Creating the next wave of cold & flu innovation

As the cold, cough and flu category began to rebound after Covid, Sanofi needed more than short-term recovery ideas. They needed a future-facing pipeline that could help brands like Bisolvon and Mucosolvan stretch into new spaces, meet changing consumer needs and compete in a crowded market.

We partnered with a cross-functional team across marketing, brand and R&D to explore where growth could come from next. Together, we looked beyond existing category conventions, digging into emerging consumer needs and future technical possibilities to identify opportunity spaces with both emotional relevance and commercial potential.

From there, we designed a fast, focused innovation sprint. We created insight-led springboards, brought in stimulus from inside and outside the category, and facilitated virtual ideation sessions that pushed the team beyond familiar product thinking.

The strongest ideas were then taken into online co-creation with people experiencing cold and flu symptoms in the moment. Through creative exercises and live consumer feedback, we explored their real behaviours, frustrations, workarounds and unmet needs, then used those insights to sharpen the most promising concepts.

The work turned a broad growth challenge into a focused pipeline of consumer-strengthened innovation opportunities.

Over 100 ideas were generated, shaped and prioritised into a shortlist of 15 high-potential concepts, each tested and strengthened with target consumers before moving forward into BASES testing.

The result was a more ambitious innovation pipeline for Sanofi’s cold and flu portfolio, with clearer routes to stretch Bisolvon and Mucosolvan into new need spaces, new moments and new territories for growth.