Businesses invest heavily in understanding consumers. They commission research, uncover unmet needs, identify growth opportunities and develop concepts with real potential.
Yet many promising innovations still fail to make an impact. The problem often isn’t the quality of the original insight. It’s what happens next.
As projects move from concept to launch, commercial pressures inevitably shape decisions. Costs are reduced, ingredients change, timelines tighten and priorities shift. Each compromise may be justified in isolation, but together they can leave businesses launching something very different from the idea consumers responded to in the first place.
The companies that consistently succeed aren’t simply better at generating ideas. They’re better at protecting them.
That’s why, at FIS Group, we believe great consumer research is only half of the innovation story. The real competitive advantage comes from carrying that insight all the way to market without losing sight of the problem it was meant to solve.
We spoke to Evie Morrice, Senior Innovation Consultant, about why some innovations survive the journey from insight to shelf while others gradually lose their way.
Research gives you confidence. Execution determines success.
Evie joined the food and drink industry from the startup world, where innovation often relied on instinct, speed and experimentation.
“I came from a startup background, where it was more finger in the air, test on your family and friends, and just go with your gut,” she says.
Moving into larger food and drink businesses revealed a very different approach. Consumer insight wasn’t treated as a nice-to-have; it became the foundation for decision-making.
That level of rigour is one of the industry’s greatest strengths. Businesses today have access to more consumer understanding than ever before.
Yet there’s a paradox. Many organisations spend significant time validating an opportunity at the start of a project, only to unintentionally dilute the very thing that made it compelling by the time it reaches launch.
The hidden challenge isn’t finding great ideas. It’s protecting them.
A strong, insight-led concept enters development with a clear purpose. Then commercial reality takes over.
Budgets need managing. Technical constraints emerge. Supply chains evolve. Launch windows move. Every team makes sensible decisions based on the information in front of them. But collectively, those decisions can slowly pull a product away from the original consumer need.
“It starts with really clear direction, and then it gets diluted along the way before launch, because we need to cut costs, we need to get to market quicker,” Evie explains. “You are left with a watered-down version of the golden idea.”
When that happens, businesses often conclude the idea wasn’t strong enough. In reality, the insight may have been exactly right. The execution simply drifted away from it.
The most successful innovation teams build regular checkpoints into development, asking one simple but powerful question:
Are we still solving the problem we set out to solve?
That question helps ensure commercial decisions strengthen the proposition rather than gradually erode it. Not every aspect of a concept needs to remain fixed. Costs, formats, ingredients and timelines will often change. The key is understanding which elements consumers value most, so teams know where they can flex and where they can’t. When those trade-offs are informed by consumer insight, businesses are far more likely to launch innovations that still deliver on their original promise.
Innovation should solve a real problem
For Evie, successful innovation always starts with purpose.
“Rather than doing it for the sake of it, what problem are they trying to solve?” she says. “And if they’re not solving a problem, what are they trying to elevate that is already in the market?”
It’s a mindset often associated with challenger companies. They tend to have one clear reason to exist and remain relentlessly focused on delivering it.
Larger organisations face a different challenge. More stakeholders, competing priorities and greater complexity can make it harder to maintain that clarity as projects evolve.
That’s where a robust innovation process becomes invaluable. It provides a consistent thread linking every commercial decision back to the consumer insight that justified the opportunity in the first place.
Today’s consumers expect more than claims
Evie sees this shift clearly in health and wellbeing. Not long ago, adding a nutritional claim to an existing product was often enough to create differentiation.
Today’s consumers are more informed and more discerning. They’re increasingly looking beyond individual claims towards products with simpler ingredients, greater nutritional value and benefits that fit naturally into everyday life.
The opportunity isn’t simply to add protein or fibre. It’s to make everyday moments, a morning coffee, an afternoon snack or even a chocolate bar, genuinely more valuable without compromising enjoyment.
That difference starts with understanding the consumer need before deciding on the solution. “If you root your ideas in insight, that’s when they stick,” says Evie.
Great workshops begin long before people enter the room
Protecting an idea doesn’t begin during product development. It begins before ideation even starts.
The strongest innovation workshops aren’t built around brainstorming for its own sake. They start with careful preparation: understanding demand spaces, category dynamics, emerging trends and the opportunities that matter most for a particular business. That preparation gives every idea a clear reason to exist.
As Evie puts it, a successful workshop isn’t simply “a jolly with sticky notes.” It’s a structured process designed to generate ideas that are both inspiring and commercially achievable.
She also believes successful innovation depends on involving the right people from the outset. “Bring the wider stakeholders on the journey from A to B,” she says. “If they understand where an idea has come from, they are far more likely to stay invested the whole way through.”
When commercial, technical and leadership teams share ownership of the original insight, they’re better equipped to make trade-offs together. The goal isn’t to avoid commercial reality, but to ensure every compromise is made consciously, with a clear understanding of what consumers value most. That creates better conversations, faster decisions and, ultimately, stronger products.
Great research deserves great execution
Consumer research gives businesses confidence to innovate. It reveals the unmet needs, motivations and opportunities that matter most. But insight alone doesn’t create successful innovation.
Success comes from preserving the intent behind that insight throughout development, while recognising that commercial realities will inevitably shape the final product. The most successful teams don’t resist those pressures; they manage them deliberately, using consumer insight to distinguish between changes that improve an idea and compromises that undermine it.
At FIS Group, that’s the philosophy behind our approach to innovation. We combine robust consumer research with collaborative innovation programmes that bring commercial, technical and consumer perspectives together from the outset. An innovation workshop or hothouse is often where that journey begins, creating a shared understanding of the opportunity and generating ideas with real commercial potential.
From there, the focus shifts to helping businesses make confident decisions as concepts evolve. Whether through rapid prototyping, iterative consumer testing or structured development sprints, the objective remains the same: to ensure the finished product still solves the consumer problem that inspired it in the first place.
Because great research creates great ideas. Great execution keeps them alive.
If you’re developing your next innovation and wondering how to balance commercial realities with what made the idea compelling in the first place, we’d love to talk. Whether you’re at the stage of identifying opportunities, generating concepts or refining prototypes, we can help you make the right trade-offs without losing sight of the consumer insight that matters most.