A Real-World Case and an Eco-Responsible Challenge

Following last year’s collaboration with Michelin Inflatable Solution, monbento®—through one of their team members, a graduate of the School—entrusted the students of Clermont School of Business with a practical product innovation project.

The case study covered a range of activities: exploration, design thinking, product lifecycle analysis, ethnographic observation, drafting recommendations, prototyping the idea, and creating a concept board.

Support and Methodology!

As part of this educational project led by Cédrine Zumbo Lebrument, head of the Marketing & Data Marketing major, 8 student groups were given six weeks to design an innovative and eco-friendly product that meets consumer expectations and the company’s constraints. During this module, students applied theoretical knowledge and immersed themselves in real-world challenges.

The students involved were supported by experts such as Oriane Dambrune, designer, and Jonathan Mazuel, architect-designer, both affiliated professors at Clermont School of Business, to guide them confidently through their product creation process.

To progress step-by-step in this practical and collaborative learning process, students followed a structured methodology preparing them to become marketing professionals capable of innovating responsibly.

1. Understand & Define:
   Students began by gathering the company’s brief to understand the problem to be solved. They refined their target audience by creating a persona, conducted user research through interviews, and synthesized insights. Finally, they reformulated the problem to focus on the end user.
2. Diverge & Decide:
   This phase encouraged exploring solutions via competitive benchmarking and creative brainstorming (ideation and convergence). Students prioritized their ideas based on user and business impact, defined a value proposition, created a concept board, and identified hypotheses to test.
3. Prototype & Test:
   Students developed a prototype and recruited relevant users to conduct tests. Using criteria like comprehension, usability, and appeal, they analyzed feedback and refined their prototype.
4. Present:
   To finish the project, students presented their work in a 12-minute oral pitch to the monbento® team, following a structured framework and simulating real-world conditions.