History• The three founders of the company did not spend

money on advertising instead they had chosen a smarter approach trough product packing and delivery promotion and word - of - mouth.

• In 2005-fastest growing food and drink company in UK

• The price of the innocent smoothie is quite high – almost 2£.

• “Yes” and “No” bin story• Maurice Pinto- 4th shareholder – 20%

innocent development• innocent is a very professionally established and

developed product (worth 60m – 70m annually)

• Almost 100% crushed fruit

• Import problems

• Product development

Idea Screening

• Innocent’s product was not a new

• Entering an established market

• Trying to beat the other players

• Different forms of promotion

• Developing the whole Fruit Smoothies market

Idea Screening• Selecting ideas that will be successful• The difficulty of that selection• Screening as an evaluation process• Questions that the process involves:– Do we have the necessary commercial knowledge and

experience?– Do we have the technical know-how to develop the idea

further?– Would such a product be suitable for our business?– Are we sure there will be sufficient demand?

Concept Testing• Innocent’s product should stand out on the shelf• Packaging• Branding• Innocent’s confession: “Our user testing was

done on people we knew. We’d email our friends with packaging designs”

• Advise and expertise: Turner Duckworth, agency etc.

• Design – logo, bottles, delivery vans• The success – standing out, design and

packaging, taste

Prototype development• Target market – young, urban, affluent

• 100% natural, 100% of the time

• Hippie approach to life

• Simplified design

• Brand image

Market testing

• Regular sampling

• Recipe tests

• Price and package design

Launch and promotion

• Barriers

• Distribution channels

• Advertising- Packaging design- Guerilla marketing

• Strong retailer relationship

Innocent’s business is ruthless, single-minded, profit driven and very business orientated. What is the evidence for that?

• Original design• Fruit sampling• Quality control• Cautious approach• Trademark registered • Business growth• Strong and regular communication with

retailers

The success of the business is partly based on extremely good communication with retailers. How is this achieved?

Innocent achieved the good communication withtheir retailers firstly by giving them as a newretailers a humorous booklet or the so called “TheInnocent Easy Health Guide”. The second thingthat innocent did to build up the relationship withretailers was by newsletter which combined theproduct information with fun stories. The third thingthat Innocent did was to invite every retailer (3,000of them) to it’s birthday every year to a themedparty and also to send every retailer a Christmascard and a present.

What type of financing did Innocent secure? Does it matter?

The financing that Innocent Smoothies secure was equityfinancing. The founders of Innocent benefited from theirvery good education and from their many businesscontacts and they very quickly got in touch with venturecapitalists. Maurice Pinto, a wealthy Americanbusinessman was the VC that invested £250,000 inInnocent and became the fourth shareholder, retaining 20% stake. This financing mattered very much for Innocentbecause it helped them to start off and the moneyprovided salaries, office space and cash to buy rawmaterials, bottling plants, promotional materials andlabeling fro the bottles.

Would you sell-out to Coca-Cola for £400 million? As one of the three shareholders you could pocket £100 million. If not why not?

- Market Value of £ 250 000 in 1999, £ 83 million in 2006

- 50% to 60% annual growing rate- Market Share of 27%(£ 11.2M) for 2003,

62%(£83M) for 2006

Innocent benefited from a key advantage what was this and explain how it helped in the product development process?

Few were the advantages that helped innocent in the product development process, but the most vital was that, in fact, they were the target market…

How is innocent ‘virtual’ and how is this different from traditional food and drink manufacturers? What advantages and disadvantages does this provide?

• Virtual communication – what other companies might call marketing, innocent smoothies more often call communication.

- E-mails- Blogs- Facebook - Banana phone