Sam Waterfall speaking at World Juice 12, Barcelona, Spain

On Tuesday 17 October I was speaking in the NPD Stream at the FoodNews World Juice 2012 Event. Following an excellent opening keynote presentation by Zico Founder Mark Rampolla and a series of discussion style interviews, the 400+ attendees made their way to a number of focused streams for the afternoon learning.

I was speaking in the New Product Development (NPD) stream alongside Datamonitor on Global Juice Beverage Trends and talks on Sustainability. My topic was “How to Push Brand Value”.

The morning’s discussions highlighted the industry’s concerns over commoditisation, the threat of the ‘high in natural sugar’ story and the difficulty faced by those trying to add meaningful consumer value to the category. [..]

Speaking at the Fi Conference: Innovations in Dairy in Amsterdam, July 2012

On 10 July 2012 I was invited as an innovation speaker to present at the Radisson Blu Hotel at the heart of beautiful Amsterdam at the Fi Conference, Innovations in Dairy.

Speaking on how to use consumer insights to improve brands and products, I explained the stages of category development and the importance of timing your innovation with consumer readiness for your new idea.

One of the hardest things for Marketers to achieve is to change someone’s mind. Have you tried changing someone’s mind? A far better, far easier and far more cost effective approach for Marketers is to find an audience who are looking for a story and tell them the story they already believe. That way, when they see your innovation it strikes them with instant appeal as being a solution for their lives that they’ve been looking for all the time!

Instead of resisting your new idea, they are instantly open to its arrival because it comes from their frame of reference and understands their way of seeing the world. In this way, as soon as you know your target, the task of launching and communicating your innovation becomes hugely simplified.

The Radisson Blu Amsterdam - venue for The Fi Innovations in Dairy Conference.

At the Healthy Marketing Team, we use a proprietary innovation model to predict the up-coming opportunities within the categories of food, beverage, ingredients, supplements and personal care. The way we help our clients, who range from the world’s largest multinational corporations to small local and family businesses, is by helping them to predetermine the success of their launch. Not only can we help them to time it and position it correctly, but we help them to fine tune the concepts prior to launch as well – all based on what their target consumer already wants to buy. It’s so logical it’s a wonderfully exciting process to save companies and individuals the pain of launching the wrong product at the wrong time. [..]

Sam Waterfall on successful food & beverage branding in emerging markets.

In May 2012 I was invited to address the 7th SE Asia Soy Food Seminar & Trade Show at the Grand Hyatt Singapore.

This is a particularly prestigious event in the Soy Calendar, hosted by The ASA: The American Soybean Association.

It was a particular honour as I was invited to give a private half day masterclass on food and beverage marketing to the invitation-only audience from across SE Asia and around the world.

Delegates at the 7th SE Asia Soy Food Seminar & Trade Show Singapore May 2012

In the Masterclass I talked about what it takes to get branding right in emerging markets.

It’s critical that the consumer awareness is considered. Too often, brands launch in the hope that they can educate consumers with their advertising. While this is possible, experience tells me that most companies lack the time, budget and patience to convert this sweet marketing dream into a commercial reality.

I also spoke about the types of ingredients to include and showed a powerful model which suggest what ingredients will be suitable for your category and for your target consumer. The best thing about the ideas I shared is how they can stop you launching a concept which will confuse consumers and end up left on the shelf. In fact, by balancing the [..]

Preparing the next talk en route to Dubai

Updating from Dubai Airport. Transiting en route to running a client branding health check and strategic direction workshop in Manila, Philippines.

Adding the finishing touches to my new presentations on the massive growth of energy drinks on the last flight. It’s a huge topic within the beverage industry right now. Hot and set to get even hotter.

This presentation will cover, The history. The trends. The Consumer typologies. The active ingredients. The various benefits. And, of course, the brands.

To find out more about how The HMT guides many of the world’s leading food and beverage companies to fine tune their innovations and brand strategies, visit TheHMT.com

To book Sam Waterfall as a conference speaker for your event email sam@thehmt.com