executive Roundtable you won't want to miss, also on June 11 starting at 12:20—come "spark" some insights with us! In this exercise, "Baby, You’re a Firework! Metaphorical exercises for deeper sensorial insights," we will be engaging your senses.

And meet our CEO and Founder Dave Lundahl—you can schedule some time with him to discuss agile behavioral research, our new Clean Label Enthusiasts research community, or how to improve your speed-to and success-in market... Get on his calendar now.

We are looking forward to a great show!

 

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InsightsNow Releases “Clean Label Enthusiasts” Syndicated Report Examining Free-From Movement

Clean Label Enthusiast

Latest wave of behavioral research utilizes new Clean Label Scoring approach to inform client decision-making for marketing, branding and product development

May 31, 2018 – Chicago, IL – InsightsNow, an agile behavioral research firm, has released a second wave of research on the free-from movement—consumer-driven demand for elimination of allergens and other ingredients from food and non-food products. The new research covers the intricacies and drivers of this clean label shopping behavior. The "Clean Label Research Community Behavior Report" compiles data collected from the InsightsNow proprietary research community of Clean Label Enthusiasts (CLE) and utilizes a new CLE Scoring system. This subscription-based report is released quarterly, with the inaugural report released earlier this year.

"The free-from movement continues to grow in scope and popularity among consumers who are becoming more and more health conscious," said Dave Lundahl, Founder and CEO of InsightsNow, and recent recipient of the NGMR award for "Industry Change Agent of the Year" based on the company’s work with Clean Label research. "Our study and scoring techniques will help brands navigate the new landscape of consumer demands for products that address not only allergies, but also considerations surrounding health, sustainability and farming practices, such as animal welfare."

Clean Label Enthusiasts (CLE) are primary shoppers with a specific set of behaviors around the free-from movement that influence their buying decisions. For example, the data shows that the CLE group reads ingredient labels and will trade away great taste for a cleaner label with ingredients they trust.

InsightsNow has developed a new behavioral scoring system to gain insight into which ingredients contribute to a perceived clean label. This Clean Label Score, using a 100 point rating, is based on implicit behavioral science techniques to gauge avoidance or acceptance reactions to ingredients.

The Clean Label Scoring technique uncovered key findings in the latest InsightsNow CLE report, such as:

  • Calling an ingredient "natural" or "organic" dramatically increases its Clean Label Score. For example, "natural" received an average 85.94 score across all examined food categories (on a 100 point scale).
  • Some "banned" or "black-listed" ingredients from certain retail stores (e.g. citric acid) were scored as clean by 50% or more of CLE.
  • Sweeteners were scored in the study, with honey being perceived by the community as the most clean with a score of 85.07, and corn syrup as the least clean with a score of 20.61.

"Results of this latest wave of the CLE study suggest that the free-from movement is growing far beyond food ingredient concerns," added Lundahl. "Concerns are growing into how non-food products contribute to unhealthy chemicals being ingested, absorbed through the skin or breathed in from the environment. These consumers expect manufacturers to take responsibility for the health and safety of the product sold through retailers."

To gain access to the subscription-based report or learn more about the Clean Label Scoring system, reach out to InsightsNow.

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InsightsNow Named On GreenBook’s GRIT 50 Most Innovative Companies List for 2018

2018 Greenbook GRIT Innovative

 

Behavioral market research firm is honored as innovator due to new work on agile research solutions and techniques

May 30, 2018 – Chicago, IL – InsightsNow, an agile behavioral research firm, has been ranked on this year’s GRIT 50 Most Innovative Companies list, jumping 11 spots above its 2017 ranking to number 38. InsightsNow’s new innovative research communities, such as itsClean Label Enthusiasts™ community, and its custom behavioral reporting and scoring techniques, have helped move the company up the list.

Dave Lundahl, Founder and CEO for InisightsNow, said, “At InsightsNow, we are always looking ahead, planning for the future needs of our clients and this mindset has led to several exciting developments over the last couple of years. The results of GRIT report are a testament to the impact that our new agile, iterative, custom research approaches have had on finding answers faster for clients in all areas of their business.”

The GRIT 50 began eight years ago when GreenBook, an organization that provides innovative resources to market researchers on both sides of the table, decided to start tracking which firms were perceived as most innovative within the global market research industry. The list measures how market research suppliers are leveraging innovation by asking these unaided awareness verbatim questions:

  1. Which three research companies do you consider to be most innovative?
  2. Rank those firms you listed from most to least innovative.
  3. Why do you consider your number 1 ranked firm to be most innovative?

