- Unilever Slim-Fast: Fattening a Diet Brand
THE CHALLENGE:
How do you fatten up the product line of a diet supplement company that has been a success for more than 25 years, is sold on nearly every continent, and whose name is recognized throughout the world?
Slim-Fast wanted to fill the new product funnel and look for technical and R&D breakthroughs for the next five years, so it asked Synecticsworld to help the supplement company’s team develop breakthrough products that were further out rather than closer in.
THE PROCESS:
The work involved a series of insight-generating interviews and discovery sessions around new products, as well as training Unilever people in Synecticsworld’s tools and techniques that would allow the Unilever team to hone their interview and observation skills.
Synecticsworld prepared the Unilever team for the immersion phase by using Synecticsworld techniques, then had them look at three different groups of consumers:
- Slim-Fast loyalists
- Occasional consumers
- Consumers interested in weight management but not necessarily Slim-Fast users
The group’s challenge was to determine if there were key differences between the groups – and there were.
THE RESULTS:
Thirty-five new product concepts were generated by the session, with each concept then undergoing further consumer lab refinement work.
The activation went far beyond the new product development phase in that it resulted in advertising innovation that was both rewarding and sustainable.
“Every Unilever food brand should go though this process,” said Michiel Kruyt, Unilever’s Vice-President of Marketing.
