This project was developed for the Business Innovation course at Politecnico di Milano, in a group with 5 more friends, in 2012.
Briefing
To develop new scenarios, products or services for the baby-food products of Heinz.
The Process
The process of development of this project was following the strategy of Design-Driven Innovation, using polarities to define scenarios and understand better the user need but "thinking out of the box".
After a collective brainstorming with the entire class, we could understand better the main issues faced by families in the first years of a child's life. After identifying important clusters, we as a group decided which trends and focuses we wanted to use to define the polarities and specify the scenario.
The Project
The idea of this project was not to promote the products directly, but to create a connection between the brand and the families though a multichannel project, combining a webplatform with events that can bring both entertainment and knowledge to parents and kids.
The idea of this project was not to promote the products directly, but to create a connection between the brand and the families though a multichannel project, combining a webplatform with events that can bring both entertainment and knowledge to parents and kids.
The entire presentation of the project can be seen bellow.
CONCLUSION
We believe that this project can be very interesting forHeinz because instead of just proposing one product or one specific solutionfor a problem in the market, it is rather achannel that Heinz is opening with the consumers to be able to understandthem better and consolidate the brand not only as a food provider but also as acare taker. Heinz, in this way, canopen a communication channel to foster not only new ideas for products and services but also new partnerships and business opportunities.
The Campfire Project unites the best of User Centered andDesign Driven Approach since approximates the brand to the users, using thetools of shadowing and storytelling. To get personal points of view but at thesame time it can be considered Design Driven because the research does notlimits itself inside the food production and distribution market. The idea isto use this network, this knowledge sharing platform and all the data collectedfrom all different kinds of activities to do a research on human behavior with bigger lenses, in a more sociologic andanthropologic way, intending to understand cultural backgrounds and thedirections that society is taking in its general behavior.
To conclude, the idea of having an organizer identifyingother possible organizers creates a sort of chain reaction. And because people get to participate in interesting activities that bring knowledgeand entertainment to their kids, generatesquality time spent in family and on top of that stimulates new connections,friendships and a sense of community, people will keep coming and will soonbecome themselves the biggest advertisement Heinz could have and could never“buy”: the word of mouth.
We think that the social behavior is going already more andmore towards the duality between having every information and data accessibleall the time anywhere and at the sense time on one hand but on the other wehave the feeling of communities and the will to be part of something bigger,more meaningful and gratifying on the other. More and more people want to stayconnected, they want easy access on the things that make our life better andthey want also to live meaningful experiences. And the best possible scenarioin this case for any business is to use these characteristics of the modernculture to provide products and services that allow people to get the most oflife.
The Campfire Project unites the best of User Centered andDesign Driven Approach since approximates the brand to the users, using thetools of shadowing and storytelling. To get personal points of view but at thesame time it can be considered Design Driven because the research does notlimits itself inside the food production and distribution market. The idea isto use this network, this knowledge sharing platform and all the data collectedfrom all different kinds of activities to do a research on human behavior with bigger lenses, in a more sociologic andanthropologic way, intending to understand cultural backgrounds and thedirections that society is taking in its general behavior.
To conclude, the idea of having an organizer identifyingother possible organizers creates a sort of chain reaction. And because people get to participate in interesting activities that bring knowledgeand entertainment to their kids, generatesquality time spent in family and on top of that stimulates new connections,friendships and a sense of community, people will keep coming and will soonbecome themselves the biggest advertisement Heinz could have and could never“buy”: the word of mouth.
We think that the social behavior is going already more andmore towards the duality between having every information and data accessibleall the time anywhere and at the sense time on one hand but on the other wehave the feeling of communities and the will to be part of something bigger,more meaningful and gratifying on the other. More and more people want to stayconnected, they want easy access on the things that make our life better andthey want also to live meaningful experiences. And the best possible scenarioin this case for any business is to use these characteristics of the modernculture to provide products and services that allow people to get the most oflife.
