Let's Co-Everything

From co-working to bike-sharing to millennials co-habitating with their parents, it looks like owning something yourself is just getting too hard.

Going it alone in retail is hard, too. Just ask American Apparel. One of the fastest growing US companies only a decade ago, they are now closing their doors. They hadn’t made a profit since 2009.

The cost and risk of opening a retail presence has always been a significant barrier for brands just getting started. You used to have to go it alone. But now you don’t have to. 

There is a co-retailing startup called Bulletin. It helps smaller brands merchandise their products without having to have a brick and mortar store of their own. They divide up a single retail location into smaller sections, from a shelf to half a store, that you can rent month-to-month. It’s brilliant and is smashing the barrier to entry into physical retail.

The new co-economy is giving rise to this kind of innovation every day. Is there a barrier to entry that is standing in the way of you growing your business or creative practice? Take a step back and ask, “How can I co-it?”

photo credit: Sebastien Wiertz @flickr.com

You Both Win

I opened a business checking account about 4 months ago at Wells Fargo. It took about half an hour. In and out, no big deal.

So when I walked into the branch last week for the first time since I opened my account, I was shocked when I was greeted at the door by name. “Hi Mr. VanDusen, great to see you today. What can we do for you?[smile]” 

To say I was shocked is an understatement. Whether or not this guy had some special memory gift or not doesn’t really matter. What did matter is that I suddenly felt like I mattered to them. Sure, Wells Fargo could be doing damage control for their recent transgressions, but in that moment, I forgot all that. Because they recognized me. I wasn’t just an account number. They knew my name.

The more distant our daily business transactions become, the more we need to reach out and touch people on a personal level. Because if you can figure out how to make people feel like they matter, then you both win.

photo credit: Crystian Cruz @ flickr.com

Our Brand Is Crisis

A friend of mine works at Nordstrom in design. She posted on Facebook that she and her co-workers received an email from the three Nordstrom brothers condemning the Muslim ban. In it they reiterated their “values of diversity, inclusion, respect and kindness” to their employees of which “thousands…are first and second generation immigrants”. A buoyant and positive brand narrative.

Days later (in a ‘totally unrelated move’) Nordstrom dropped the Ivanka Trump line. The POTUS sent out a condemning tweet. Kellyanne Conway went on FOX News asking the viewers to buy her boss’s daughter’s products. Federal laws were possibly broken. Apologies were made. Then rescinded. Pretty much a PR disaster.

After taking a slight hit as a result of the tweet, Nordstrom’s stock price did something interesting. It went up. A lot. So did sales. It seems that valuing and protecting the people that work for you is good for business. 

Brands that are built on celebrity rise and fall on the actions of the ambassador’s associations. When that persons name becomes synonymous with a chaotic and negative narrative, is it any wonder the brand is damaged?

photo credit: Grégoire Lannoy @flickr.com

Brandbot Voice

Danger Will Robinson. Those were the first robot words I remember hearing. Robbie the Robot on "Lost In Space" with his dryer vent tube arms flailing was a voice you could trust. Always watching out for Will.

I got a text the other day from someone who said they met me on Tinder and wanted to chat. Except that I’m not on Tinder. So that was the first giveaway that she was a chat 'bot. The second was that she wanted my credit card number so she could verify my age. Ummm, no.

Our first painful brand 'bot interactions were likely with voice recognition on customer service phone trees. But everyday the chances increase that when we are interacting with a company online, we are actually talking with a chat 'bot. This presents brands with a new and significant opportunity.

A powerful new touchpoint for reflecting brand personality is appearing. Not only does talking to a ‘bot need to feel “normal” but ideally you want to design a conversational brand voice that aligns with your brand’s positioning. And unlike my Tinder friend, it needs to be one you can trust. 

photo credit: Scott Beale @ laughing squid, http://www.laughingsquid.com

"Design ROI"-Rob Wallace

[The following article is a guest post from my good friend Rob Wallace of Best of Breed Branding. Posted with permission from the author.]

DESIGN ROI

Age of Accountability

While we live in the design age, we also live in the age of information and accountability. Today every business decision is supported by accurate and timely data.  Every effort is scrutinized for its direct impact on the bottom line. The new corporate mantra is, ”if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” In the vernacular, management is asking, “show me the money”.  If you are a design manager, my goal is to help you do just that.

