Nothing accelerates bad thinking quite like pressure. As most liquor categories contract, the pressure on Innovation teams is intensifying. For many companies, RTD is fast becoming one area of hope. In the scramble to get into retailers' fridges, common sense can fly out the window faster than the latest hard seltzer deletion.
A couple of weeks ago, a client asked us to name the biggest traps we see in Innovation. It's the best kind of question. After years inside Innovation teams around the world, you develop a gut feel for when things are going wrong before the data catches up. Neuroscientists call it a pattern recognition reflex. Here, distilled from two decades of that reflex, are four traps we see Innovation teams fall into.
1. Not being clear on what success looks like
This one sounds obvious. It isn't. I've been in Innovation evaluation meetings where a launch was deemed a success for gaining a national listing, and another a failure for missing an inflated volume target. For some innovations, success is a small incremental over one to two years. For others, it's compounding long-term brand value. Too often, success measures are a box-ticking exercise for a brand manager. They shouldn't be. Align the full business upfront, celebrate the wins, and know when to stop flogging a dead horse.
2. Relying on consumers for the solution
A friend once pinged me from a European trade show where a consumer-backed avocado-infused vodka was being touted as the next big thing. I like avocados. I like vodka. I'm not convinced avo-vodka is about to reshape the category.
Henry Ford (or someone) famously said that if he'd asked consumers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. Consumers are brilliant at telling you what they like. They are poor at imagining step-change solutions beyond the current paradigm. Worse, they can dramatically overstate what they're likely to buy. This can inflate confidence in bad ideas. Listen through consumers, not just to them.
3. Not leveraging your unique brand DNA
In the late 2010s, when RTD was driven by easy-going refreshment, Jack Daniel's launched Double Jack, a higher-ABV RTD. Every category trend said it shouldn't work. It worked so well that, one year or so later, the Australian team was asked to do it again, and American Serve was born. That team didn't look for ‘category white’ space. They looked into the brand's meaning to find where Jack Daniel's strengths truly lay.
Jack won't win on refreshment or fruity ‘fun’ flavours. It wins on boldness and strength - both core to its brand DNA. Every great brand will have its own special, unique formula. Look into your brand DNA for what makes it meaningful and genuinely different. That's where lasting value creation lives.
4. Not thinking ahead of the category
The truly game-changing innovations share one thing: a beautiful alignment between a forward vision of the category and what their brand DNA can uniquely offer. When you get this right, you don't just launch a product. You shift a paradigm.
The global gold standard is, of course, Apple and the iPhone. When it arrived, nobody asked what Apple was doing in the phone business. It felt inevitable. Ask what feels inevitable from your brand's unique blend of meaning and differentiation, link it to where the category is heading, and magic can happen.
None of this is easy, and I say that as someone who may yet be eating humble pie with a side of avo-vodka. Spending quality time up front and pushing from good to best separates lasting innovations from the clearance bin. That's not a process. It's a discipline. And right now, in this industry, it might just be the most valuable one you can build.
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Rachel Parker is the founder of 4 Squared Global and has spent more than two decades helping senior leaders turn complex challenges into commercial success. A former Global Vice President at Brown-Forman, she helps organisations create lasting brand and business value through strategy, branding and innovation. Find out more at 4squaredglobal.com.
4 Squared Global is a Silver Partner of the Drinks Association.