2. 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%

3. innocent development
innocent is a very professionally established and developed product (worth 60m – 70m annually)
Almost 100% crushed fruit
Import problems
Product development

4. 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

5. 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?

6. 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 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

7. Prototype development
Target market – young, urban, affluent
100% natural, 100% of the time
Hippie approach to life
Simplified design
Brand image

8. Market testing
Regular sampling
Recipe tests
Price and package design

9. Launch and promotion Barriers Distribution channels Advertising
Packaging design
Guerilla marketing
Strong retailer relationship

10. 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

11. The success of the business is partly based on extremely good communication with retailers. How is this achieved?
Innocent achieved the good communication with
their retailers firstly by giving them as a new
retailers a humorous booklet or the so called “The
Innocent Easy Health Guide”. The second thing
that innocent did to build up the relationship with
retailers was by newsletter which combined the
product information with fun stories. The third thing
that Innocent did was to invite every retailer (3,000
of them) to it’s birthday every year to a themed
party and also to send every retailer a Christmas
card and a present.

12. What type of financing did Innocent secure? Does it matter?
The financing that Innocent Smoothies secure was equity
financing. The founders of Innocent benefited from their
very good education and from their many business
contacts and they very quickly got in touch with venture
capitalists. Maurice Pinto, a wealthy American
businessman was the VC that invested £250,000 in
Innocent and became the fourth shareholder, retaining
20% stake. This financing mattered very much for Innocent
because it helped them to start off and the money
provided salaries, office space and cash to buy raw
materials, bottling plants, promotional materials and
labeling fro the bottles.

13. Market Value of £ 250 000 in 1999, £ 83 million in 2006
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 £ in 1999, £ 83 million in 2006
50% to 60% annual growing rate
Market Share of 27%(£ 11.2M) for 2003, 62%(£83M) for 2006

14. 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…

15. 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. s
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