There’s three weeks left to enter the World Dairy Innovation Awards 2017, to be presented on 7 June at the Global Dairy Congress in Dublin. These awards have been running for many years and are a fantastic way for you to bolster and enhance your brand, providing a hallmark of success that will prevail long after the awards ceremony draws to a close.
Earlier in the week, we asked what four of this year’s judges were looking for from entrants. Now, four more judges from this year’s awards scheme tell us what they hope to see from brands so that you can polish your application before the 28 April deadline.
Hélène Simonin European Dairy Association director – food, environment & health
Can innovation help in fulfilling the sustainable development goals? What can innovation have to do with goals of sustainable development? An unusual context for pure-blood marketers, but part of the overall strategy of any company will be the position to take towards sustainability in the wider sense: how does the portfolio impact people and nature, in addition to the economic value? So, we might be interested in understanding if a new product comes to complement ideas of a company or not, if it can help answering consumer questions or further build business and government cooperation, if it has a role in a wider picture.
The 17 Sustainable development goals (SDGs) published by the United Nations (UN) are highly ambitious, even if not really unknown: reducing poverty, increasing health, climate action, clean energy, responsible consumption, creating partnerships, and many more. They are important to solve and the consciousness of today’s consumers to these targets is higher than ever. The colourful design of the SDGs is a surprise to how easily such high aims can become simple as building blocks – a perfect twinkle to good innovation.
A different angle of such deep-founded innovation is to see the reception in the human nature of consumers – does the product trigger a deeper vibration, does it come to a questioning of ours, can it appeal to the depth we have in ourselves? In today’s world many trends resonate from questions of the consumer, or goals they strive for.
Yes, marketeers will have to bridge the unusal – and bring us a handy, high-end designed, convenient core product in line with values of tradition, nature, proximity as well as overall development.
Trends can be important to follow in innovation – some new products just fit perfectly with the current inclination of consumers. Other products may open up their own and very special niche or even create trends. Dare to be yourself!
Of course, innovation for me cannot not live without pleasure – in design and in taste (even if we do not judge sensorially). So do not hesitate to make a product beautiful and delicious!
Yes, I am looking forward to be surprised by how ‘simple’ such a perfect innovation can be to the recipient, while it hides the most complex product and production.
Joel Bacall The Silk Initiative senior client manager
Here are the real practicalities I look at when determining how innovative a dairy product really is:
We see dairy as one of the most competitive categories out there, with a wide range of functional attributes and benefits, so we also feel it is crucial to build an emotional bond with consumers.
Because of this, we look for dairy innovations that move beyond the commodity space, and play strong in an emotional space. Winning power players in the market usually position health and lifestyle credentials strongly, whether that’s through product usage or recipes throughout marcomms in the West, or by introducing famous celebrities or key opinion leaders in the Chinese market to build a more ‘human’ connection to the brand and product.
Criteria: Can your product or brand build an emotional bond with consumers?
Our experience in the Chinese dairy market has taught us a lot about the dairy category in terms of how fast it can change, and how quickly prices can drop! In that sense, we work hard to ensure that brand and product investments in the market aren’t commoditised easily.
Because of this, we lay great emphasis on identifying or creating a unique point of difference, through brand or product innovation, to ensure that dairy innovations stand out and can defend themselves in an extremely fast moving category, where counterfeiting is rife.
Key criteria: How easily can your innovation be copied?
Anna Chatziioannou The Longevity Diet Foods CEO
My selection of the winning team in this year’s World Dairy Innovation Awards will be underpinned by what I deem to be the three most critical attributes in dairy products.
First, the innovation and the creativity of the product; this refers to the ability of the team to think in a disruptive manner and capitalise on a new concept or idea that can be implemented in real life.
Second, the freshness of the branding. As market dictates transparency of the product and the materials, and the consumers require multiple benefits and high responsibility from companies, clean label is becoming increasingly important.
Third, the marketing strategy and product positioning. As today’s consumers are overwhelmed by exponentially growing sources of information, I will be looking for a team that can uniquely market themselves apart from the competition.
These hard-to-combine attributes need to be associated also with a friendly retail price, loyalty to the local identity of the dairy segment and to natural and healthy ingredients.
Jason Kerr Fuel10K co-founder & head of product innovation
‘Out of 100 new products launched into major retail, only five will survive past their first two years’ – this is the statistic that has been repeated to me over a number of years at various retail and supplier forums. If you believe it, well it’s not great odds really, but I believe that this is why the innovation that we see coming through today is much more unique, on trend, and backed up with full-throttle determination.
When considering the applicants in this years awards, the criteria I’ll be looking for are:
This is a great opportunity to showcase the passion, inspiration and dogged belief that has gone into these products, and I’m absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to review them with the rest of the judging panel.
Donna Berry Dairy & Food Communications owner
For almost 25 years I’ve been tracking consumer trends and dairy innovation. I’ve seen many new products debut, and sadly, many fail. Never before has the pressure been so great to innovate to attract consumers and then keep them as customers. All food and beverage processors are ‘upping’ their game to appeal to millennials, that demographic that continues to disrupt the food industry with their cravings for adventure, flavour, information and simplicity.
The dairy foods industry is well poised to deliver on all of these attributes. That’s what I am looking for in the submissions to this year’s World Dairy Innovation Awards. They have to be products that attract consumers, deliver on product description and stay true to milk’s naturalness and purity. The real industry disrupters – and winners – will be the innovators who think beyond the traditional refrigerated and frozen dairy cases.
After all, butter is back. Whole milk is, too. Cheese and ice cream continue to gain traction in both retail and foodservice. Upscale, speciality and unique varieties of all these dairy foods are increasingly being sought out by consumers and they are willing to pay a premium for them. Fresh and minimally processed have always been dairy’s mantra. Local is the name of the game. The dairy industry has everything going for it in 2017. Bring it on. Show me what you’ve been working on in the product development department. I am also interested in seeing how processors communicate to consumers the story of the milk that goes into their dairy products. Don’t be shy to promote the farms, the farmers and the milk. Emphasising dairy’s inherent nutrition message is important, too. I am looking forward to seeing creative and original ways of making dairy the star in retail and foodservice.
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