INSITUM

Summary

• Foundation: 2003
• Employees: 200+
• Founder and Managing Partner: Luís Arnál
• Head office: Mexico City
• Projects: 2200+
• Typical Project Budget: $50,000 - $100,000
• The name INSITUM is a Latin adjective that means inserted, attached, innate, incorporated, and grafting (planted).
• INSITUM was named by FastCompany as one of the Most Innovative Companies in Latin America (2015)
• INSITUM had 160 consultants and offices in Chicago, Barcelona, Mexico City, Bogotá, Lima, São Paulo, and Buenos Aires, they’ve built a network of trusted partners in other parts of the world, most notably in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa.
• The company has been solving key innovation challenges for leading organizations around the world by employing a variety of agile, design thinking methods grounded in behavioral science, ethnographic research, and business strategy.

INSITUM is now part of Fjord

In August 2019 Accenture Interactive signed the acquisition agreement of Insitum that then started to act as an arm of Fjord, expanding the range of cutting edge services of the company.

This purchase aims to reinforce Accenture acting on its Experience Agencies leading innovation services in emerging countries business, mainly in Latin America. The combination of Fjord and Inistum allowed the consolidation of Accenture’s expertise in design, development, and implementation of mind-blowing experiences that can transform the business world and people’s lives.

In that way, Fjord can now be active in Latin countries like Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, and reinforce your acting in Brazil, with a sum of both company's teams and innovative abilities, accelerating the delivery of valuable results.

Baiju Shah, CSO of Accenture and co-global led of Fjord affirms that the present problems can’t be solved with past solutions and, in order to face this challenge, the clients must be agile and combined a human-centered approach with strategies led by analysis, to maintain itself ahead of the pace of changes and ambiguity that we live on these days.

The Insitum’s acquisition is only one of the many that Accenture has been doing in the past few years to reinforce its actuation in Latin America. Two Brazilian marketing agencies were also purchased: Ad.Dialeto in 2015 and New Content in 2018. To strengthen global business, the Spanish advertising agency Shackleton was also bought, which gave rights to a Chilean office as well. The organic growth of the company in this region has been pushed by an increase of pan-regional clients demand, who search for a local touch and regional scale when the subject is communication and creativity.

Fjord is now one of the most advanced design companies in the whole world, implementing, with Insitum’s help, industrial design solutions, and the full creation of services and products into the digital world. Thanks to Accenture and its recent acquisitions, Fjord has now over 28 studios worldwide.

**Since March 2020 every Insitum’s social media and websites were either disabled or redirected to Fjord’s.

INSITUM

INSITUM is a global strategic innovation consulting firm, part of Accenture Interactive that design solutions for growth through an understanding of human behavior.

It help clients - from start-ups and Fortune 500 companies to public sector institutions - solve complex and often ambiguous problems by creating human-centered products, services, brands, and experiences. Empower organizations to develop capabilities and establish their own internal culture of innovation.

We generate results that matter, collaborating side-by-side with our clients. We are fortunate to work with leading global organizations that rely on us to help them solve their greatest challenges.

Our multidisciplinary teams combine diverse backgrounds and unique skills, experience, and know-how. In our daily practice, we collaborate by integrating expertise in research, strategy, and human-centered design.

The name Insitum is a Latin adjective that means inserted, attached, innate, incorporated, and grafting (planted).

Services

Ethnographic Research, Digital Strategy, Innovation Consulting, Strategic Research, Service Design, Organizational Innovation, Brand Development, Product Definition, Organizational Innovation, Healthcare Innovation, Behavioral Economics, Service Design, Behavioral Sciences, Brand Strategy, and Social Innovation.

INSITUM Main clients

Abbott, Allstate, Amazon, AT&T, BCP, Coca-Cola, ING, PepsiCo, Freddo, Coppel, Facebook, gasNatural, Gentera, Globosat, Paypal, Visa, Spotify, Galicia, Amgen, McDonald’s, Avon, Toyota, Samsung, Quilmes, Laureate International Universities, Kimberly-Clark, Google, Pinterest, Pfizer, Abbvie, Intel, Bimbo, Brasil Kirin, Cinemex, Ericsson, Diageo, Staples, 3M, Claro, BMW, Nestlé, Farmacity, Microsoft, Midea, Oxxo, Sony, Peugeot, Motorola, Unilever, Panasonic, Beyer, Televisa, Scotiabank, Steelcase, Sanofi, Renault, Novartis, Toshiba, Johnson & Johnson’s, Whirlpool, BOSCH, Nokia, Danone, Ixe, Herdez, Mondelez International, Uber, Marriott, Grendene, Telmex, Natura, Roche, Sura, Mabe, and Shire.

Methods

The main idea when we talk about consumption these days is to find a way that is innovative and generates different forms of adhering products into the consumer’s life and, consequently, increases the brand’s results. In order to do that, every exercise is calculated from the consumption’s experience, not the product only, but everything that can link with it.

When he was going to develop a project for a tampons’ manufacturer he decided to embrace women’s routine and used tampons for three days straight just to minimally sense what is that like for women in their menstrual period. In that experience, he was able to discover that the tampon’s glue was not only disturbing but also damaged underwear. To make an even more complete experience, Luís asked some women what would be like for them if their period did not happen: what would they do? Where would they go? What they would wear? Also, for those who agreed to participate, he requested pictures of the product, before and after the use.

Another eccentric experiment that Arnál put himself into was a crowded naked photoshoot for research about events’ organization and social media experience. Spencer Tunick is a photographer known for taking pictures of crowded people with all of them completely naked. Arnál followed the organization of one of these photoshoots, with the main goal of understanding how people organized themselves through social media to find events that fit their motivations: and that was why they decided to follow Spencer’s project - it takes a lot of courage and motivation to be naked in front of a lot of people just to support an artistic movement. Arnál took another three colleagues to help him do all the research, interviewing the participants to discover their perceptions of that moment, as well as crossing this experience with technology and digital information. At the end of it, the four of them ripped off their clothes and joined the other 20,000 people for the photos.

But not all experiments are that fun or slight to do. Arnál did memorable field research in Mexico about the difficulties and rejections of HIV carries that happened when they had to take the medication for the disease's treatment. He portrays how it was really hard to see how these people, with a high contamination risk, were treated by others around. The main goal of the project was to discover which paths were more appropriate to the insertion of a new medication on the patients' routines.

Luís states that this type of work is fundamental to refine design thinking methods, in a way that matches his goals in life with innovative models of work, with constant learning opportunities, sharpening creativity. In which project he experiences new things, getting more sensible and flexible in all aspects of life.