The Proof

I wrote an article for the Design Management Journal that has been described as providing “ground breaking thought leadership” on quantifying design’s return on investment.  Please email me for a copy at Rob@wallacechurch.com

This article represented the culmination of five years of independent research on empirically calculating design’s value.  It was built on an ROI methodology created by statisticians and used data from Wallace Church’s brand identity/package design assignments plus a handful of additional case studies supplied by major cpg corporate package design departments.   The methodology is outlined in Don E. Schulz and Jeffrey Walters’s book, “Measuring Brand Communications ROI” which is available on Amazon.

This article concluded that, on average, every dollar invested in advertising and package design resulted in over $7 in incremental value for the brand.  Great news!   But even more interesting is the data from case studies where there was no advertising and package design was the only element that changed. In these cases every dollar spent in brand identity/package design generated over $400 of incremental profit.  

New Insights From the Forefront of Design ROI

It has been several years since this article’s first publication, and I’m happy to report that the additional data we have garnished further supports design’s paramount ROI.  I’m also happy to report that, independent of this article, the greater business community has begun to recognize design’s paramount value in brand building.  I am however, disappointed to report that we as an industry have yet to embrace a standardized method to measure design’s direct financial impact. And as a result, many design managers still have to fight hard to justify the resources required to fund and manage the design process.

ROI Roadblocks: Reluctance, Fear, and Disbelief

While most design managers believe that proving our value would greatly benefit the design process, many remain skeptical. To some, it’s wrong to extract design from all the other tools that drive purchase behavior. One individual articulately commented, “I have spent so much of my energy convincing marketing to consider design as an integral part of a synthesized branding effort, why would I want to separate it now?  Even if we can, we shouldn’t measure design in a vacuum, but as part of an integrated whole”.  

There are those who consider the $400+ ROI result shockingly high and therefore not believable. This result seems hyperbolic, and therefore, is an easy target for “too good to be true” skepticism.

To those concerned, I say, try it.  Prove or disprove it to yourself before abandoning the notion.  Until we can segment each marketing effort’s specific impact on the bottom line, we’ll never know how to best dedicate limited resources. 

There are a number of prominent design practitioners who are simply reluctant to be quantified. I well remember a discussion with design evangelist Tom Peters, and how he emphatically emphasized that design must never be “relegated to the providence of the bean counter”.  I understand his point. Still, I’m convinced that senior management will no longer allow design to fly below the accountability radar screen. To those who are reluctant to being quantified, I suggest that we designers initiate our own accountability process. We need to set our own standards and develop our own best practices. For if we don’t, surly a process will be thrust upon us.

There are those who are concerned about setting the bar and having to continually raise it. “Congrats! Our last design project resulted in a $400 ROI.  Tomorrow I expect $500, then $750 and then $1,000.” To those who fear this upward spiral of expectations, I suggest that we first establish our own base standard and then embrace a process of constant improvement. We need to continually hone our best practices until we determine design’s ultimate profit potential.

Then there are those who are concerned that the methodology is not universally extendable to all design disciplines. Most, if not all, design disciplines result in a “before and after” that can be measured and compared against costs. Disciplines such as product design, merchandising and promotion all have measurable variables. Some design disciplines have success criteria built into them such as web design “click throughs”.  Even “soft measure” design disciplines such as corporate identity or environment design, can be analyzed against perceived stock price or worker productivity. While there may be no one “magic bullet”, I am passionately convinced that all design initiatives can and should be quantified in financial terms.

Lastly, and perhaps the largest group of naysayers are those who flatly respond, “It simply can’t be done.”  These folks ask, how can you pin point design’s specific impact? How can you control the competition or the market dynamics, or Wall Street, or the rainy Tuesday that discourages shoppers from leaving home?  Until we can isolate design from all of these uncontrollable elements we simply can’t measure it. 

The Moment of Truth

In the last several years, we have discovered that there is a moment in time where all of these ancillary influences can be metered out and package design can be isolated as the only variable. This golden opportunity occurs when launching a major brand redesign effort.

During a redesign initiative, there is always a transitional phase where the new design architecture is “phased-in” to the existing shelf set. New design gradually replaces the old as the product is sold through. This transition often takes a number of months and can be a critical time to measure design’s impact.  Here’s how to take advantage of this moment of truth.

Select one retailer to sponsor the new design. Launch the new identity in its entirety into selected stores in a specific geographic market. Divert the old packaging to the same retailer’s stores in a near-by geographic area with the same consumer dynamics. Keep the pricing and merchandising efforts identical. And then simply measure sales between the test and control stores for a period of several weeks.

