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Delighting customers in multi-national and multi-cultural environments.

The team of BrainStore International is specialised on working in multi-cultural and multi-national environments. The focus: to create an atmosphere where ideas can thrive and thoughts flow freely. We respect different cultures and opinions - and seek for what unites.

Team

Team

How we work

BrainStore arbeitet mit 6 unterschiedlichen Werkzeugen

BrainStore arbeitet mit 6 bewährten Innovationstools

a) Laufende Verbesserung der Innovationskultur innerhalb der Organisation
b) Arbeiten mit guten Briefings
c) Zusammenstellung von Innovations-Communities
d) Motivation der Teilnehmer zum Mitwirken
e) Einsatz der Ideenmaschine, um frische Ideen auf Knopfdruck zu entwickeln
f) Platzierung führender Ideen auf Road Maps

The Idea Machine Process

Case Studies

Leading manufacturer of food.

Kraft Europe Future Expedition

In January 2010 about 80 managers from Kraft Europe came to Biel/Bienne for a three day BrainStore Future Expedition. The goal: find out where Kraft Europe would stand in 2020 and which roadmap would be necessary to reach the defined goals. The expedition took more than 120 participants on a journey of exploration. What does the future mean for us, for our divisions and our products? What can we learn from the past, and how can we prepare for the future? What do current customers tell us, and what are the blind spots that we all have and need to address? The journey was accompanied by experts from all fields important to Kraft, for instance from agriculture, packaging, technology and from future research. There were around 10 stations that the participants were able to visit with a group guide. They were aimed at bringing the participants out of their comfort zone and to let them reflect in-depth about the changes necessary for the company. The stations, among others, provided the following experiences: - Tunnel ten years into the past and ten years into the future: What can happen in a decade? - A cross-generational group from London, who had traveled from London, ages 10 to 90, answering questions about the Kraft products and what consumers would like to change about them - A packaging expert, explaining the true problems and sustainability issues of today's packaging - Meet our producers: A farm with the animals that provide a large number of the raw materials needed by Kraft - Future apartment: Meet the future clients in their habitat. How will we consume? - A snack station designed by students - how are products created and sold in the future? - An uncomfortable truth: Water scarcity and other raw material issues relevant to Kraft - Futurologist as «Talking Heads»: 10 futurologists speaking from screens. Listen in closely or let yourself be overwhelmed by the noise of many who predict the future. The Kraft participants were impressed with the consumer insights they were able to gain in this expedition, the speed at which the results were generated, the ability of BrainStore to process and summarise all knowledge streams generated in the journey as well as the heightened awareness of all the topics that will be important for the next decade. The results of this amazing experience were evaluated in workshops (one per division). A movie of the workshop series was made available to the Kraft Community. http://bitly.com/kraftmovie

Greenpeace. Leading environmentalist organization.

Creative Workshop for Greenpeace: how can we better collaborate

On 4 May 2007 about 80 people came to Biel/Bienne Switzerland to support Greenpeace to find ideas on how to better collaborate.

Koneksa - A startup in medical data mining.

How can patients increase adherence to medicine?

In February 2014 BrainStore organized a high octane multi part workshop sequence in Brooklyn to answer the question: "How can patients increase adherence to medicine?" About 60 participants contributed to the amazing experience - from Koneksa, from Merck. We also integrated patients, lateral thinkers, external experts to the community.

The key ingredients of innovation.

Markus Mettler speaks at Creative Mornings in Geneva

Markus was honored to be invited to speak at the Creative Morning session in Geneva on 18 October 2013. Have a look at the video!

BASF. World's biggest chemical company.

BASF: How will formic acid be synthesised in the future?

In March 2007 a team of about 60 people came to Biel/Bienne Switzerland to reflect on how to synthesise formic acid in the future. We used the BrainStore Idea Machine to brainstorm on chemical engineering processes. BASF went home with a set of great ideas and has since then implemented the ideas and built new production facilities. In order to tackle this complex problem, we introduced our process to a team of talented chemical engineers and explained the BrainStore Idea Machine to them. They worked alongside our staff to make sure that the chemistry knowledge was used properly within our process. BrainStore then invited a very diverse group of people related and unrelated to BASF: Chemistry students, chemistry professors from various nations and external experts. Thanks to the Ideamachine we were able to create more than a 1,000 raw ideas. Impressive! Our proven illumination phase allowed the experts to extract over 100 chemical synthesis ideas, and finally selected 10 that went into tests. Three of these were chosen for prototyping, and BASF has since implemented one of those three, creating a brand new production facility for formic acid. This project allowed BASF to re-invent a production process that was 50 years old and to make it much more efficient and much less costly.

