ADM's Marketing & Communications team commissioned Near Future Laboratory to conduct a series of interviews with their Chief Scientists and their temas of food science experts to represent their work on future food processes and primary ingredients and the implications of global needs and constraints using Design Fiction.

The overall objective was to develop reputational awareness, and develop several concepts for activations and communications programs, including: A series of possible storyboards for print and video communications; prototype food packaging designs; concept products that were proposed for actual short-run development to be used for communicating to internal stakeholders (food from the future); store signage to be used at a proposed OmegaMart-like 'pop-up' location; vending machine designs proposed for manufacturing & development for use at trade events; future food product packaging and descriptions to be used for 'haul video' style influencer presentations.

This collaboration aimed to highlight ADM's efforts in pioneering future food processes and ingredients through the lens of Design Fiction.

ADM's Chief Scientists and team members sensed the value of this approach to making their often terse and highly analytic work tangible and relatable, elevating their own abilities to communicate their important research to a wider, more general audience.

Additionally, ADM Marketing & Communications was able to help communicate ADM's R&D thought-leadership and reflect the important science of low-carbon impact ingredients manufacturing, processing and logistics that they were working on in order to position themselves as forward-thinking and environmental sustainability oriented.

With Near Future Laboratory bringing a Design Fiction approach to translating their work, ADM found a compelling and grounded way to present the important work that was going on in their expansive network of research and development in a tangible form that could be a vivid reflection of the real on-the-ground work they were doing to address and mitigate global food and hunger challenges.

The final outcomes for this project was determined to be to develop assets that illustrates ADM's vision for the future of food that amplifies the key strategic growth pillars of personalized nutrition and sustainability (low emission manufacturing, processing, logistics and packaging). The video was developed by a 3rd party based on a brief from Near Future Laboratory derived from the workshops, discussions, concept development and ultimately successfully highlighted ADM's role in providing solutions to the nutrition and sustainability demands and expectations of consumers symbolized by a vending machine from the future.

This project was valued for achieving tangible outcomes that significantly boosted the brand's visibility and reputation, especially important given ADM's position as a B2B entity rather than a direct-to-consumer brand.

The creation of communication materials and the development of innovative concept prototypes not only showcased ADM's forward-thinking approach to food science and sustainability but also enhanced the company's reputation within and beyond its traditional industry contexts. (ADM provides ingredients to food processors and manufacturers and thus has limited consumer awareness.)

This initiative offered ADM's Chief Scientists and their teams an unique and creative platform to communicate their groundbreaking work, extending their reach beyond scientific circles into more mainstream, public forums.

The project's exploration of novel communication channels, such as the creative use of 'pop-ups' and the engagement with the 'haul video' trend on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, introduced ADM's Marketing & Communications teams to new forms of engagement beyond linear media buys.

This strategic approach not only amplified ADM's thought leadership in addressing global food challenges but also demonstrated the potential of innovative communication strategies in enhancing corporate reputation and public engagement in the scientific discourse.

Additionally, as with most of our projects, the value was also contained in the augmentation of rich, although highly analytic qualitative and quantitative research data. Near Future Laboratory was able to provide this augmentation through Design Fiction, representing the data in the form of the kinds of tangible artifacts — products, services, customer experiences — that are implied by the gathered data. These Design Fiction artifacts are speculative designed objects that represent a possible end-point to the felt needs expressed in the data, the conversations and subjective assessments, and thematics of the research interviews. Our perspective is that organizations typically represent the 'implications' of research, anthropological studies, surveys and other analysis with prose-based explications at best and tables of data, graphs, and quantitative assessments in the typical case. While these kinds of summarizations are expected and considered hygiene for research studies, they can over-index on the analytic character of the research. By showing leadership and other stakeholders a representation and translation of tables of data or summaries of surveys in a visceral and tangible fashion, we were able to augment the analysis and thereby bring a felt sense of the implications.