During this test period, the brand’s offerings are consistent, the ad campaign and its frequency are the same, and all of the intangible and uncontrollable social and economic aspects are all identical.  The same Wall Street dynamics and the same rainy Tuesdays preside.  Design is the only variable, and the incremental sales that it generates are irrefutable.

The Good and Bad News

These research results have been remarkably higher than expected.  New data shows an average of more than $500 of incremental sales for each dollar invested in design.  In one recent case study for a leading national cpg brand, design’s ROI was nearly twice that.  So what’s the bad news? The results are almost too high to be believed. The results might be more acceptable if they were more like 10 or even 50 to one, but at literally twenty times this rate, they seem “too good to be true”.

Proving the Impossible

The numbers may seem overbalanced because the cost of a package design assignment is so small when compared to other marketing initiatives. The investment in a new identity for a multi-SKU major cpg brand might require a couple hundred thousand dollars in design fees while this same brand might commonly invest millions or tens of millions of dollars in advertising.  If done well, package design architecture can out live two to three ad campaigns. Imagine the media cost if you were required to run an ad that would be seen by all of your possible consumers. In the cases studied, research indicated that only 7% of consumers see an ad before experiencing the product at shelf. Now consider how many possible consumers see your package design. Virtually 100% of your current and potential consumers see your brand’s identity at retail.  With up to 70% of brands in high turn selling environments purchased on impulse, design is the last and most critical opportunity to influence the sale.  Considering all these factors certainly design’s unsurpassed ROI can be justified. 

A New Design Advocacy

If we as an industry are going to prove design’s ROI, then this message cannot come from design consultants, but from corporate design management and independent, impartial and credible associations. Organizations like the Design Management Institute and the American Marketing Association need to take up the cause. In the UK, the British Design Council has maintained a well-respected program called the Design Effectiveness Awards where design is awarded merit based not on arbitrary aesthetics but on marketplace performance. We need its compliment here in the US.

I am calling for a new breed of design advocates to join the fray. I’m looking for a number of passionate professionals to build upon the initial data. I am seeking new advocates to apply this or other methodologies across the entire spectrum of design disciplines. From these ROI results and the processes that drive them, I see best practices emerging, industry-wide adopted standards around the appropriate time and resources dedicated to design so as to generate its highest ROI.  This will be the day that design’s golden age will truly be actualized.

Interested?  Drop me an email and I’ll forward you the methodology and engage you in an ongoing dialogue with other industry thought leaders.  Email me at rob@bestofbreedbranding.com and let's together speed the process to empirically proving design’s value. 

photo credit: Anthony Albright@flickr.com

Open Doors

Just out of college I had a job painting the front doors of 400 apartments in a huge complex. You have to have the door open to paint it, so I got to peer inside 400 families lives. From the outside, all those apartments looked cookie-cutter-same. But when you looked inside they were…

In branding and design you have to understand what people do in order to fulfill their desires. The challenge is getting the truth. What people say they do and what they actually do is often very different. That’s why direct observation is the best way to uncover a consumer need. Seeing is always more accurate than hearing.

Today, people are photographing and posting every waking moment online, essentially opening their apartment doors for anyone to peer in. The Selfie Era. Some call it narcissistic folly. But those of us who leverage consumer insights for a living are having a field day.

photo credit: Hernán Piñera @ flickr.com

A Happy Ending

I like the way these jeans fit. So I decided to order another pair online. Same brand, same fit, waist, length, copied right off of the label. So when the order came… whoa, I was in for a big loose baggy surprise! Does this story sound familiar?

What are these, “Mom jeans” for men? How could it be that a giant in denim, one with 50 years of experience in making jeans was so off the mark? I couldn’t help but see it as a concrete illustration of the market share shrinkage this brand has been experiencing in recent years. 

By focusing on winning back it’s customers through advertising, social media, email promotional campaigns and a parade of celebrity spokespeople, they took their eye off the ball. They forgot about the product.

All truly iconic brands deliver one thing: a consistent product experience. Without that, any other investment you make in winning customers is wasted. Get the product right. Give the story a happy ending.

photo credit: Robert Sheie @ Flickr.com

Going Small

There is this thing called the Ringelmann Effect. Stay with me on this. Maximilien Ringelmann, a French agricultural engineer did an experiment where he asked people to perform a simple task: Pull on a rope. What he learned was that when there is only one person pulling, they give 100% of their effort. The more people you add to the rope the more the effort goes down.

Jeff Bezo’s has a saying, “Any team that can’t be fed by two pizza’s is too large.”. The bigger the team, the more complexity, miscommunication and bureaucracy. The less effort.