BMW. Leading manufacturer of premium automobiles

Re-inventing the sales approach for BMW Z4

The BMW Z4 is a rear-wheel drive roadster sports car tailored for the young successful person who loves speed and freedom. In 2007, BrainStore was called to create ideas that would be implementable at high speed and would help increase the sales of the Z4 brand. The ideas were created using the Ideamachine, with participants from the cars target audience, below-the-line marketing experts, experts from BMW and teens. All ideas created were below-the line campaign ideas, for instance the free ride offered to customers of tailor-shops, or the cinema campaign that used the Dolby Surround System to advertise the incredible engine sound of the roadster. The sound was recorded directly from within the engine and presented to cinema audiences all over Europe.

Stadt in Deutschland

Verblüffende Ideen für das Buckenberg-Areal in der Stadt Pforzheim

Im Mai 2007 hat ein BrainStore-Team einen fulminanten Workshop im Buckenberg Areal in Pforzheim vorbereitet, durchgeführt und ausgewertet. Gesucht waren verblüffende Ideen zur Neunutzung des Areals. Eingebunden wurden alle Schlüsselpersonen aus der Stadt Pforzheim sowie Querdenker. Das neue Viertel hat den Namen Tiergarten erhalten; zahlreiche Pforzheimerinnen und Pforzheimer erfreuen sich ab dem neuen Viertel mit hoher Lebensqualität.

Grand Tour of Switzerland ist das schweizerische Pendant zur berühmten Route 66

Was sind verblüffende Highlights der Grand Tour of Switzerland?

Im August 2015 hat BrainStore ein Kreativ-Workshop zum Thema "Verblüffende Highlights der Grand Tour of Switzerland" durchgeführt. In einem rasch getakteten Prozess sind in der 1. Phase über 1,000 Rohideen entstanden, aus welchen in der 2. Phase über 200 konkrete Ideen abgeleitet wurden. Zum Einsatz kam die bewährte BrainStore-Ideenmaschine.

