MvND contributed to the strategic process with design thinking and a hands on approach. Their prototypes and visualizations inspired our professionals and our partners to look beyond their expertise. Working with MvND helped us to translate our technology from specifications into applications.

- Francis Aussems Project Manager Bio-Polyesters, DSM

Challenge

DSM is one of the world’s leading organizations in life sciences and materials sciences. Over the last few years they have invested heavily in the development of sustainable materials. A key activity is their development and marketing of bio polymers. DSM approached MvND to support them in marketing one of these bio polymers.

When developing a marketing strategy one generally starts by selecting the features that make a product (material) stand out from the competition. And this is exactly the challenge DSM was facing, although the material performed very well and was compliant with worldwide standards, it did not have one single defining property.

In this project MvND cooperated with innovation consultancy InnoPass and the strategic researchers of Innate Motion.

Approach

We realized that the polymer’s strength was in the relation between it’s properties rather than in the properties themselves. Contrary to properties themselves, relations cannot be easily quantified. Their merit only becomes apparent if they are projected into a meaningful context.

So this is where we started. Based on a commercially interesting market we created a number of persona’s for which we would design products that used the properties of DSM’s bio polymer. And it quickly became obvious that the material had more potential than we could hope for. That is why we decided to focus our efforts to inspire others rather than trying to cover all possible angles ourselves.

Result

We created a number of designs, most notably a sports shoe, that showcased all of the properties of Arnitel. The designs were used in a open creativity challenge that attracted about 100 participants and reaped many unexpected yet relevant applications.