There is a trend happening in the branding and design world. Large client companies are divesting themselves of their big agency relationships and hiring much smaller agencies. Like 2-10 people small. I know because I did it myself at Pepsico. And the big agencies are freaking out.

The reason is that the big clients have finally figured out that when you have a tiny agency team pulling on your project rope, they pull really, really hard. They deliver above and beyond.

So as you think about how to handle your next project, consider going small.

Less Is More

In the hallway that leads up to the statue of David by Michelangelo in Florence, there is a row of unfinished sculptures of people. They're called “The Prisoners” because they are half-trapped in marble - they were left in the process of being freed by the sculptor.

I spent the last week cleaning out my father-in-law’s house, as he prepares to move into a retirement community. He needed help shedding stuff. The good news is that he was ready to let go of it. It wasn’t a battle like you see on the show “Hoarders”.

In the process of drastically editing down his possessions, we could see a lightness come back into him. An excitement for new possibilities and beginnings even at this late stage of life. By getting rid of things he was rediscovering something that had been trapped in all the stuff, himself. 

Branding and design are processes of subtraction. You shed all that is unnecessary to express the kernel of the idea. You find the essence. 

By shedding things, we carve a space for new experiences. We free the prisoner. In less, we can find more.

Dying on the Vine: Don't Build Your Brand On Borrowed Land

What are the stars of Vine saying to themselves these days? 

Don’t build your brand on borrowed land. 

Twitter announced recently that they will be shutting down Vine, the 6 second video sharing platform “indefinitely”. But what becomes of the stars that Vine made? Well, some of them have gotten internet-famous enough to have parlayed their multiple 6-seconds of fame into work in independent film, cable, TV, advertising, or are taking on longer-form projects than Vine allowed. Apparently, millennials, just like Bumbles, bounce. (Sorry for the pre-Thanksgiving Rudolph reference…)

But there are scores more not-so-stars who will be hung out to dry. Those with hundreds or thousands of followers cultivated and nurtured over years of posting video content snippets. All them will go poof very soon. 

It’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Think of all the individuals, bands, companies that poured blood and sweat into MySpace internet-eons ago. The volume of content being generated is larger than ever and the pace of change is faster than ever. So when change comes, having your content host and your associated following disappear can be a painful wake-up call. 

Building an email list, a documented following that is independent of any specific platform is the gold standard of content developers, marketers and entrepreneurs. It takes a lot of time, effort and money to get folks to give you their email address. Twitter knows this and is happy to shackle you to it’s platform. It makes gleaning the emails of your Twitter followers all but impossible. 

When Twitter goes belly-up, and it will eventually, all those retweets, hearts and follows won’t mean dookey.

The only thing that will matter are the personal networked connections you have made. The ones where you know each others email addresses. And those you might have, dare I say it, talked to on the phone.

While it’s pretty safe to say that email will be around for while, in cyberspace nothing lasts forever. So when the current circus folds up its tent and drives out of town, you won’t want to find yourself standing around still dressed like a clown.

photo credit: el toro @ flickr.com

The Hunt

All over the country people are actually walking around for once. Heads still buried in their smartphones, they are hunting for something. Pokemon. 

Deep down in our DNA we are all still hunters and gatherers.

One of my favorite things about working in fashion, branding and design is trend hunting. Exploring the retail world, stores, cities, cultures, digital environments, observing human behavior. Finding the patterns is challenging, fascinating and intoxicating. If this is happening, what will that cause? What’s next?

Successful brands are always watching. Analyzing the market and spotting where the opportunities are. They get out there and walk around. They know that nothing stands still. What are the macro societal trends? What micro consumer trends are being created from them?

Sure, you can buy a McKinsey & Co. report, but there is nothing like finding that one insight, that one Pokemon of trend hiding in the corner that can make your day. And maybe your third quarter, too.

photo credit: Chase Elliott Clark @ flickr.com

Pick A Lane

I met with a woman last week who just patented an invention. It’s incredibly simple. It's the kind of invention that you look at and say “of course!”.

The invention has implications for food and beverage, entertainment, travel, spectator sports, quick service restaurants, for CPG. The list goes on and on. 

She landed a meeting to pitch it to the largest beverage brand in the world. Let’s call them Big Red. She laid out the 50 ways they could use it. They loved it. They said “of course!”. So it was a shock when the meeting resulted in zip. Nada.

The reason wasn’t that it’s a stupid invention. It’s brilliant. The reason Big Red passed was because they were presented with too many options. No one knew where to start. Even Big Red, who has more resources than God.