Fast Company. One of the most inspiring US tech magazines

BrainStore in Fast Company

Where do great ideas come from? They come from right here, actually. At the intersection of Plankestrasse and Rueschlistrasse, in Biel, Switzerland (also home to Rolex and Swatch), there is a cream-colored industrial building — a factory that manufactures and sells ideas. All kinds of clients have come here, seeking all kinds of ideas: Novartis, the pharmaceuticals giant, came to find ideas for new food products; the Swiss Cancer Association came looking for ideas on how to promote the use of sun-protection products; and a 70-year-old woman once came in search of an idea that might help her fall in love again. And this idea factory filled every order. The BrainStore, as this fast-growing operation is called, is the brainchild of Markus Mettler, 33, and Nadja Schnetzler, 27. Along with their 31 colleagues, Mettler and Schnetzler have developed a creative approach to the hard work of creativity. Their central proposition: You can't rely on rare flashes of brilliance — "eureka moments" — if you want to produce a steady stream of good ideas. Instead, you must approach the manufacturing of ideas with as much rigor and as much discipline as you apply to the manufacturing of assembly-line products. "Our idea factory has all of the elements of an industrial process," Mettler explains. "You can follow an idea from one step to another." But don't get the wrong idea. There's nothing bureaucratic about the BrainStore's idea-generation process. Indeed, the first stop for every project is the Creative Lab, a large, airy room filled with all kinds of supplies for different projects: glitter, glue, crayons, beads, colored paper, model-building gear — and a white, cast-iron bathtub to remind employees that (as Mettler says) "great ideas start with completely unrealistic thoughts." If you're serious about being creative, he argues, you've got to give yourself license to be playful. With that in mind, whenever the BrainStore faces a truly big creative challenge, it calls in the big guns: kids. The BrainNet is a 1,500-person global network comprised mainly of young people aged 13 to 20 (some adult professionals are also involved), who help the BrainStore by scouring the world for new trends and offbeat sources of inspiration. "We're not looking for average ideas," says Mettler. "We're looking for crazy ideas. We use kids to find those ideas, because they know how to talk without letting their thinking get in the way." The BrainStore mixes these young people with members of its client teams during creative workshops. "One of the ideas behind the company was to blend the professionalism of experts with the unbridled enthusiasm of kids," says Schnetzler. Adds Mettler: "We have 17-year-olds working on products and campaigns for such companies as Nestlé and the Swiss railway. It's cool for kids to be able to say, 'Hey, I was a part of that.' " Last December, for example, nine kids visited Biel to brainstorm with five executives from Credit Suisse, one of the country's top banks. They faced a thorny issue: how to phase out a passbook-savings plan that Swiss families had cherished for years but that bank employees had come to see as obsolete. The cross-generational teams developed a set of scenarios that led to a stream of raw ideas. Later, those ideas will go through the remaining steps in the BrainStore assembly line: compression (in which a team of in-house employees and outside experts sorts through ideas and picks out the best ones); testing (research and prototype); and finishing (marketing campaigns and positioning strategies). Separating the process into steps, argues Mettler, keeps innovation flowing. "Creativity can cause a lot of confusion," he says. "When a group starts brainstorming freely, it will often digress after just three sentences. Or you get people trying to synthesize ideas while they're acquiring ideas, or trying to acquire ideas while they're compressing ideas. Then the whole system pretty much gets out of whack." But, by breaking the creative process into steps and developing tools to optimize those steps, this idea factory is able to run at an ever-faster pace. "We're striving to perfect our system in terms of speed and efficiency," says Mettler. And for that reason, he insists, the BrainStore will never run out of ideas. Contact Markus Mettler by email (welcome@brainstore.com), or visit the BrainStore on the Web (www.brainstore.com). Sidebar: Ideas While You Wait "The BrainStore" is a fun name for a group of smart creativity consultants whose clients include some of the world's biggest companies. But it's more than just a name. Along with offering consulting services, Markus Mettler and his colleagues run a store that actually sells over-the-counter creativity. One customer walked into the store (it's attached to the factory) in search of ideas about what to say in his wedding speech; a woman came in looking for a special way to celebrate her father's 50th birthday; and a group of schoolgirls visited to learn how to make their classroom look better. The BrainStore outlet helps customers meet creative challenges — usually within 15 to 30 minutes, and usually for less than $20. "We spent about a year developing the idea for an idea shop," says Mettler. "We realized that it's possible to compress the entire idea-generation process into just 15 minutes. While that may not be enough time to develop a new product, it is enough time to name a hamster." And that's the real value of this retail outlet: It continues to shed light on the process required to generate any idea. "The most important thing that you can do is to open your eyes and your mind," says Urs Heer, 29, the BrainStore's chief of production. "And it helps to think fast. Without speed, people get bored, and boredom allows for distraction. That's true whether you're working with Nestlé or with a little-old lady who wants ideas on how to handle her cat."

Schloss Schönbrunn is Austria's number one tourist attraction.

How can we reactivate the maze in Schloss Schönbrunn?

In May 2001 the director of the Schloss Schönbrunn came to BrainStore for a creative workshop. Within a day a set of 12 ideas were created on how to make the maze more attractive to visitors. The leading ideas were implemented. The number of visitors of the maze and the labyrinth has since risen from 50,000 a year to over 300,000.

Coca-Cola ist weltweit führender Getränkehersteller

Mit welchen verblüffenden Marketingaktivitäten nutzen wir den Drive der EURO 2016?

Am 3. Dezember 2015 fand in Paris ein Workshop zum Thema Real-Time-Shopper-Marketing im Zusammenhang mit der EURO 2016 statt. Dabei: rund 40 Personen aus Frankreich, Grossbritannien, Spanien, Deutschland und der Schweiz.

