How This Global Nutrition Company Became a Market Leader by Harnessing Diverse Networks

Situation: A global nutrition company was on the verge of launching a new product line. They had scientific evidence from inside and outside the company that validated the safety of specific ingredients used within their product. In short, their business model was “set”.

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The Catch: Despite the objective science and data from multiple parties, pre-launch consumer feedback was quite negative. There was a mistrust of some of the ingredients in the company’s products, and a large perception that these ingredients could cause harm to children. This is when they engaged Third Angle to solve the disconnect between customer sentiment and their new product line.
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Innovative Actions: The team in charge of the product category participated in one of Third Angle’s Action Lab Experiences (TALE™), featuring participants from a wide range of industries and companies.

At the Lab Experience, they met with a thought leader who was working within health and wellness, but who had previously been a globally recognized leader in adult entertainment. She reflected on her experience of market perception, and in some cases, the futility of fighting against it. Her feedback, combined with the tools and exercises of the TALE™, spurred the team to begin reframing its thinking, and to start looking for a “third angle” to bring a nutritious product to the market in a new and trustworthy way.

To pressure test this new path, we held a second consultative workshop that included our experienced leader from an entirely separate industry, providing an unusual and thought-provoking point of comparison. We led the workshop by challenging the team’s thinking and creativity to find new paths to value for the product category.

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Growth & Value: Through this course of workshops, the company decided to change their product formulation, featuring acceptable ingredients and processes that everyone could get behind. After its launch, the company quickly became the global market leader in their category, translating to exponential gains in growth, revenue, and widespread, positive reputation.

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Mini-Lessons: In this scenario, bringing an outside perspective to the table made all the difference in catalyzing a new, more agreed upon product formulation. We brought in an outside expert to help rethink the product formulation, despite scientific evidence that the original ingredients were safe. The extra time and cost investment was well worth it - with a reformulation featuring more widely accepted ingredients, our clients saw exponential gains, and easier product adoption across their target markets.

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