She learned the hard way that "less is more". Next time she will pick a lane. One consumer, one occasion, one fulfilled need. The next client will know exactly how to put their feet in the starting blocks. They will see a simple picture of what winning looks like. And how to start. 

photo credit: {Robyn} @flickr.com

Make Your Mark

Long before I entered the design and branding arena, I was a painter. I worked on a large scale, usually about 5' x 6'. I’d sit in my studio and contemplate the expanse of white canvas in front of me. What do I do first? What if I blow it? It could be paralyzing.

Over time I discovered the key to unlock this limbo. You just make a mark. Any mark. You just have to disrupt the white of the canvas. Because after you've made that first mark, you have something to react to. To build upon.

So often we want to create something new. Something out of nothing. Like a business, or a brand, or a blog. But we are paralyzed. The answer is the one I found painting. Make a mark. It doesn't matter if it sucks. Because you're going to keep making marks and over time those first marks will be replaced with something better. Something approaching your vision. 

I can't tell you that starting isn't the hardest part. It is. But you just have to make one mark and then the journey of creation begins.

photo credit: Anders Lejczak @ Flickr

What Makes You, You?

We are inundated with marketing speak. Jargon like “360º campaigns”, “to the next level”, “world class” and “surprise and delight”. We all use them sometimes. The danger is becoming a business ‘bot, or worse - you may be missing the opportunity to make a human connection with your audience.

I was chatting with an entrepreneur who is having trouble crafting her brand message. She is an avid horse-back rider and was wondering if she should leverage the phrase “unbridled passion” in her communications. Her friends were saying “Don’t do it, people will think you have an equestrian business!”

I encouraged her to embrace it. Her love of horses is what makes her human. It lets us into her soul a little. She approaches her consultancy with the same energy and love that she does her horses. It’s a great story, it’s her narrative and it’s authentic.

What is it that makes you human? Are you bearing your soul a little in your work and in your brand? Tell your story and embrace your narrative. It’s what makes you, you.

And it’s your customer’s way in.

The Moment Brands Dream Of

A few weeks ago, I attended the Virtual Reality Summit in NYC. I was struck, not with how advanced the technology is - but rather with how no one really knows what to do with it.

There is a saying in Silicon Valley, “It’s a technology looking for a problem.” They don’t really know how to use it, or what to use it for. They just know that when someone puts on a VR headset, they don’t want to take it off. And when they do take it off, they all say the same thing, “Wow.” 

I’m reminded of a day eons ago when I took a box-shaped Apple mouse in my hand and clicked around in Mac Paint for the first time. At that moment, I knew I was witnessing a watershed moment in art, design and communication. I knew everything was about to change. This is where we are with VR. It will be huge. For entertainment, education, medicine, design, science, communication, all of it.

This is the kind of moment brands dream of. The opportunity exists for brands to design immersive sensory worlds and architect experiences of unimaginable scope. But amazingly, brands are sitting on the sidelines. They need to get in there and start imagining, experimenting, and pushing pixels around. Because everything is about to change.

The Un-Sexy Solution

If you ever want evidence why our species has survived so long, Google Images for the phrase "There, I fixed it." You'll find thousands of pictures of hilarious solutions to some of life's challenges. And a lot of duct tape.

Those pictures always reminds me of my days at Gap. I was amazed when I realized that the $16B goliath ran entirely on Excel spreadsheets being emailed around the globe. Unsexy, but it got the job done.

The tech explosion has introduced myriad apps, sites and hardware that are really sexy - with more features than you could explore in a lifetime. You can get lost in the sea of functionality, interfaces and connectedness. Last week I saw a cutting board that has wifi. Really.

But, sometimes the best solution isn't the sexiest. Sometimes sexy can distract you from actually getting the job done. Sometimes a scuffed shoe doesn't need a rechargeable handheld oscillating brush with a touchscreen. Sometimes it just needs some spit and a rub on the back of your pant leg.

Curiosity Not Passion

I was sitting in a lime green room with a drop ceiling. My guidance counselor said, “You should follow your passion”. I thought, OK, great! The only problem was I didn’t have one. 

Passion is a word that carries the weight of certainty. Passion burns with a lot of heat. But passion can also run out of fuel before the destination is reached. 

If she had asked me instead, “What are you curious about”? That was a question I knew the answer to. I had a bunch of answers to that one. 

Curiosity is evergreen and self-perpetuating. Curiosity invites exploration and experimentation. Following fascinations can lead you into new worlds. One interest fuels another and they expand into the realm of possibility.

