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Launched in 2020, Zip-Zap Ideas® is our agile online collaboration tool with advanced features to help innovation teams quickly build and identify winning ideas against a specific business challenge. This blog highlights how we use the tool in different ways, including in Consumer Closeness Workshops, in Creative Hothouse meetings, for Zoom Brainstorming, or to quickly screen mini-concepts and claims with target consumers in key global markets.
To see the tool in action, check out this short video showing how Zip-Zap Ideas® is being used by leading brands, to capture early insights and ideas (the ZIP), or to evaluate concepts and claims with target consumers, to identify the ideas with greatest potential (the ZAP).
1. Capturing Insights and Trends with Target Consumers
Zip-Zap provides a smart way of capturing insights and trends during consumer closeness workshops, with similar insights being “linked” and grouped into different themes. Users review a range of early insight statements and highlight the insights and trends they feel are most relevant. They are also encouraged to add comments (what they like and why) and to ZIP any early ideas or solutions that come to mind.
2. Creative Hothouse to Build Ideas from Leading Insights
We use online brainstorming tools in Creative Hothouse workshops as a more effective way of capturing all early ideas, and to ensure that "all voices are heard". The group are split into small brainstorming teams, to build ideas linked to leading insights and trends using a mini-concept format. The Zip-Zap format is designed to capture the key benefit and claim of the idea, plus an optional idea image and a link to the core insight that inspired the original idea.
3. Zoom Brainstorming to Highlight Ideas with Greatest Potential
Zip-Zap Ideas® provides a great platform to support virtual brainstorming meetings with Zoom or TEAMS. Working in virtual breakout rooms, users further refine leading ideas with stronger benefits and claims, together with any additional "reason to believe". Using love hearts and the “STAR IDEA” feature, the teams look to highlight the ideas with the greatest potential and that should be progressed for broader evaluation with target consumers or key stakeholders.
4. Fast Feedback from Target Consumers
Once a good range of leading ideas have been agreed, we use the advanced features of Zip-Zap Ideas® for a faster and more cost-effective way to screen leading ideas with target customers and key stakeholders. Users vote on a randomised list of around 12-16 mini-concepts. They ZAP ideas they like the most, add comments and post new ideas they feel are missing.
5. How to Select "Winning Ideas" With Most Potential
When reviewing results from concept screening, we are looking for ideas that are "significantly more appealing" than one or two agreed benchmarks, or against the "average idea tested" (at 90% confidence). For benchmarks, we normally like to include a leading competitive idea that is already in the market or a known idea that has tested strongly in previous research. Once most projects we look to screen between 16 and 24 leading ideas with 100-300 target consumers in two or three markets.
6. Security Updates and Other Geeky Stuff
Zip-Zap Ideas® has been approved and used by a wide range of leading brands and companies including Bayer Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson, and Unilever. The system is now hosted on super-fast Azure servers with a wide range of added java script security updates and a new two-factor authentication login for approved users.