Entries from December 2008 ↓
December 31st, 2008 — Uncategorized
Because today’s consumers are moved by a brand’s voice, personality, and world as much as they are by specific product features, the innovation process must begin with the end in mind. We begin by assessing what brand imagery is missing from a category, then we drill down and ideate tangible product features that bring that imagery to life, and then we hand that information to R&D so that it can make prototypes. We’ve set the traditional process on its head.
But how do you know where exactly to begin? This is trickier than it sounds. In order to work, the imagery needs to resonate with consumers. It needs to touch them in a way that is meaningful to them and in a way that is fresh and interesting.
The key here is to tap into the potential energy of a situation. That energy comes from the tension created by the conflicts-the paradoxes-that are part of everyone’s daily life.
Taken From : Secrets from the Innovation Room: How to Create High-Voltage Ideas That Make Money, Win Business, and Outwit the Competition
December 30th, 2008 — Uncategorized
Traditionally, product innovations came from R&D people, who made interesting new formulations aimed at filling important and unmet needs in a category.
Then the marketing department would describe those product features by writing a sentence or two about each and printing that information on a card. The marketing research people would bring a bunch of those cards to consumers and record which features they liked the most and which they said they would be most likely to buy.
Finally, the marketing people would take the winning concept and give it to the ad agency, which would figure out the appropriate brand voice, personality, and world.
The problem with this process is that in today’s marketplace, it is inadequate to the task. It generates ideas that consumers will say are ‘great for camping’-in other words, things that seem clever but are not really relevant to everyday life (which is the Kiss of Death Assessment for any new idea).
In today’s marketplace, where there are literally dozens of kinds of OJ to choose from, a product innovation that begins in the lab is unlikely to make enough of a difference to succeed. Back to my son in the drugstore eyeing the deodorant choices. A fancy new formula that keeps him 20 percent drier just isn’t going to be enough to get him. Something that’s cool, a brand name that conjures up an attitude he aspires to, a graphic that evokes a world of imagery that captures his imagination . . . those things will be. Of course, the product has to work, too. Image alone is also not enough.
Taken From : Secrets from the Innovation Room: How to Create High-Voltage Ideas That Make Money, Win Business, and Outwit the Competition
December 29th, 2008 — Uncategorized
Grown-ups tend to sort things first by product class and then by brand. In other words, when we need new sneakers, we look for cross-trainers first, then we look at brands and offerings within that category. By contrast, kids today seem to sort these choices by brand first, and then product. So they’ll choose the Adidas brand first, then look for the type of product they need.
I first noticed this profound shift while I was doing focus groups for a confection company. First I interviewed grownups, and then I interviewed teenagers. I asked both groups to draw how they imagined two worlds; the first was the world of sugar candy, and the second was the world of chocolate candy. The grown-ups drew worlds with recognizable candy shapes- licorice twists for the supports for a swing set, lollipops for trees. The teenagers drew brands-Twizzlers for the swing-set supports, Twix for the couch, Rollos for the tree trunks, and Fruit by the Foot for the tree leaves. Each group had a different orientation.
We are moving toward a population of consumers who process the world primarily in terms of a brand’s voice, personality, and world. Rational, tangible product attributes are still important, but less as a way of distinguishing one brand from another; instead, they are important in terms of how they bring a brand’s world to life.
Marketers whose products succeed create innovative brand worlds first, then deliver those innovative brand worlds with new, tangible product attributes that pay off the brand imagery. Those tangible attributes might be packaging, fragrance, or distribution-not the traditional kind of innovation that’s initially dreamed up by R&D during the product’s formulation.
Taken From : Secrets from the Innovation Room: How to Create High-Voltage Ideas That Make Money, Win Business, and Outwit the Competition
December 28th, 2008 — Uncategorized
Take out your last grocery list or receipt and write down all the brand-name items you purchased. Then do the same with the last brand-name products you picked up at the mall.
What made you buy what you bought, compared to the alternatives that you could have bought?
What was it about that brand of juice, that style of sneakers, those headphones, that kind of perfume or cologne?
How much of your selection had to do with a formulation or some technical feature or a discount price, and how much had to do with an image or an idea?
Sometimes the rational reason is the intellectual alibi for the emotional satisfaction. Pick one of the products you bought and imagine: If that brand were a world, what would that world be like? Where would it be located? What time of day would it be? Who would inhabit it? Then ask yourself, is that world a place you’d like to live? To visit? If so, maybe there’s more to your brand choice than meets the eye.
December 27th, 2008 — Uncategorized
In the olden days, innovations that filled consumers’ unmet functional needs were enough to build a major brand. Floor wax that dissolved the old wax and applied the new in one step, for example. Shampoo and conditioner with vitamins to make your hair shiny and strong. Paper towels that soaked up spills faster than the competition. But in today’s marketplace, most of those important needs are already filled by a brand, and usually by more than one.
We have a huge proliferation of choices in every category. When I took my adolescent son shopping for deodorant for the first time, his eyes bugged out of his head when he looked at the hundreds of choices. Antiperspirant? Deodorant? Roll- on or gel or stick? Which scent? Which brand? In the end, he’ll choose the brand that his classmates say is cool. Or the one that has the funny ad on MTV and the graphics that grab him.
