Fresh thinking, breakthrough products
Articles
What a Room Full of R&D Leaders Reinforced About the Future of Innovation
There was enormous warmth in the room, and it was very special to see established colleagues reconnecting while new relationships were being formed. Alongside the celebration, however, there was also a serious and important conversation taking place about the future of R&D. Listening to our keynote speakers, expert panel and…
10 reasons why every R&D person should listen to Trinny Woodall
I’ve spent much of my career working in R&D, developing products by understanding people’s needs, exploring the science behind those needs and translating what we learn into products and product stories that perform better in real life. So I always…
Beyond the Product: Why Understanding People Is Beauty R&D’s Competitive Advantage
As beauty becomes more personal, inclusive and community-led, the challenge knowing what is worth developing in the first place. The businesses that succeed are those that connect genuine consumer understanding with scientific rigour, technical capability and commercial judgement, ensuring the…
Beauty’s next chapter: Why consumer understanding, product innovation and collaboration are critical for UK growth
We have access to an extraordinary breadth of consumer, cultural, scientific and commercial knowledge, but future growth will depend on how effectively we translate this understanding into products and experiences that exceed people’s expectations.
For R&D teams, this has a particularly…
The future of food innovation: Five priorities for R&D leaders
I spent two days at the Future Food-Tech Conference in London last week, listening to conversations spanning healthier ageing and GLP-1s, climate resilience, novel ingredients, AI, reformulation and the challenge of scaling food-tech innovation.
Five shifts reshaping packaging innovation for R&D
I had the pleasure of chairing the FMCG stage and here are five things I took away from the day.
Beyond what consumers say: finding the insights that lead to better products
Drawing on a conversation with Sally Kemkers, Sharon Powell explores why the most valuable consumer insights often sit beyond what people can readily articulate and how finding them gives R&D better problems to solve.
Untapped Claims & demos™: A Practical guide for R&D
Untapped Claims & Demos™ builds on the Untapped Product Story™ Arc, helping R&D teams translate user insights and technical breakthroughs into claims and demonstrations that are distinctive, credible and commercially meaningful.
What separates commercially successful R&D organisations from technically successful ones
The most successful innovations are those whose value is understood by the people they are designed to serve. By combining technical excellence with compelling storytelling, R&D teams can build stronger propositions, uncover new opportunities and create lasting commercial impact.
3 Things Every Food Innovator Should Learn from Beauty
It’s healthy to be curious about what’s happening in adjacent categories because consumers don’t think in categories. Consumers don’t wake up and separate their lives into food, beauty, fashion and technology. They’re experiencing all of it, and expectations transfer between…
Untapped Product Story™: A Practical Guide for R&D
A clear Product Story provides the thread that holds the innovation together. It helps R&D, Marketing and commercial teams understand the user problem being solved, the role the technology plays in solving it and the experience the product is ultimately…
Accelerating Speed to Market by Reducing Innovation Ambiguity
The conversation around innovation has become increasingly dominated by speed. Every organisation is looking for ways to shorten development timelines, reduce time to market and increase the return on every pound invested in innovation. Consumer expectations continue to evolve, retailers…
3 Things a Software Guy and an FMCG Scientist Agree On
Dr. Chad McAllister and I do not come from the same world. He has spent his career in software and product management, and hosts the Product Mastery Now podcast. I have spent mine in FMCG, working inside R&D teams developing…