The complete report from GreenBook can be found here: http://bit.ly/2IHQh0n

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Webinar 10 – June 2018- “Sea Salt or Sodium Chloride? Ingredient Scoring Insights for a Perceived Cleaner Label”

Presented by InsightsNow: Dave Lundahl, CEO and Sarah Kirkmeyer, Sr. Director, Client Partnerships

Watch Here

As the free-from movement continues to gain momentum, product developers and marketers are challenged to know how to design products to have a perceived cleaner label.  As an example, does paying a higher premium for sea salt vs regular salt matter?  Does your target consumer care whether an ingredient is listed as natural or organic?

Join us as we introduce the “Clean Label Ingredient Score” and a new industry database being built in partnership with forward thinking ingredient suppliers.  Users gain a deeper understanding into how consumers react to different ingredients in different contexts, and provide direction into the impact on their product choice behavior.

This webinar will highlight how using different ingredients or ingredient terminology can impact consumer behavior.

Learn ways to keep your business ahead of the trends.

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Webinar 9 – May 2018 “Accelerating Innovation through Agile Techniques-Part 3: Commercialization Sprints”

Thursday, May 3, 2 pm ET   “Commercialization Sprints”

 

 Hosted by InsightsNow: Dave Lundahl, CEO, and Greg Stucky, Chief Research Officer

Register Here

After the fuzzy front end and defining a product design, commercialization steps become more agile with consumer behavior insights.

You now have a great product design explicitly and implicitly communicating benefits for a consumer target.  How do you successfully sprint to the finish line?

This will be the subject for part 3 of our WebinarsNow series on research techniques for agile innovation.

We will address how to rapidly iterate to avoid three major pitfalls for innovation teams.  The first is to rapidly learn through cost rationalization with a constant focus on the prize – maintaining the important cues that signal the benefits your brand will promise to target consumers.  The second is to apply rapid, iterative behavioral techniques to validate pricing and how your consumer target will react.  These techniques will address the importance of including the context of competitive sets to understand price sensitivity, and to ensure you do not alienate existing, and in fact gain new, brand fans as a result of your new product introduction.  We will discuss how to integrate these techniques into learning sprints that are validated through various kinds of test market.

This third webinar will discuss consumer research approaches that uncover consumer insights regarding the areas of ingredients, packaging, pricing, and promotion.

View the first two presentations HERE

# 1 - Thursday, March 8:    “Clearing Up the Fuzzy Front End”

#2 - Thursday, April 5, 2pm ET :  "Translation through Iterative Design"

The essential need for speed-to-market response in today’s consumer-driven marketplace has compelled a shift from traditional step-by-step development processes to innovation approaches that incorporate a lean mindset, design thinking, and rapid prototyping. But being lean and agile to support successful innovation efforts does not mean cutting corners, it means you are being smarter in getting to market faster with lower investment.

How do you do shift your research and innovation efforts to be agile, fast and affordable, while still effectively exploring, ideating and executing on your idea, product or service?

In this three-part series of WebinarsNow, you’ll learn about:

  • Agile approaches to innovation and how these differ from classical processes
  • Iterative, cooperative research
  • Case studies delving into these behavioral research approaches
  • Beyond Design - Commercialization Sprints (May 3)

Innovations in research methodology have been proven to help innovation teams more quickly know how to target, design and develop for a more rapid market response. Join us to be inspired to shift your mindset and revisit the way you drive your innovation pipeline to success.

 

See how you can accelerate successful innovations through behavioral research in this video.

Register Here
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Webinar 8- April 2018 – “Accelerating Innovation through Agile Techniques – Part 2: Translation through Iterative Design”

Presented Thursday, April 5, 2 pm ET   

 

 Hosted by InsightsNow: Dave Lundahl, CEO, and Karen Lynch, Director, Qualitative Services



Watch Webinar

The essential need for speed-to-market response in today’s consumer-driven marketplace has compelled a shift from traditional step-by-step development processes to innovation approaches that incorporate a lean mindset, design thinking, and rapid prototyping. But being lean and agile to support successful innovation efforts does not mean cutting corners, it means you are being smarter in getting to market faster with lower investment.

How do you do shift your research and innovation efforts to be agile, fast and affordable, while still effectively exploring, ideating and executing on your idea, product or service?