Time Magazine: one of the most famous magazines

BrainStore is portrayed in Time Magazine

Monday, Apr. 02, 2001 For those of us who believe there's nothing in life more maddening than simply trying to come up with a good idea, Markus Mettler and Nadja Schnetzler, the brains behind Switzerland's Brainstore, are here to help. The company's 35 employees will develop ideas for just about anyone: multinationals, local public agencies, people who walk in off the street. They'll charge you for it, because Mettler and Schnetzler think that coming up with original ideas is indispensable to running a successful business, or leading a meaningful life. But most people don't devote enough time to it. "We have companies coming to us that employ 70 people to buy office equipment but have no one who is paid to develop or buy new ideas," Mettler says. Since they founded Brainstore 12 years ago, Schnetzler and Mettler have evolved a process for manufacturing ideas that is efficient chaos. "We stick to a factory mentality, so ideas are always developed in the same steps," says Schnetzler. "Within those steps we can have pure madness." It begins in the creative lab, where the company arranges an anything-goes brainstorm session that hooks up clients (they include Nestlé, General Motors and Crossair) with industry experts, Brainstore staffers and about a dozen savvy teenagers. Says Mettler: "The basic idea for the business is to bring together the creative potential of the young generation with the professionalism of the business world." Once the ideas are on the table, Brainstore's factory workers — a diverse crew of twentysomethings fueled by junk food, caffeine and cigarettes — go to work, molding outlandish inspirations into practical ideas, and then putting them through a "quality control" system to make sure the ideas would be intelligible even to a seven-year-old. For big projects, Brainstore mobilizes its trendspotters, a worldwide network of 2,000 people. To generate ideas for a new Novartis breakfast food, the company enlisted trend scouts as far away as Japan and South Korea. Brainstore also peddles over-the-counter solutions for the myriad dilemmas faced by everyday people, ranging from a Mercedes owner in Zurich exasperated by the constant theft of his car's hood ornament (Brainstore's idea: ask dinner-party guests to bring a spare hood ornament rather than a bottle of wine) to a father whose three daughters spent too much time on the telephone (Brainstore: switch to coin-operated phones). Sound simple? That's the point. "There's no magic behind it," Mettler says. "If we can produce these ideas in a small Swiss town, it can be done anywhere."

BMW. Leading builder of automobiles.

Creating Ideas for the new convertible rooftop for BMW

BrainStore had the honour to create ideas for the new convertible rooftop for BMW. We used the BrainStore Idea Machine to come up with surprising new designs and then built rapid prototypes in a large warehouse in Lucerne, Switzerland. The team had lots of fun and the out-of-the-box approach led to many new engineering ideas.

Huntsman. Leading chemical manufacturer.

What impact will global trends have on our products?

In September 2010 a team from Huntsman came to Switzerland to brainstorm on the question of the impact of global trends on Huntsman's business.

BMW. Leading builder of automobiles.

Creating Ideas for the new convertible rooftop for BMW

AIESEC ist eine der weltweit grössten Studentenorganisationen

Wie sieht der Code of Conduct von AIESEC Schweiz aus?

Im Juni 2014 kam das Leitungsteam von AIESEC Schweiz in den BrainStore, um einen Code of Conduct zu entwickeln.

Southern Cross ist eine private Schule in Hoedspruit, Südafrika

Training und Kreativworkshop in Hoedspruit, Südafrika

Im Oktober 2014 fand das BrainStore Innovation Champ Training in Hoedspruit Südafrika statt. Im Rahmen des Trainings wurden gleich zwei Kreativworkshops für Themen der Schule durchgeführt. Ein faszinierendes Innovationserlebnis in einer eindrücklichen Umgebung.

