With the rational upgrading of consumer demand and the iteration of product technology, many industries such as healthcare and personal care are entering a new consuming era driven by “science”, and the logic of product innovation needs to be innovated and reshaped. How can good technology become good products? How to successfully link products with consumer needs? And how to highlight the differentiated advantage brought by “science”? These are the questions that marketers must face.
Consumer products with scientific genes generally face the following dilemmas in the innovation process:
01 Science is difficult to commercialize
Technological advances offer a wealth of possibilities for product innovation, but there are still barriers to effective translation into commercially viable consumer products. The results of scientific research often remain in the laboratory, lacking practical application scenarios and market validation, especially in the healthcare and personal care industries.
02 Consumer demand is tough to balance
Consumer demand is becoming more dynamic and personalized. On one hand, they want science-driven products that are precisely tailored to their unique needs, on the other hand they want a credible solution that is widely proven and applicable to most of the population. How to balance high relevance and universality places higher demands on product development and innovation.
03 The diminishing value of single-point innovation
Consumer perception of the product has been shifting from a single function to a multi-dimensional value, including not only the perception of the actual efficacy of the product, but also multiple dimensions, such as physical appearance and usage experience. Therefore, brands need to shift from "single breakthrough" to "multi-dimensional comprehensive innovation" in order to better cater to the increasingly complex product value system of consumers.
In order to cope with the change of innovation logic and industry technology bottleneck, and to reconstruct the innovation thinking more effectively, THREE INNOVATION, the innovation consulting boutique of ILLUMINERA, puts forward a new product innovation paradigm for consumerized science-driven products. It aims to build a complete product innovation path from science to consumers through the deep excavation of science, the forward-looking insight of consumer demand and the all-round shaping of product value experience.
In the field of lifestyle nutrition and healthcare, consumers' needs have evolved from generalization to in-depth segmentation, placing higher demands on the professionalism and scientific endorsement of products. Take probiotics, a highly recognized functional ingredient, as an example. Thanks to existing consumer mindset about its efficacy on intestinal health, it is rapidly expanding into the diversified business track. THREE INNOVATION was entrusted to assist a leading European probiotics brand to successfully incubate a new product with precise market entry strategy and high commercialized implementation solution, all based on the consumer science innovation paradigm.
1) Built opportunities on the science drivers
Tapping into the commercial possibilities of probiotics
We carefully studied the scientific efficacy of probiotics and looked for business possibilities that had strong scientific evidence and had already been explored commercially, such as recovering from diarrhea, boosting immunity, relieving allergies, improving skin condition and women's health, and helping with body management and mood control, etc. Based on this, we explored the possibilities of technological realization for our clients' products, as well as the starting point for product development.
2） Grasped the precise demands
Connecting with consumers' real needs
Although consumers have already established a vague understanding of "probiotics - gut - body management", there is still a lack of a concise layer of education on the scientific mechanism that directly links probiotic efficacy to body management, such as the role of probiotics in intestinal metabolism. Therefore, we helped brands to establish accurate RTB* for its claimed benefits, matching consumers' own needs, existing perceptions, and natural associations with the category to effectively create product opportunities.
* Reasons to believe
3） Unleashed outstanding value capability
Identifying product positioning and advantages
In the face of fierce KPI-style competition in the nutraceutical sector, such as emphasis on XX strains and XX quantities, etc., we helped the brand to enhance its image in long history of OTC products overseas and its strong professionalism and science, bypassing the established marketing logic and repositioning its product strengths. At the same time, we anchored the product's relevance in body management through the composite efficacy system plus user experience, and strengthened the ultimate consumer-perceivable points of interest to give full play to the product's unique value.
Sample articulation of product message
For more relevant information, please send an email to
Karen.liu@illuminera.com or marketing@illuminera.com.
