Ideas
Explore the world's #1 largest database of ideas and innovations, with 459,692 inspiring examples.
Trend Reports
Discover why 1,236 brands rely on our AI-powered Trend Reports to get better, faster insights.
Newsletter
Join 321,366 subscribers who rely on our weekly newsletter to keep up with need-to-know trends and insights.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
Consumer Insights
Uncover major shifts and emerging opportunities with our exclusive PRO research.
Trend Reports
Discover why 1,236 brands rely on our AI-powered Trend Reports to get better, faster insights.
Newsletter
Join 321,366 subscribers who rely on our weekly newsletter to keep up with need-to-know trends and insights.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
Advisory & Services
Accelerate innovation and ignite disruptive thinking with our award-winning programs and research.
Trend Reports
Get fast, customized trend reports, presentations and deep dives 20x faster than traditional research.
Plans
Get started today with a free consultation, our self-serve tools, or a dedicated program.
Articles & Magazine
Get inspired with our 4,208 innovation strategy articles, keynote, videos and innovation tools.
Innovation Awards
Trend Hunter’s Innovation Strategy Awards recognize the best innovation tactics gathered from our interviews with some of the world's most notable business leaders, authors and change makers.
Advisory & Services
Accelerate innovation and ignite disruptive thinking with our award-winning programs and research.
Innovation Assessment
Enhance your innovation potential with a deeper understanding of your unique innovation archetype and how your organization benchmarks.
FuturistU
Prepare for the years ahead with 100+ lessons, tactics, tools and frameworks with our full learning database.
Innovation Books
Join 20,000,000 people getting better and faster with our New York Times Bestselling books and keynote videos.
Jeremy Gutsche
Ignite your event or virtual event with our CEO, a NY Times Bestselling Author and one of the top innovation keynote speakers.
Our Team of Speakers & Virtual Presenters
Inspire your group with our most popular speakers on innovation, trends, change and futurism.
Custom Training & Events
Bring the Future Festival experience directly to your team or co-hosted custom event.
Custom Masterclasses
Join the world's leading brands who leverage our custom programs to accelerate innovation.
FuturistU 5-Day Program
Become a Futurist with our immersive 5-Day program at Future Festival World Summit.
Online eLearning
Learn the fundamentals of futurism and trends with 100+ online courses about innovation.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
Contact
Get in touch to learn more, ask a question or submit a tip.
About Us
Learn more about Trend Hunter and how we accelerate innovation.
Follow-Us
Join our 3,500,000 social media followers, on the cutting edge.
How to Hunt
Learn more about how to hunt megatrends, ideas, patterns and opportunity.
FAQ
Get answers to common questions about Trend Hunter.
Community
Stay on the cutting-edge with the help of the Trend Hunter community.
Team
Meet the team trusted by hundreds of leading businesses worldwide.
Jobs
Find opportunities to accelerate your career with the #1 Trend Firm.
News
Catch up on noteworthy Trend Hunter news and media mentions.
Join
Build a portfolio and put your trend-spotting abilities to the test.
Advertising
Supercharge your marketing by partnering with Trend Hunter.
Portfolio
Visit your public portfolio and browse your past articles.
Add a Trend
Write up an article and showcase your trend-spotting skills.
My Trends
Edit your articles and see how they stack up on the leaderboards.
Settings
Edit your profile, connect your social media accounts, and more.
Add a trend, customize your dashboard, or track topics.
Future Festival
Innovation Events
Join the world's top innovators at our in person events.
Free Webinars
Learn to innovate through chaos, navigate the new normal and maintain work culture from home.
Custom Training & Events
Bring the Future Festival experience directly to your team or co-hosted custom event.
Search our database of 459,692 cutting edge ideas.

Spurring Innovation Using a Hybrid Mindset

John Heath, SVP of Innovation, Chobani
Paul Maccarone
October 24th, 2013

Related Trend Reports

Branding, Business, Design, Drinking, Food, Health, Marketing
After years of working with CPG companies in an agency capacity, John Heath now sits at the head of Chobani’s innovation team. Charged with intelligently stretching one of the fastest-growing brands in the country, he maintains the unique brand essence that sparked Chobani’s rise.

John was introduced to the brand during his time leading the strategy department at an advertising agency. After working with the brand for about a year, John joined the company to build an innovation department that continues to adapt and evolve. When it comes to innovation, John sees Chobani as more of a hybrid between agency and client, which has allowed him to find the right balance between creative and traditional perspectives.

Three Questions with John Heath

How does your team generate good ideas?

To me, it all starts with ensuring you have the right team. With that in mind, one of the biggest innovations we've had in the past couple years has been how we've organized and built our team. An important part of generating great ideas is to make sure we keep our minds open as we enter into projects. To that end, we’re careful to not always think about having a product as an outcome of a project. Instead, we think about consumer motivations as a starting point and look to solve problems or illuminate opportunities that might exist. We do this by conducting deep ethnography research to really understand people as people. We call this discipline 'human insights' because it allows us to get a better understanding of what motivates consumers to do specific things in and out of specific projects.

Do you have specific rituals for re-setting yourself/your team to be creative?

We like to do collaborative, internal projects that do not necessarily have a commercial objective. The main goal of these projects is to stimulate creativity and build on our culture of innovation. It gives us a chance to act as "makers" and push ourselves to do things we've never done before. These are the types of things that we do after business hours.

A recent idea from the team was to do some home brewing together. We're still deciding whether we'll do that or not, but it gives you a sense of the types of things we like to do together.

What is the biggest challenge you face when innovating?

My biggest challenge is being able to protect the creative environment while making sure to balance commercial needs; to balance the asked for and the unasked for. Our goal is to be able to grow the company and the brand. To that end, we have to make sure we’re stimulating our folks the right way -- continuing to get us out of the mentality that innovation equals product. Innovation is more of a mindset. I really see my job as more of the curation department versus an ideation department. We need to curate as much as we create.
References: linkedin, chobani