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Nestlé's Brabeck on innovation,
mind melding,
innovations centres, R&D investment
strategies, e-marketing and the
future of society.
Here's a ringing endorsement
of what this site is all about.
Nestlé boss Peter Brabeck
was telling Nestlé investors recently about the "transformational
opportunity" facing the world's biggest food company. "The most
important ingredient for future success will be 'innovation, innovation,
innovation'," he said.
That, and picking the most promising products to develop. Kind
of obvious when you think about it.
With that
thought jangling in our head, a couple of product launches
caught our eye this week. One was Factiva's Insight: Reputation
Intelligence, which claims to solve the media fragmentation issue,
the other was TNS's European Creative Minds, which reckons
to become the dog's bollocks for dreaming up innovative ideas
and new products.
The Creative Minds service allows anyone who has run out of their
own ideas to mind-meld with the Analytical and Intuitive Creatives
on a panel of some 500,000 Europeans via the TNS 6th Dimension
on-line market research panel. According to the firm, Intuitives
and Analytics generate 41% more ideas that Moderates, which make
up three-quarters of the population.
Naturally, you'd want to know what the world thinks about the
Big New Thing they dreamed up for you, which is where Dow Jones/Reuters'
Factiva Insight will come in handy. This promises to monitor 11,000
websites and more than 4m active blogs and message boards for
you. The service is a joint venture with Intelliseek,
which specialises in analysing consumer media.
Ingredients
maker Danisco is taking a different tack. It is setting
up a 70-strong innovation centre and pilot plant in Singapore
to fast-track analysis and development of flavours and fragrances
for the Asian market. Compare that to HJ Heinz, whose new R&D
lab will specialise in tomatoes. Not, of course, that tomatoes
are boring.
That's
one way. Nestlé (again) is taking another. It has
set up a 500 million fund to grow risky R&D-based ventures
"in the area of science and nutrition into a size that could allow
them to be integrated into mainstream business units of the group.
(This) will contribute significantly to fostering and accelerating
the group's expansion into health, wellness and nutrition, as
the new fund will be investing in companies with products or processes
in the final testing stage or about to come on the market." So,
not so risky, perhaps.
If Nestlé's
plans work out, it shouldn't be long before we see the firm
listed on top 10 lists like this, quoted by the eMarketer
Daily:
| Top
10 Online Health, Fitness & Nutrition Destinations |
| Week
ending August 28, 2005 US, Home and Work |
| Brand or Channel |
Unique Audience (000) |
Active Reach (%) |
|
| WebMD |
3,181 |
2.53 |
|
| Weight
Watchers |
1,195 |
0.95 |
|
| Yahoo!
Health |
1,133 |
0.9 |
|
| About
Health and Fitness |
1,011 |
0.81 |
|
| MSN
Health |
900 |
0.72 |
|
| Medco |
794 |
0.63 |
|
| AOL
Health |
711 |
0.57 |
|
| drugstore.com |
698 |
0.56 |
|
| eDiets |
612 |
0.49 |
|
| Walgreens |
569 |
0.45 |
|
| Source:
Nielsen/NetRatings |
|
|
|
|
|
| Demographic Data for Health, Fitness
& Nutrition Category |
| July
2005 US, Home and Work |
| Category |
Target |
Unique Audience (000) |
Unique Audience Composition
% |
| Total |
|
50,920 |
100 |
| Male |
|
22,607 |
44.4 |
| Female |
|
28,313 |
55.6 |
| Age |
2
- 11 |
611 |
1.2 |
| |
12
- 17 |
2,346 |
4.61 |
| |
18
- 24 |
2,345 |
4.6 |
| |
25
- 34 |
6,491 |
12.75 |
| |
35
- 49 |
18,299 |
35.94 |
| |
45+ |
27,586 |
54.18 |
| |
55+ |
14,222 |
27.93 |
| |
65+ |
4,951 |
9.72 |
| HH
Income |
$
0 - 24999 |
3,069 |
6.03 |
| |
$
25000 - 49999 |
11,436 |
22.46 |
| |
$
50000 - 74999 |
13,799 |
27.1 |
| |
$
75000 - 99999 |
9,613 |
18.88 |
| |
$
100000 - 149999 |
7,679 |
15.08 |
| |
$
150000+ |
4,404 |
8.65 |
| |
No
Response |
920 |
1.81 |
| Source:
Nielsen/Netratings |
|
|
|
|
| Top 20 Advertisers |
|
| Company |
Impressions (000) |
Share of all Impressions |
|
| Weight
Watchers International, Inc. |
116,058 |
20.50% |
|
| eDiets.com,
Inc. |
61,731 |
10.90% |
|
| Sepracor,
Inc. |
46,010 |
8.10% |
|
| Novartis
AG |
40,763 |
7.20% |
|
| Oxonia
Insurance Group, Inc. |
26,412 |
4.70% |
|
| Bayer
Corporation |
25,049 |
4.40% |
|
| Waterfront
Media, Inc. |
16,751 |
3.00% |
|
| GlaxoSmithKline |
16,686 |
2.90% |
|
| Medical
Hair Restoration |
15,727 |
2.80% |
|
| Kaiser
Permanente |
14,291 |
2.50% |
|
| TAP
Pharmaceutical Products Inc. |
12,885 |
2.30% |
|
| Merck
& Co., Inc. |
11,202 |
2.00% |
|
| Spencer
Forrest |
10,590 |
1.90% |
|
| Pfizer,
Inc. |
10,372 |
1.80% |
|
| ALZA
Corporation |
9,598 |
1.70% |
|
| FEI
Women's Health |
8,456 |
1.50% |
|
| AstraZeneca
Pharmaceuticals LP |
8,139 |
1.40% |
|
| Wyeth
Corporation |
5,726 |
1.00% |
|
| Blue
Cross and Blue Shield Association |
5,669 |
1.00% |
|
| Metropolitan
Jewish Health System |
4,843 |
0.90% |
|
| Total |
565,798 |
100.00% |
|
| Source:
Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance |
|
Of course,
it's always been a moot point just what knowledge workers contribute
to society. The Finns, currently occupiers of the world's most
competitive country, have attacked the void of sociologically
oriented analysis using Finland as a model.
"The rise of knowledge work is not only an economic or managerial
issue-it reflects a major social and cultural transformation comparable
to, yet at the same time very different from, the Industrial Revolution,"
say the researchers. You can read it yourself in Knowledge
Workers in the Information Society, ISBN 951-44-6384-6 for
27.00 euros from taju@uta.fi.
Which may help to explore the
nagging idea that information technology traps many workers in
their initial niches, and hamstrings social mobility. Ask anyone
who has lived through the Dickensian drudgery of a call centre.
Brrr.
May the revolution continue.
Until next time.
--
Ian Grant
|
Nestle
stirs the innovation genie