Produktbezeichnung	Produktbeschrieb
BrainStore Kreativ-Workshop 2 Tage	Der "Kreativ-Workshop 2 Tage" ist ein intensiver zweitägiger Workshop zum Entwickeln von starken Ideen zu einem strategisch wichtigen Thema. Zum Einsatz kommt die bewährte BrainStore Ideenmaschine. Am Schluss des Workshops liegt ein Satz von konkreten, bewerteten , analysierten Ideen zum Thema vor. Die Favoriten-Ideen sind visualisiert und auf einer Road-Map platziert. Details anzeigen
BrainStore Kreativ-Workshop 1 Tag	Der "Kreativ-Workshop 1 Tag" ist ein intensiver Tages-Workshop zum Entwickeln von starken Ideen zu einem strategisch wichtigen Thema. Zum Einsatz kommt die bewährte BrainStore Ideenmaschine. Der Workshop ist in drei Teile gegliedert: Beschaffungsphase (Ziel: Quantität), Verdichtungsphase (Ziel: Qualität), Like-Phase (Ziel: Auswahl der interessantesten Ideen). Am Ende des Workshops liegt ein Satz von konkreten, bewerteten Ideen zum Thema vor. Details anzeigen
BrainStore Kreativ-Workshop 1/2 Tag	Der "Kreativ-Workshop 1/2 Tag" ist ein intensiver Workshop zum Entwickeln von Ideen und zum Kennenlernen der BrainStore-Ideenmaschine. Der Workshop ist in drei Teile gegliedert: Beschaffungsphase (Ziel Quantität), Verdichtungsphase (Ziel Qualität), Like-Phase (Ziel Auswahl der interessantesten Ideen). Am Ende des Workshops liegt ein Satz von konkreten, bewerteten Ideen zum Thema vor. Details anzeigen
Die BrainStore Expedition Zukunft	Die BrainStore Expedition Zukunft ist eine einzigartige Reise in die Zukunft Ihrer Organisation. Losgelöst vom Tagesgeschäft werden zentrale Themen zur Zukunft der Organisation betrachtet. Ziel der Expedition ist es, das Bewusstsein für Veränderung zu wecken und Lust auf Zukunft. Die Komfortzone wird verlassen. Während der Expedition entstehen Initiativen, welche unterschiedliche Bereiche der Organisation betreffen. Die Expedition wird von erfahrenen BrainStore Expeditionsleitern vorbereitet und geleitet. Details anzeigen
BrainStore Innovations-Check-Up	Der "BrainStore Innovations-Check-Up" ist der ideale Prozess, um die Innovations-Fitness Ihrer Organisation zu überprüfen. Das BrainStore-Team überprüft die Schlüsselfaktoren der Innovationsarbeit in Ihrem Haus. Wird mit guten Briefings gearbeitet? Sind die richtigen Personen in Innovationsprozesse integriert? Sind Ihre Mitarbeiter für Innovationsarbeit motiviert? Haben sie Lust auf Zukunft? Wird mit einfachen, robusten, skalierbaren Prozessen gearbeitet? Was geschieht mit guten Ideen? Details anzeigen
BrainStore Innovations-Coaching	Erfahrene BrainStore Coaches unterstützen Sie bei Ihren Innovationsprojekten. Mögliche Themen: Verbesserung der Innovationskultur innerhalb Ihrer Organisation, Erstellen von guten Briefings, projektbezogenes Zusammenstellen von passenden Innovationsteams (mit Vertretern von innerhalb und ausserhalb der Organisation), Motivation von Menschen zur Innovationsarbeit und aus der gewohnten Komfortzone auszubrechen. Einrichten der Ideenmaschine. Unterstützen beim Finden von guten Fragen, Zuweisung der Kreativtools. Technische Unterstützung beim Aufsetzen der Idea Machine Engine. Unterstützung beim Design von Ideen und Road Maps. Details anzeigen
BrainStore Innovations-Training für Teams	Das BrainStore "Innovations-Training für Teams" richtet sich an Innovations-Teams innerhalb einer Organisation. Basierend auf einem guten Briefing und den Wünschen und Bedürfnissen wird ein massgeschneidertes Trainingsprogramm erstellt. Erfahrene BrainStore-Trainers bilden Ihr Team aus. Das "Learning by Doing" ist ein zentraler Erfolgsfaktor des Trainings. Details anzeigen
Net Scouting, Trend Scouting, Ideen-Interviews, Experten-Interviews	Reichern Sie Ihre Innovationsprojekte mit BrainStore-Zusatzprodukten an. BrainStore unterstützt Sie gerne mit den folgenden Zusatzprodukten: * Net Scouting: Verblüffende Ideen aus dem Web * Trend Scouting: Verblüffende Ideen aus anderen Ländern, Branchen, Kulturkreisen * Ideen-Interviews: Ideen und Anregungen von Kunden, Nicht-Kunden und Mitarbeitern * Experten-Interviews: Fachwissen und Rückmeldungen von führenden Experten Details anzeigen
BrainStore Idea Machine Engine Software	Die BrainStore Idea Machine Engine Software ist ein bewährter Katalysator für Innovationsprojekte. Alle zentralen Bausteine der BrainStore Ideenmaschine lassen sich im Prozessverlauf dokumentieren und darstellen. Das Produkt ist als SaaS (Software as a Service) verfügbar. Die Schlüsselfunktionen: Projektbriefings erstellen, Beschaffungstools: über 20 Tools zum Sammeln einer grossen Menge von Inspirationen und Ideen. Verdichtung: Darstellung von Brainstorming-Ergebnissen in inspirierenden Formaten. Like-Tool: welches sind die Top-Ideen aus dem Brainstorming? Criteria Scan: Ideenanalyse aufgrund von Kriterien. Idea Selection: zuverlässiges Feedback einer Jury. Road-Maps: Implementierungsplan der Top-Ideen. Details anzeigen