How Emmi is challenging the competition with market tests
Emmi is the largest dairy company in Switzerland, with around 6,000 employees. Emmi is known for products such as Caffè Latte, Energy Milk and AktiFit. Patricia's team has already done several projects with us. Patricia, what do you do at Emmi?
We are a team of four people. We are responsible for the innovation management of the Emmi Group. On the one hand, we shape Emmi's innovation strategy. On the other hand, we manage projects in the innovation process. We accompany projects from the initial idea to the market launch.
Super interesting! What do you consider the biggest challenges in your job?
Emmi is under increasing pressure from new competitors. The markets are becoming more and more niche. Our challenge is: how can we serve these markets? Another challenge is: how can we implement our ideas as quickly as possible?
Why did you choose innohack as your innovation partner?
Customer centricity is very important to us. Like all companies, we want to reduce the risks in the area of innovation. We want to learn from our customers. So we asked ourselves how we could gain these insights in a new way. That's why we considered whether we could start a digital business experiment together. This meant creating two virtual brands, testing them in the market and evaluating them with real consumers. This approach has several advantages for us. Above all, it's fast. We can visualize our ideas relatively quickly with two virtual brands and two landing pages. This gives us concrete data on what works and what doesn't. It's a new way of gathering evidence. It's a good approach because it's very fast. And because we can involve internal stakeholders at an early stage, which allows us to have different conversations. After two attempts, I can say that it worked very well. The feedback from Emmi employees was very positive. We can definitely see ourselves continuing to work in this way.
Particularly with innovation projects, the question often arises: What happens next? How would you say market tests help you and how can you build on them?
That depends, of course, on how well the virtual products are received by the market. We had the luxury of both virtual products being well received by consumers. Now we have to decide which idea we want to pursue. The material is, of course, very good and specific. Our internal discussions are mainly about which product we want to bring to market. And what final touches are still needed. This process usually costs us several months.
And how long did it take this time?
Let me check... We had one week of sprint, two weeks of advertising campaigns and one week of evaluation. Within one month, we had transformed an idea into a concrete positioning with visualization. We came a long way.
Cool! How was this process for you personally, since you accompanied us on the journey from start to finish?
It was very interesting and very pleasant. Our discussions, even before the sprint, were very exciting. I had a good feeling and we got along well. You also took our thoughts on board very well. Emmi is a large company and not a start-up. Nevertheless, you understood our situation and our requirements very well. It was also very valuable to have various Emmi stakeholders participate in the sprint. On the one hand, this allowed new perspectives and knowledge to be incorporated. On the other hand, the people who will continue to work with these ideas are already represented. It is very important that we have a common understanding and vision.
Is there anything else you would like to share with us?
Keep it up! It's great fun working with you. You are very experienced in this field. I can imagine that this will be very interesting for many of your customers.
“We want to minimize risks when innovating. That's why we do market tests together with innohack. This way, we can visualize an idea very quickly and get concrete data about what works and what doesn't.”
Patricia Urfer, New Business & Innovation Manager at EMMI
