CPG innovation · Multi-bet portfolio · Enterprise

A CPG incumbent's innovation portfolio, validated in market.

Two parallel new-venture validations inside Clorox's CPG innovation arm. CatPal, a Fresh-Step-adjacent cat-wellness DTC funnel. Recyclops, a thirteen-metro on-demand recycling demand test with six value-prop variants. Same framework; different categories.

CatPal cat-wellness DTC concept landing page, one of two parallel new-venture validations Prota Studios ran inside Clorox's CPG innovation arm
EngagementIndustryCompany sizeServices
Multi-bet portfolio (2021-2022) CPG / consumer products Enterprise (Fortune-500) Demand testing, paid acquisition, landing-page system, funnel modeling, qualitative coding

Challenge

Clorox's innovation arm runs a portfolio of new-venture concepts, sub-brands and adjacencies that sit alongside the parent's core CPG business. Each engagement comes with the same shape: a built-or-near-built MVP, parent-brand permission, a budget, and a need to validate paid demand before committing to full-scale launch. The validation question is always commercial, does the offer convert paid traffic at viable economics?

Solution

CatPal, Fresh-Step-adjacent cat-wellness DTC funnel

A two-sprint engagement around a vet-developed online cat-wellness assessment, an outcome-driven personalization engine, and a four-SKU supplement line at cat-pal.com.

Recyclops, On-demand recycling, multi-city demand test

A six-value-prop landing-page matrix localized to thirteen launch metros, with paid demand-test running in October 2021.

Results

CatPal

Recyclops

Selected experiments.

CatPal

Three-variant value-prop demand test

Freemium / Subscription / Product, with and without Fresh-Step co-branding. The Sprint 1 read shaped which variants survived into the launch surface design, a structured way to use a demand test as input into product packaging, not just as a go/no-go on demand existence.

CatPal

Outcome-driven personalization engine

Mood / Move / Gut, originally five pillars, collapsed to three for the consumer surface. The personalization architecture connected the assessment funnel to a four-SKU supplement line through outcome combinatorics.

Recyclops

Six-by-thirteen variant matrix

Six value props localized to thirteen metros, 78 local-relevance variant combinations, each running simultaneously with city-specific hooks. The matrix surfaced which value props traveled across geographies and which were market-specific.

Recyclops

Public-comment qualitative coding

60+ Facebook comments and Messenger DMs from a two-week window, coded into three dominant objection patterns. The kind of qualitative texture that decision-grade demand tests need but rarely capture.

CatPal Sprint 2

Multi-axis retargeting

Five product axes (Multivitamin, Energy, Joints, Stress, Urinary Health) targeted at assessment-finishers, the second-stage funnel as itself a multivariate experiment.

What this engagement says about CPG innovation validation.

Across the portfolio, Clorox's working pattern is consistent: a CPG incumbent extends a built-MVP-grade new venture into a paid in-market test, asks us to instrument the funnel and read the demand signal, and uses the read to decide whether to scale, reshape, or reframe before committing the larger venture budget. The validation lens is always commercial, does the offer convert paid traffic at viable economics, rather than brand or product. Clorox is the canonical Innovation ICP: a Fortune-500 innovation arm running a portfolio of concurrent bets that need comparable, defensible signal across them.

Running a portfolio of CPG adjacency bets?

Multi-bet portfolios need comparable signal across them. Tell us what you are validating and we will tell you what the framework should look like across the portfolio.

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