Untapped Claims & demos™: A Practical guide for R&D

One of the challenges for R&D is ensuring technical advantage translates into a difference people can understand and value. Statements like ‘New. Improved. Advanced technology‘ are not necessarily wrong, but they could belong to almost any product in the category. Somewhere between the laboratory and the launch, the thinking that made the innovation distinctive has been lost.

Claims and demonstrations help bridge that gap and translate technical breakthroughs into messages that people can quickly understand, trust and remember. When consumers recognise why an innovation is different, it becomes easier to value, harder to copy and more likely to succeed commercially.

The strongest claims are discovered throughout development: every prototype, technical breakthrough and user insight contains the raw material for a compelling product story. Demonstrations are simply evidence made visible, they allow people to experience a benefit rather than simply trust a promise, reducing the gap between what R&D knows and what users believe.

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.

Beame are leading the way with their intuitive and highly beneficial new formats for sun protection, and could elevate their proposition even further by possibly zooming in on the visials on skin, or more clearly labelling the “before-after” side by side image.

Mother Root builds a highly credible proposition around just four natural ingredients and the health benefits of apple cider vinegar, with an opportunity to bring even more emotional resonance by exploring how people want to feel when choosing a sophisticated alternative to alcohol.

Step 1: What are you trying to claim or demo?

Claims are most powerful when they communicate the solution and demonstrations are most powerful when they show the journey. Before writing a claim or creating a demonstration, first decide what deserves to be remembered and ask: if someone remembered only one thing about this innovation, what would you want it to be?

Step 2: Ideate

Once you know what deserves to be communicated, look beyond your own product and study how competitors tell similar stories. Innovation is not always about finding a completely new message and often, the opportunity lies in expressing a familiar idea in a fresher, more memorable way.

Step 3: Articulate

Only now should you begin writing claims and developing demonstrations. Start by exploring several possibilities rather than searching for the perfect answer, the strongest articulation usually emerges through iteration. For claims, explain the benefit in language your users would naturally understand, while remaining faithful to the science. For demonstrations, think about evidence rather than explanation. What could people see or experience that would make the benefit immediately obvious?

How to assess whether a claim is actually good

The real challenge is knowing whether a claim is strong enough to survive in a crowded market. A claim may be technically accurate yet fail to persuade, or it may sound exciting but lack the credibility needed to earn trust. Great claims strike a careful balance between evidence and relevance, giving people a reason to believe while making it immediately clear why the innovation matters.

To help R&D teams evaluate their thinking, we developed BANISH: a simple framework for strengthening product claims before they reach market.

Believable – does it feel credible?
Addresses a pain point – is it solving a real user problem?
New and distinctive – does the phrasing stand out or feel familiar?
Individually targeted to the right user – is it speaking directly to your user?
Short and simple – is the wording right for the context?
Head and Heart – does it balance logic with emotional impact?

HP‘s brilliant campaign recreated the frustration of running out of ink before revealing its Smart Tank solution.

The GPS pet tracker has a strong, emotionally relevant proposition and communicates across a broad range of benefits. There’s an opportunity to build on this by sharpening its point of difference, bringing in more compelling proof, and anchoring the proposition in a more specific owner need or emotional story.

How to assess whether a demonstration is actually good

If claims tell people what to believe, demonstrations allow them to experience it. The most effective demonstrations rarely explain every detail of the technology. Instead, they make the benefit so obvious that lengthy explanation becomes unnecessary. Whether it’s a photograph, an experiment, a product in use or a striking visual metaphor, a great demonstration makes the evidence impossible to ignore.

Our SHOW framework helps teams evaluate whether a demonstration is working as hard as it could:
Simple – can the benefit be grasped immediately?
Hero the user benefit – does it clearly show whats in it for the user?
Original and ownable – could it belong to your brand and no one else?
Well-defined – is the link between cause and effect clear?

Dreamies turns its claim that “cats will do almost anything for Dreamies” into entertaining visual proof, with giant cats scaling buildings and billboards in pursuit of the treat. The exaggerated spectacle makes the cause and effect instantly clear: Dreamies are simply too irresistible to ignore.

Heinz transforms its iconic ketchup bottle into a tomato, instantly communicating the freshness and quality of its key ingredient without relying on familiar claims about taste. The demonstration works because the pack is so distinctive that even when reimagined, it remains unmistakably Heinz, making the product itself the proof.

→ See claims, demos and product stories in action

Great claims explain why an innovation matters. Great demonstrations make people believe it. Together, they transform technical achievement into something consumers can understand, remember and value.

Chupa Chups transforms its unmistakable lollipop silhouette into the molecular structure of endorphins, using a moment of rewarding visual decoding to reposition a childhood favourite as an ownable reminder of the simple chemistry of feeling good.

Apple lets the photographs become the proof, demonstrating the iPhone’s camera capability through striking images created by its users rather than conventional claims about the technology. “Shot on iPhone” turns every photograph into credible evidence of what the product and, importantly, the person using it, can achieve.

Key Takeaways: 7 Principles for Stronger Claims & Demos

1. Start with the user, not the technology.
A breakthrough only becomes valuable when people understand the problem it solves. Lead with the benefit, then use the science or technology to give people a reason to believe.

2. Decide what deserves to be remembered.
Identify the one thing you want people to understand, believe and remember, then build your claim and demonstration around it.

3. Claims tell. Demonstrations prove.
The strongest product stories use both claims to articulate why an innovation matters and a demonstration that makes the evidence tangible.

4. Learn from the category, then find what only you can say.
Distinctiveness often comes from expressing a familiar benefit in a way that is uniquely credible and ownable for your product.

5. Translate technical evidence into human value.
Give consumers enough evidence to trust the innovation and enough relevance to understand how it improves their experience. Make the science work for the story, rather than becoming the story.

6. Test your claims and demos
Use BANISH to challenge your claims and use SHOW to test your demos.

7. Develop the story as you develop the innovation.
Every consumer insight, prototype and technical discovery is potential material for the product story. Capture it, experiment with different articulations and demonstrations, and refine the strongest ideas as the innovation develops.

Robinsons turns a simple product interaction into a playful demonstration of Wicked-inspired magic, showing how a familiar product can create a more memorable experience when the benefit is something consumers actively bring to life.

By matching the colour of the Heinz ketchup to the red on its iconic label, Heinz turned a problem of restaurant refilling into an elegantly simple demonstration of authenticity, giving consumers visible proof that if the colours match, it’s Heinz.

→ See how user barriers can inspire stronger claims and demos