Unfortunately, the brand teams that create those products focus the majority of their innovative efforts on creating superior formulations for their products.
What they don’t realize is, their target audience is looking for that and for something more.
Taken From : Secrets from the Innovation Room: How to Create High-Voltage Ideas That Make Money, Win Business, and Outwit the Competition
December 26th, 2008 — Uncategorized
Overview
Every situation in our lives has some sort of potential energy that is waiting to be discovered and tapped into. This can take the form of tension or unresolved conflict: ‘I want this, but I also want that.’ Merely focusing on the ‘this’ or the ‘that’ does not make for very exciting possibilities. But discovering and releasing that potential energy can lead to some very high-voltage results indeed. This chapter is about finding the hidden conflicts that motivate us all.
In physics, ‘potential energy’ is stored energy, energy that is waiting to be released. A tensely coiled spring is just waiting to explode outward and transform its potential energy into kinetic energy.
We all innately long for the resolution of tension. Seeing a coiled spring, you know that it will eventually burst forth; in a suspenseful movie, you know in a quiet scene that something or someone will pop out and scare the life out of you; the last chords of a symphony lead inevitably to the tonic chord, to provide a satisfying conclusion. (Try singing ’shave and a haircut’ without topping it off with ‘-two bits.’ Leaving the musical phrase hanging unresolved is almost painful.)
Malachy Walsh, my mentor and friend, teaches that the energy arising from tension is the force that moves society forward. All of us have needs, appetites, duties, and responsibilities that drive us through each day-from short-range issues (’What will I have for lunch?’) to long-range ones (’How can I make my family’s life better?’). These needs often pull us in a number of directions at once: I want to buy groceries for my family according to my own personal standards, and yet I’d like someone else to do the grunt work so that I can spend my time elsewhere. It seems that you can’t have it both ways-you have to either invest a substantial amount of time in grocery expeditions or turn over the responsibility to someone else and take the risk that the task won’t be completed in a way that satisfies you.
We’ll come back to the idea of potential energy and how to release it, but first, let’s take a broader view. You’ll see how Thomas Edison’s ‘turn it upside down’ motto applies to the world of brand development.
Taken From : Secrets from the Innovation Room: How to Create High-Voltage Ideas That Make Money, Win Business, and Outwit the Competition
December 25th, 2008 — Uncategorized
When I began doing this kind of work, I wasn’t sure what response I would get to these kinds of exercises. Would drawing a cartoon be too ‘out there’ for people to really engage in? Who is really going to draw me an ‘internal weather report’ and take it seriously?
Well, everyone.
Interestingly, when I present these exercises in a matter-of- fact way, I find that people just dive in and do them, whether I have an audience of CFOs or of 12-year-old girls. That broad willingness to respond just proves the effectiveness of having an open and curious attitude. The process is about the person you’re questioning, not about you. You hold the space, you introduce the questions and the exercises, but it’s the people you’re listening to who take you below the chop, who reveal what’s in the world below the surface.
I invite you to share the dis-coherencies you uncover with us on our Web site, www.energyinfuser.com. We’ll create a virtual ‘warehouse’ of these dis-coherencies, and if you’re ever stuck for an idea, you can visit the site, pick up a couple of ripe dis-coherencies, and use them as the source of natural idea- creating energy.
It becomes your task, then, to listen for the energy, to look for associations, to find connections that other people might not have made before. By doing this, you can proceed to the next step: releasing potential energy.
Taken From : Secrets from the Innovation Room: How to Create High-Voltage Ideas That Make Money, Win Business, and Outwit the Competition
December 24th, 2008 — Uncategorized
The internal weather report is another great tool. Have the friend who helped you with the previous exercise pencil in the weather icons for each activity on his or her path through the day.
For extra credit, you may have the person do a three- panel cartoon for each time he or she engages in the activity you’re measuring.
Put it all together, and what have you got? Certainly a lot more than you would have if you’d sat the person down and asked, ‘Tell me about your experience with your breakfast cereal.’
Taken From : Secrets from the Innovation Room: How to Create High-Voltage Ideas That Make Money, Win Business, and Outwit the Competition
December 23rd, 2008 — Uncategorized
When my son was little, I tried to teach him how to talk about his emotions, which is a hard thing to do. When my older daughter was young, she would tell me everything: ‘Hmm, I was feeling a little grumpy earlier today, but now I’m more calm,’ but my son would answer in single syllables.
‘How ya doing?’
‘Fine.’
‘Fine? That’s it? Just fine?’
‘Fine.’
So I’d ask, what’s the internal weather report? Is it sunny, is it cloudy, is it lightning bolts, is it a cyclone, is it a hurricane? What’s happening on the inside?
December 23rd, 2008 — Uncategorized
You guessed it! Based on this example, it’s time to have someone draw a map through his or her day. Decide in advance what behavior you want to look for, and ask the person to include it: coffee or soda drinking, gum chewing, snack eating, and so on. What insight do you get into this person’s habits and life? What surprises you?
Taken From : Secrets from the Innovation Room: How to Create High-Voltage Ideas That Make Money, Win Business, and Outwit the Competition
