Great Ideas Aren’t Built Alone
Every insight team knows the feeling.
A growth target on the table, a category where the obvious needs are already met, and pressure to find the next idea before a competitor does.
The strategic questions sound simple: where’s the opportunity, which need is worth solving, which innovation will actually work. The answers rarely come that easily.
We call these knotty challenges: moments where a shift in context, a competitor move, or simply time pressure turns a manageable problem into an urgent one, and where even defining the right question gets harder as uncertainty builds. System1’s partnership with BionicX exists to help brands work through exactly this, moving from an ambiguous challenge to an innovation opportunity they can act on.
Two Roles. One Better Decision
AI has transformed how quickly brands can find information, identify patterns and generate ideas.
It hasn’t solved the harder problem: knowing which ideas are actually worth pursuing.
That requires discovery and validation to work together, without becoming the same job.
BionicX uses AI-enabled insight discovery to cut through complexity and surface the consumer needs, often overlooked, that can seed a strong innovation pipeline. System1 then plays a distinct and independent role: we test the opportunities and concepts that come out of that process using our emotion-based methodology, measuring how consumers actually respond to predict which ideas have real commercial potential before a brand invests further.
This isn’t System1 supplying testing on demand within someone else’s process. It’s an independent check built into the model from the start, because insight is only useful if it holds up under scrutiny.
What Happens When Discovery Meets Validation?
In the past six months, more than 80 ideas and concepts delivered through the partnership have put this approach to work.
- 92% of concepts scored above average overall
- 84% performed above the average for emotional resonance
- Over ½ of concepts ranked in the global top 15%
- 1/3 ranked in the global top 15% for emotional resonance
Taken together, this approach makes a top 5% commercial outcome three times more likely.
The lesson isn’t that every idea needs more testing.
It’s that the quality of the decision improves when the people finding the opportunity and the people validating it are not marking their own homework.
Here are three examples of what that looks like in practice.
Finding Breakthrough After 18 Months
For one FTSE 100 CPG brand, the challenge wasn’t a lack of ideas. It was finding the insight that could unlock a genuinely new category opportunity.
After 18 months of searching, the team needed a different way into the problem.
BionicX uncovered overlooked consumer occasions that revealed several high-potential routes for innovation. System1 then independently tested those opportunities, followed by the concepts developed from them, identifying which had the strongest potential before further investment.
The result: 90% of insights and 80% of concepts ranked in the top 15% of System1’s global database, achieved in just six weeks.
Taking Share as a Challenger
For challenger brands, innovation has to do more than look interesting on a shelf.
It needs to give consumers a reason to switch, and often a reason to pay more.
One global CPG brand came to the partnership with a clear ambition: move from number two to number one.
BionicX identified deeper emotional unlocks behind a margin-building innovation opportunity. System1 independently validated the opportunity and the concepts that followed, giving the team evidence for which routes were strongest.
The result was a clearer case for investment, with consumer evidence to support conversations with the board and retail partners.
Holding the Line Under Pressure
Not every NPD challenge starts with a blank sheet of paper.
Sometimes the opportunity is already there. The challenge is making sure a concept gets better rather than simply different as it moves through development.
Working with Pladis, BionicX refined a set of concepts already in development, sharpening both the consumer benefit and the language used to communicate it.
System1 then tested each iteration independently, measuring whether the changes genuinely improved consumer response.
This before-and-after approach to concept testing gave the team evidence on what was working and what needed further refinement, without slowing the process down.
Create with Confidence®
The future of innovation isn’t about generating more ideas.
AI will make sure of that.
The competitive advantage will come from knowing which ideas deserve to survive the process.
That means finding the right consumer opportunity, developing the right proposition and independently validating the ideas before significant time, money and resource are committed.
For NPD and innovation teams, that discipline can apply at every stage: from identifying an unmet consumer need, to developing a new product or proposition, refining packaging and messaging, and deciding which concept is ready to take forward.
Great ideas aren’t built alone.
They’re discovered, challenged, tested and improved.
And the strongest ones have evidence behind them.
If you’re facing a knotty innovation challenge of your own, whether that’s finding your next growth opportunity, developing a new product, defending share or validating a concept before launch, let’s talk.
Ready to put your next innovation to the test?
Discover how Test Your Innovation can help you identify which opportunities and concepts are worth backing before you invest further.