Welcome to the Sept ’12 issue of ‘News from the Fronteer’,
our more-or-less regular newsletter.

In this 'Back to School' edition, you can read all about the world's first Jean School, how we gained several pounds during our tastiest project so far, how Nokia isn't afraid to get out there and co-create, our first whitepaper on brand development, our latest co-creation tools, our lovely new neighbours and new faces at the Fronteer!

Enjoy the read!

 

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Last week saw the long-awaited opening of the world’s first Jean School. 20 pioneer students embarked on a three-year course to become a certified ‘Denim Developer’.

Jean School is a collaboration between Amsterdam’s ROCvA education board and the House of Denim foundation, supported by Amsterdam’s denim industry. The school’s opening is big news in itself - as evidenced by coverage in New York Times, Parool, Trouw, Le Monde and Dutch national TV - more so for Fronteer because our founding partner James is one of the initiators.

A new innovative education brand, co-created with educators and entrepreneurs, initiated with government and brands: that’s the way we like ‘m. For more information about Jean School and the House of Denim initiative, please check Jean School’s Facebook page, join the House of Denim Linked-In page or visit the website.

Once in a while a project comes along that literally makes your mouth water. Next to mobile phones, insurance propositions, beers and international relief charities, last month we had the pleasure of sinking our teeth into a ‘biscuit challenge’. It was a tasty pleasure to work alongside Holland’s most delicious and respected biscuit brand.

A dream-come-true for certain members of the Fronteer team; we were invited to apply our new ‘Elevator’ validation & enrichment methodology to the final stage of biscuit concept development. As well as answering our client’s questions, we co-created with biscuit lovers to develop some very indulgent new innovations. We are VERY excited about things to come: keep your eyes on the biscuit shelf, there’s exciting stuff coming out of Zaandam very soon!

Elevator is a specially-developed form of co-creation, generally applied at the end of the innovation funnel. Supporting consumer research, it helps to answer ‘fuzzy’ strategic challenges, provide momentum and fresh input.

“We hope you enjoyed flying KLM and wish you a pleasant stay in Shanghai”. This January, we buckled our seatbelts for a global R&D project with Nokia, formerly the world’s undisputed mobile phone moguls. Presently in less comfortable position, the Fins have embraced co-creation as a way forward.

Nine months later, we’ve visited Mexico, Nigeria, Indonesia, Thailand, Egypt and India co-creating with over 200 young adults around the world. Together with Nokia’s development team, we delved deep into their lives, hopes and aspirations; laying the foundations for a strong new strategy.

We were delighted at the reaction our approach received throughout the world; fresh ideas, collaborative spirit, excitement and fun - as well, of course, as some very critical questions and input. See some of our new friends here, in a series of interview video stories that were made by Nokia.

We started out the Fronteer business co-creating strategically-based, detailed concepts using our Rooftop Methodology. As the business climate became a bit more hostile, our clients’ interest moved further towards the end of the funnel: how to ‘realise’ concepts already in the development process?

We applied the power of co-creation to provide validation and enrichment: to give a solid basis for ‘stage-gate’ type decisions and positioning work (check out the flyer for more about the Elevator tool).

Now that most leading companies have realigned to the post-crisis busines reality, they are rediscovering the need to ‘fill the innovation funnel’; to have a healthy collection of rich ideas at the beginning of the funnel. This is where our Treehouse tool comes in: a half day high-energy session with hand-picked experts to co-create a vision, generate a wide range of ideas and cluster them. The session team consists of 2-5 experts from client side and an equal number of outside topic experts.

Interestingly, a number of our clients are using Treehouse sessions not only to find new routes for innovation, but to inspire & energise the relationship with key accounts. In some cases, we involve players from an entire value chain or business ecosystem: our client, their client... and THEIR clients & business partners.

Click here for a report of how Treehouse feels though the eyes of a participant (duchies only, sorry).

 

It is a good year for whitepapers, so it seems. Within a mere 4 weeks of the introduction of Fronteer's Whitepaper #4 (on Recruiting the Best), founding partner James Veenhoff - finally!! - treats us to his knowledge, experience and vision on Brand Development, all put together in Fronteer's Whitepaper #5: "The 5 A's of Successful Brands". 

In this paper we introduce a brand (building) model that embodies our thinking on successful brands called the 'Lighthouse’'. It focuses on both customers and competition and helps to focus a brand's stories to the world around it: enabling marketing teams to clearly communicate ‘what they want to be to whom’ (and why). 

The most interesting part of the 'Lighthouse Model' deals with 5 dimensions of brand attributes that drive premiumness or distinction: The 5 A’s of Authority, Authenticity, Aspiration, Artisanat and Affinity. The model has been applied in many of our projects, from sports apparel to beers and from health insurance to mobile phones. Enjoy the read! 

Friends and clients will know how much we love our new home on Amsterdam’s former shipdock area NDSM. It’s unique blend of raw industrial architecture, open water and fringe-dweller creativity is very inspiring.

Recently, new developments have made our lives even more comfortable: the addition of Pllek, BBrood and IJscuypje mean we now have a super-chilled bar/club/restaurant-with-a-view, fresh organic bread and delicious ice-cream within a 100 paces from our HQ. Go NDSM!!

We are happy to introduce two new names at Fronteer HQ: Dolores and Bart.

Dolores is our new Expert Connector, responsible for finding brilliant experts for co-creation  and connecting Fronteer to interesting scenes & communities. She brings another great addition to our inspiring background mix: Dolores is a fashion business graduate from the prestigious HKU.

Bart is the latest in our tradition of amazing interns from Delft’s faculty of Industrial Design. Classic TU material: full of energy and with a strong love of all things ‘outside of the box’.

Since we love sharing inspiration, we end our newsletter with a great quote from a session, meeting or project. Here’s our favourite one from Summer.