Are you chasing trends or truly innovating?

Innovating with depth ain’t easy. Delivering timely and meaningful innovation to the marketplace is challenging and can leave you prioritizing speed-to-market over innovation that is relevant to your brand and your target audience.

Our very own VP of Business Insights, Eric Pierce, recently spoke with Adam Ye on the podcast My Food Job Rocks, where they explored:

• How to ensure your innovation resonates authentically and goes beyond novelty
• The importance of looking at the context of what is trending and how that creates value
• The importance of ensuring that innovative ingredient formulation efforts are closely linked to brand marketing and sales efforts

For now, our quick advice for innovators is to take the time to understand why a topic is “trending.” Consider the following questions:

• What is the context in which the topic is trending?
• Is there a broader cultural context adding relevance and momentum to this topic?
• What need does it solve and for whom?
• Do the answers to these questions align with your brand, product positioning and target audience?

Eager to bring some rockin’ innovation to your brand? Contact the NEXT Data & Insights team to learn more about NEXT’s trend hierarchy, Multiple Forces Assessment (MFA) and other trend and innovation tools.