Mustard's New Recipe for Product Development

In the UK, Mustard Research has launched the 'Popcorn Innovation Process', a 3-stage approach to new product development work in consumer and B2B markets.

The process has been developed over 'several years' of NPD and service development projects, and combines exploratory qual methods such as ethnography and communities, with co-creation workshops and benchmarking surveys.

The three stages of the process are described as:

• Harvesting: using creative techniques to provide an 'intricate understanding' of the lives, motivations and experiences of key audiences, assessed alongside knowledge of current consumer and b2b trends to establish 'what needs fixing';
• POP! - facilitated workshops with cross-functional teams, partners and customers using the classic 'funnel' approach to generate an 'amazing' volume of new ideas and solutions for fixing those problems; and
• Serve: picking the best ideas to take forward for further development and road-mapping; re-engaging with participants from stage 1 to set the ideas in context and gauge their potential.

Director Richard Walker comments: 'Over the years we have developed a process that has delivered proven results for NPD. Having recently used the analogy of popping corn to explain the process to a client, we quickly realised there was a glaring opportunity to brand and package this solution for other clients.

From gathering the kernels of insight with exploratory qual, through to watching the ideas 'pop' when heated up in co-creation sessions, and then serving it up to market, the fun associations with popcorn fit both our brand and this new service perfectly'.

The mustard-flavoured popcorn sent out to promote the launch could have done with a little more mustard, in our humble opinion, but was still appreciated.

The firm's home page is at www.mustard-research.com .