In this three-part series of WebinarsNow, you’ll learn about:

  • Agile approaches to innovation and how these differ from classical processes
  • Iterative, cooperative research
  • Case studies delving into these behavioral research approaches
  • Beyond Design - Commercialization Sprints (May 3)

Innovations in research methodology have been proven to help innovation teams more quickly know how to target, design and develop for a more rapid market response. Join us to be inspired to shift your mindset and revisit the way you drive your innovation pipeline to success.

 

View the first two presentations HERE

# 1 - Thursday, March 8:    “Clearing Up the Fuzzy Front End”

#2 - Thursday, April 5, 2pm ET :  "Translation through Iterative Design"

See how you can accelerate successful innovations through behavioral research in this video.



Register Here

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Sprints, Iterations and Feedback Loops:

An Agile Approach to Research

As a research consultant focusing on product innovation and development, I do my best to maintain a pulse on new market entries and corporate initiatives. And hardly a day goes by when the word “innovation” doesn’t cross my radar, quite literally. Within the past week, two relevant articles surfaced in my inbox, highlighting the importance of innovation in the world of consumer-packaged goods:

 “Arla Foods: Developing a taste for innovation and a big slice of data.”

“Nestlé’s Milkybar world first with innovation to reduce sugar by 30%.”

Innovation. It’s literally everywhere. And it’s absolutely everything.

As some of you may know, at InsightsNow we’re kicking off Spring with a two-part webinar on Accelerating Innovation through Agile Techniques. Last month we addressed, “Clearing up the Fuzzy Front End.” This Thursday we’ll be focused on “Translation through Iterative Design.”  We’re highlighting how Agile methods help researchers get things done faster.

Why agile techniques? Well, for starters, you reduce financial risks when you aren’t spending six figures on fuzzy front-end research.  Also, you increase team motivation and morale with highly focused, high energy initiatives.  And perhaps most importantly, you boost success rates and get products to market faster when you incorporate feedback loops and iterative learning cycles.

Agile Innovation:  It Isn’t Just for Start-Ups Anymore

R&D, in collaboration with their Marketing and Consumer Insights teams, needs to attack the market like a start-up would: with continuous discovery and product delivery, minimizing risk and expense while maximizing return on investment, and iterative research.

Iterations are, in their simplest form, developmental cycles. Start-ups, if using the Scrum method, call each Iteration a Sprint. With Sprints, teams set incremental goals for what the Sprint is to accomplish, they plan initiatives designed to meet that goals, execute those projects, then reflect on what they learned and what they need to accomplish in their next Sprint.

Plan. Execute. Learn. Reflect. Repeat, adapting and improving.

Agile Research Techniques

Similar to start-up style Agile Sprints, here’s a format to consider for your next Agile Research “Sprint”:

  • Set out on a course of Discovery, intent to learn, by planning and executing affordable consumer research.
  • After, debrief, share insights, leveraging the reflections of your team for Inspiration.
  • Next, take Action; get to work on whatever it is you need to act upon before the next round, incorporating consumer feedback.
  • Test what you developed and/or launch back into Discovery. Failure is okay (remember I talked about reduced financial risks?). With each failure comes more learning.
  • Repeat until you Succeed.

InsightsNow Shares Agile Values

In 2017, we ranked on the GreenBook’s Grit Report list of top 50 Most Innovative Suppliers. We’re likely on the list because we share agile values with many of our clients and suppliers:

  • We appreciate individuals and our interactions over processes and tools (although we do have a tool or two up our sleeves).
  • We value customer collaborations, tweaking approaches based on feedback, and seeking out ways to work on projects together.
  • We break complex challenges into manageable chunks, incorporating feedback loops into proposals, presentations, and yes, even blog posts like this one.
  • We flexibly respond to change versus following a plan that no longer works or feels relevant.

(This year’s industry survey is out … have you taken it? If not, here’s the link: https://aytm.com/r1c93bb.)

Have you signed up for our webinar?

Remember, this week’s webinar will be focused on Translation Through Iterative Design. Won’t you join us as we discuss how to shift your mindset and your next research and innovation effort to one that is agile and affordable, while still effectively exploring, ideating and executing on your idea, product or service.  Here’s the link: https://www.insightsnow.com/webinar_accelerating_innovation/.

Thanks,

Karen Lynch

Senior Director Qualitative Research, InsightsNow Inc.

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