Art and Culture, Business Models, Explorations, Service Design, Strategic Innovation

This idea exploration was partially inspired by open-source methodologies. Fact: a good idea can come from anywhere. Fact: there’s power in numbers. Fact: There’s something remarkable about a large brand humanizing itself through open collaboration with its customers.

The Kraft Product Ideation Center is a concept that would bring Kraft Kitchen Labs directly to the people. Experiences could include cooking lessons, cooking experimentation, Q&A sessions, fun collaboration, sampling and many others. Imagine a kiosk in your local mall or market with professional guides, cooks and experts.

It would provide a unique opportunity for real customers to engage with typically closed-door activities. The results would be fantastic with a vast array of potential benefits. Here are a few meaningful experiential virtues of the concept:

• Tasting and testing – now who doesn’t love samples? They are especially tasty when you make them yourself!
• Community outreach – a physical installation like this humanizes the large brand, provides more accessible representations of itself and establishes a friendly presence within the community.
• Research tool – as a critical driver of innovation, research can be accumulated from the consumers upward.
• Marketing tool for new products – live demonstrations of recipes in action can inspire purchases and meal concepts that could potentially find permanent homes in the menus of local families.
• Collaborative problem solving – Kraft becomes the facilitator of communal cooking experiences.
• Expert experience & advice – this type of engagement can help reinforce Kraft’s expertise in the kitchen, perhaps providing a new dimension of appreciation for the brand.

Good innovations often appear obvious in hindsight. In many ways, these Kraft Ideation Centers seem so palpable that it’s amazing they don’t already exist. It is important that we stretch beyond conventional systems of thought – especially when addressing classic brands like Kraft – when operating in the world of idea exploration.

Kraft is not famous for its service offerings, but rather for its products. Perhaps innovation in service design can help fuel inventive product design. Opening the conversation in physical spaces may produce valuable results that are driven by many factors that were only hinted at above.

What are your thoughts this type of  model?