Warburtons Using your loaf- P.

Burgess of FreshMinds



Since it was founded in 1876 Warburtons has earned its place on supermarket shelves, in
local shops and on the breakfast tables of millions of families in the UK. Today the company
produces two million bakery products every day and employs 5,000 staff in 14 bakeries. But
while Warburtons hasnt wavered from its founders principles of freshness and quality, the
bread category has been transformed.
Warburtons are constantly developing new products. They use internal ideas, followed by
early-stage concept exploration with consumers to see what could be added to their existing
innovation process. By doing so, they hoped to build enthusiasm in the company for
integrating research much more closely into the innovation process. Warburtons was looking
for an agency that could work collaboratively with them to facilitate discussions, engage their
internal team and tap into their existing knowledge and enthusiasm to generate new ideas.
It was essential that the research went beyond the traditional workshop stage to qualify and
develop the ideas in some detail. It was no use leaving the firm with a stack of ideas on Post-
it notes but no clear next steps to take. The challenge was to help stimulate ideas for new
products, screen them and recommend the strongest.
The brief
The first objective was to come up with at least 30 ideas that Warburtons could feed into their
innovation funnel. The second objective was to engage internal stakeholders and demonstrate
the value that research could bring to the companys ongoing product development strategy.
The approach
We started by questioning Warburtons very closely about exactly what they wanted to
achieve. We looked at their objectives and understood what resources we had to work with.
Our approach was to take their existing research, which included their consumer
segmentation and a recent research project into drivers of purchase and consumption, and use
these as reference points for innovation. We were able to set a framework for the innovation
process to ensure that the outcome of the research would be clear ideas that fitted
Warburtons existing brand and met the needs of its consumers. We agreed upon a two-phase
approach. The first focused on working with Warburtons internal team to generate new
product ideas; the second used consumer focus groups to test their appeal.
The first phase involved a day-long workshop with members of the Warburtons team.
Warburtons was keen to draw on ideas and expertise from across the business, so FreshMinds
worked with the innovation team to identify people to take part, reflecting the diversity of the
company and harnessing employees creativity. The workshop kicked off with each
participant showing the others an innovation that they couldnt live without. Examples ranged
from iPods to fake tan. This helped to illustrate the idea that innovations can fall into two
categories: entirely new product ideas and small changes that nevertheless have a big impact
on consumers. Both have the potential to bring in new revenue streams.
During the day we used a wide variety of exercises to stimulate new innovations. We ran a
speed dating exercise whereby participants were put into pairs and asked to assume the
character of one of Warburtons eight consumer segments. Participants were then asked to
focus on one of the key bakery consumption occasions (breakfast, lunch) and to think about
what bakery products would appeal to them. Partners were given two minutes to find out
about their character, their lifestyle, preferences and eating habits. After two minutes both
participants would then write down their ideas for what innovations would best meet the
needs of the segment.
To encourage participants to think about incremental product innovations, we used a
mystery bag exercise, in which participants took an item from a bag of 15 grocery products
and thought about how they could take some of the qualities from the random object and
apply them to an existing Warburtons product. This exercise led to some suggestions of new
flavours, textures and packaging for products. While this exercise led, of course, to some
rather off-the-wall ideas it got the team to think about how relatively simple tweaks (such as
adding new ingredients, incorporating serving suggestions or changing the pack size) could
be used to make an existing product appeal to a different segment.
Participants recorded all the ideas on data capture sheets, with space to include both words
and pictures. We encouraged participants to flesh out their ideas, say who each innovation
would appeal to and outline its benefits to consumers. During the day all the capture sheets
were displayed on a huge ideas wall and participants were invited to add comments to one
anothers ideas.
At the end of the day, the workshop had generated a staggering 170 ideas. The next task was
to screen them. In smaller groups the participants rated each idea for consumer appeal, how
excited they were about it and how feasible it was. Following the workshop FreshMinds
wrote up and rationalised all 170 ideas. We created a matrix that ranked the ideas using the
criteria from the screening exercise and identified the best concepts to test with consumers.
The second phase of the research involved conducting focus groups to test nine of the
concepts with each of Warburtons target consumer segments. We worked with one of
Warburtons design agencies to create visuals for the new concepts and used these as the
basis for the consumer research phase. Five focus groups were run sequentially to accelerate
the innovation process and enable us to tweak the concepts in line with consumer feedback.
The findings
Armed with fresh consumer insight and a number of solid ideas of bakery category
innovation, FreshMinds set about distilling all the ideas and concept feedback into a set of
recommendations. We identified which concepts were best received and how well these fitted
into the existing brand portfolio before making recommendations about quick wins and
long-term success. As a result of the research three concepts have been selected to go through
to the next stage. We also provided Warburtons with all the materials from the workshop
together with the ideas matrix, so the company can repeat the exercise with other staff if
required.
The outcome
A few months on, one of the concepts that we explored with consumers is already being
progressed for development. The project has also had an impact on the role of research in the
innovation process. The insight, planning and innovation teams now work together more
closely and research is much more tightly integrated with the new product development
process. The insights and planning team now run quarterly workshops to feed the innovation
team with category knowledge and build upon their market and consumer understanding.
Source Research (2010) May, pp36-7
www.warburtons.co.uk
Note the position of Phil Burgess author of this article


Questions- NPD

Why is it important that Warburtons develop new products?







Describe the changes in the range of bread products available in the past 5 (see also
http://www.grainchain.com/Resources/14-16/ip_marketing-case-study-warburtons-bakery )






Why have bakers added so many new products?


Why do most new products fail?


Explain the stages in the new product development process





What stages are covered above?








Explain the Boston consultancy group (BCG) model, where do loaves of white sliced bread fit?









Questions- branding

Explain the difference between a generic product, a manufacturers brand and an own-label brand? Use
the bread market to illustrate your answer



What are the benefits of branding from a manufacturers perspective?




What product lines are offered by Warburtons ,see http://www.warburtons.co.uk/products





Explain the advantages and drawbacks of using the Warburtons brand name in the snacks market in
the UK http://www.warburtonsescapes.co.uk/





Are there any differences to your response to the above question for the Glutton free market?
http://www.newburnbakehouse.com/



Why do you think they are using a different brand name here?






Examples of exam questions
Explain the stages in the new product development process, illustrating your answer
Why do so many new products/services fail? What can be done to reduce the risk of failure?
What are the benefits of branding? Explain the concept of brand stretching