INNOVATION
Bottoms-up: what supersoakers and stadiums can teach us about innovation
11TH JUNE 2026
Written by Fleur Horner, CEO The Value Engineers.
The Supersoaker Dunkfill. The unsung hero of my London heatwave experience. I have recommended these more times than I could count over the last 10 days (I should probably set up an affiliate link at this point – I’ll put the link in the comments for anyone with kids, you’re welcome). The reason they’re my heatwave MVP is the absolutely genius filling mechanism. The clue is in the name but you literally dunk the water chamber in a bucket and a valve opens allowing the water in which then shuts as you pull it from the water. Re-loads done in seconds, play resumes freely, uninterrupted and the ultimate benefit, no parent intervention required (until the sunbather 50 yards away needs apologising to!) it allows young children to be autonomous just at a point when they so desperately want to do everything themselves.
My brain is forever altered by this job, I couldn’t help but think about the parallel tech I saw first in the Beavertown bar at Tottenham Hotspur stadium. A pint filled from the bottom. Valve in the base of the cup, beer rushing up, sealed as you lift it off the pad. Different product, different context, same fundamental idea and benefit – speed and uninterrupted experience.
“Was one inspired by the other? Who knows. But I’d like to think so.”
Fleur Horner – CEO
With our panel event a few weeks ago, Innovation has obviously been top of mind and one of the themes coming through so clearly was about the power of immersion and staying open to ideas from elsewhere. Not from staring harder at your own category, but from noticing that someone in a completely unrelated context has already experienced and maybe even cracked the same problem.
Two ways of looking sideways
Agencies obviously love structure and process to when it comes to looking elsewhere for inspiration we tend to split things into two buckets:
Analogous thinking
Looking at industries that might face the same underlying problem and seeing how they solved it. This might be by bringing some category experts into the mix or looking to another geography where the category plays a different role in culture.
Deviant thinking
Making unlikely and seemingly ‘random’ connections. It’s unlikely the supersoaker innovation team got a fieldtrip to Spurs signed off but sometimes the external perspective an agency can bring can stretch the thinking further… if you’re open to it.
The ‘value’ of these innovations are undeniable
I will stop going on about our event soon but… the reason both these innovations are so great is because they have laser focus on the ‘value’ they deliver; something every single innovation leader on our panel espoused as a fundamental principle in their role.
The benefit in both instances here is super clear and it’s definitely not simply ‘speed’ or anything about the technical mechanism. Now, I have to admit, when I bought the pack of two supersoakers I had no idea of the higher order benefits despite the WYSIWYG ‘dunkfill’ name, so maybe even the best innovations still need a bit of support and I won’t be out of a job just yet!
