IIeX Europe 2017: Opening Up to Innovation

By Catriona Oldershaw, Co-Founder of social media research consultancy, The Insights Distillery

Editor’s Note: This post is another in our series where innovators and clients tell us why they are travelling to Amsterdam in February 2017 to take part in IIeX Europe. Here is Catriona Oldershaw’s story – you can find out more about Catriona from her IIeX speaker profile.

On the 20^th and 21^st of February, The Insights Distillery is heading to Amsterdam for the IIeX Europe 2017 Conference. We’ll be presenting alongside our client, Heineken™, as part of a new addition to the IIeX event format – a Client Disruptive Innovation Showcase. Heineken™, Unilever and International Flavours & Fragrances have all been asked to curate and host their own sessions showcasing their rosters of innovative insights providers. It’s a very cool idea, and one we’re thrilled to be part of.

The most impactful insights projects tend to be those where brands pursue a collaborative relationship with their suppliers, sharing with them their strategic objectives and drawing them into a virtual team of agencies which includes the whole project lifecycle from research to execution to measurement of success. If you combine that with a real willingness to innovate and try new approaches, then the results can be incredibly exciting. This means we’re particularly looking forward to attending the other Client Disruptive Innovation Showcase sessions hosted by Heineken™, Unilever and IFF to see which new approaches to insights generation they authentically feel have made an impact on their businesses.

Our presentation with Heineken will focus on a project which sought to bring fresh creative inspiration to fuel the strategy development underpinning Heineken™’s global tagline “Open Your World”. We’ll be describing how we built a panel of Instagram users to explore what “openness” looks like for Millennial men. The project leveraged users’ Instagram content and social graph (following behaviour) to bring to life the moments when men open their world by trying new things, exploring new places, and connecting with new people.

Heineken™’s tagline sums up the brand’s belief that in order to progress, you must cross your borders. IIeX Europe 2017 is shaping up to offer insights professionals a similar opportunity to cross their borders and explore new ideas, new approaches and new connections. Cheers to that and see you there!