Challenge     The organization I work in acquired a seeds beverages brand from another company and set up  a team to manage this brand, which represented a whole new category of products to which  our company was not used to and had no information of their consumers. The R&D team of this  brand came along with the acquisition, and as a kickoff for the new marketing and planning  team, we decided to have a workshop in which R&D would share their insights on the product,  its composition, benefits, suppliers, competitors and trends. The idea was for the new team to  be immersed into this new category, to inspire us on the category possibilities and to set the  mood for the innovation process and path to follow.       Selection    It was decided that a Mind Mapping approach was what we needed, to understand the product  and its current consumers, as well as the competitors and the trends the category was going  through. A Mind Map helps exchange ideas and points of view, allowing us to go deeper into  our problems and opportunities.      Application    We gathered the brand Latin American team, including people from different areas (marketing,  planning, supply chain, R&D) and countries, in our Brazil office, that is where the R&D lab is  based, together with some ingredient suppliers. The latter, started by presenting the different  seeds, their characteristics and benefits for health, and then R&D deployed a review of the  brand performance over the past 10 years, the existing portfolio and consumer information. All  of these took a day of presentations. The following day, we arrived at the workshop and the  magic started to happen. They had set the tables separated, without chairs to be able to walk  all around them, and full of products, from the competitors, ours, prototypes, some were  beverages and other were from other adjacent categories or even other kinds of snacks, all of  them made mainly from seeds. They gave us some stickers with the instruction to taste every  product and put a sticker or two on those we liked.    After an hour of testing different products, flavors, textures and ideas, we moved on to another  room where we were divided into 4 groups. In each group, we had to share our opinions on  those products we liked the most, and then, using some post its, group them by sort,  consumption occasion and potential consumer. Then, we put together everything the groups  had found and each group was given a topic or corridor to work on. For example, our group had  to discuss snacking between meals, on-the-go products and packages, for both kids at school  and workers at the office, or any other consumer group we could think of. Another group was  in charge of the breakfast at home corridor, which included families with kids, single and elder  people, while others saw after the healthy people, who care about what they eat and  exercising. At this point, we were able not only to include some of the products we had tested

earlier, but also new ideas we could come up to. When each group presented their conclusions,  the others had a chance to participate and give their opinions, making the discoveries richer.       Insights & Approach    Using this Mind Mapping technique and including people from different areas and markets  helped us broaden our knowledge and points of view. We were able to listen to different  market situations, proven that in some countries the category is more advanced and accepted  than in others. Even among us there were some people who were familiar with or already seeds  beverages consumers while others had little clue of what these products were, much less say  when or how to consume them.     The conclusion of the workshop was a brand vision and a first approach to an innovation  pipeline with which we all felt comfortable, from marketing to R&D and supply chain, and a  start point to working together as a team across the whole region, leveraging on each other’s  understanding and experience.

