BrazilSparkOptimus helps consumer health business Opella accelerate product innovation
Facing a rapidly evolving market with constant new product introductions, Opella partnered with SparkOptimus to enhance its product development capabilities and dramatically reduce the time it takes to bring new offerings to market.
Opella is a market leader in over-the-counter products and vitamin and mineral supplements, best known for Doliprane, a paracetamol-based tablet and the best-selling medicine in France. Opella generated sales of €5.2 billion in its latest financial year, with revenues well diversified globally.
As part of its innovation agenda, Opella’s Consumer Health Care business recognized the need to move beyond traditional annual product development cycles. The challenge was to efficiently process vast amounts of unstructured data – such as customer behaviour, purchasing trends, and consumer feedback – to uncover emerging product opportunities.
To address this, Opella collaborated with SparkOptimus to develop an AI-driven tool. This innovative solution combines multiple online data sources, including Google Search trends and Amazon sales data, to provide deeper insights into both the functional and emotional drivers of consumer behaviour.
Powered by generative AI, the tool analyses tens of thousands of search queries, product descriptions, and customer reviews to pinpoint key drivers of sales. It also evaluates important purchasing criteria and the claims of top-selling products in local markets, ensuring that the resulting recommendations align with Opella’s existing brand portfolio.
The tool’s output helps Opella anticipate emerging consumer needs and generates data-backed product ideas. This ensures new products are precisely tailored to meet consumer demands, resulting in greater market relevance, enhanced customer satisfaction, and increased sales potential.
“SparkOptimus helped us quickly identify and implement key AI-driven innovation insights that significantly reduced our product development timeline and boosted our prospects for success,” said Bas van Kesteren, Opella’s global head of ecommerce.
“Their pragmatic, results-focused approach enabled us to bring new products to market faster, reinforcing our competitive position in the sector.”
This strategic move by Opella demonstrates the immense potential of AI in the consumer healthcare industry, enabling faster innovation cycles and strengthening competitive positioning in a dynamic market landscape.