Even now, we are prodded from every angle to follow our passion. The media says it. The business book authors say it. They say it on Shark Tank. I am certain that there are thousands of brilliant businesses, products and careers that were never launched because someone hit the “passion” wall. 

I'll bet curiosity has launched thousands more.

The Road To Innovation Is Short

Faster Pussycat

The pace of business today is brutally fast. To compete, it is critical that companies embrace innovation as a core competency. They must engage in it constantly - iterative design, research and development flowing through a never-ending pipeline.

12 Degrees of Separation

In the pre-Industrial Age, the distance between the maker and the product was very short - maybe literally an arms length away. The maker also had a direct line to the person who was going to use it. In fact, they probably lived in the same town. 

But since then, with larger companies, the concept and the final product can be more than a dozen functional divisions removed from each other, all in the same company. Strategy, finance, consumer insights, trend, product development, merchandising, marketing, sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, retail, the list goes on. 

Game of Telephone

For companies, innovation and product development can be like the game of telephone. There are so many people and phases in the process that the original idea gets lost in the chain of communication by the final stage.

Small = Agile

So, how do large companies win in innovation? By mimicking what small companies do. Small equals agile. Smaller companies have shorter chains of command, short decision making matrices. They have shorter timelines. They have limited resources, so they are highly motivated to be efficient. Stakeholders have greater autonomy, so if they want to do something, they just can go ahead and do it. They don’t have to get 15 stakeholders, 5 divisions, and 3 VPs to agree first.

Distance is Death

The problem is distance. Distance leads to crumby innovation. This pertains to physical distance as well as lengths of time. They both lead to the dumbing down of ideas by degrees.

The traditional innovation approach is to gestate an idea in an R&D group, then hand it off to a Product Development team, who in turns hands off to Sourcing and then a Manufacturing group, etc.

As an innovative concept creeps down the road from one functional department to the next, little by little, the purity of an idea is chipped away. Sacrifices are made for materials, cost, factory efficiency, shipping, retail realities. At times the “innovation” that reaches market has little resemblance to the original concept - if it makes it there at all.

To preserve an innovative concept, the distance between the idea and the final manifestation of it has to be as short as possible.

New innovation approaches call for cross-functional teams to be present throughout the entire process. Multiple stages of review and approval can be condensed and happen simultaneously. This constant representation of disciplines in the pipeline insures that the concept remains pristine and that any divergence is immediately apparent to all stakeholders. This increased transparency has been proven to drastically reduce innovation mortality rates.

Idea Sex

Cross-functional teams can also be great for innovation concept generation. An example of this happened at 3M. Cross-functional teams were reorganized to share physical offices and departments. One day, the adhesive product development team, let’s call them “the glue guys”, was looking to develop a stronger glue. In the formulation process they mistakenly developed a glue that was weaker than the original and could be removed very easily.

It just so happened that the glue guys where working in the same room as the “notepad guys”. The notepad guys were looking for new ways to pin up notes on a board. And the glue guys had this new glue that was removeable. But it was just sticky enough to put a note up on the wall. It was because these two groups were shacked up with each other that the Post-it Note was born.

Fittingly, the Post-It Note has since become the go-to tool for innovation brainstorming sessions around the globe.

Start With Why, Not How

Historically, innovation started with what the factory can do. Some new technological invention would happen in machining. Then you would figure out what products you could make with it. It would start with: “we can make this” – “now, what can we do with it”. Pringles came from tennis ball cylinder packaging in just this way.

New theories and processes for innovation are more “needs driven”. They start with a problem that needs a solution and then precipitate the development of machining or technology to bring it into existence. You start with the problem and end with how-to-make it.

Gantt vs. Slinky

There are different ways to get to a given result. Some are linear, some not. Let’s say you are mapping out an innovation project. Start by imagining the project as a Gantt chart. Imagine a linear progression of a project from start to finish encompassing all the sequential stages. The steps are laid out in overlapping progress bars in two-dimensional space.

Now visualize the innovation project as a Slinky. Imagine a project’s progression seen on its side as a curly-que, more circular in structure, continuously overlapping itself. Does it veer up or down? In three-dimensional space, the “end” result may not be in the linear direction out to the right it - might in fact be above or below. Or even behind.

Insight + Context = Innovation

The principles of Design Thinking are also being brought to bear on innovation. Design Thinking employs empathy for the context of the problem. It leverages creativity in the development of insights and concepts, analyzing various solutions and then applies them to the problem.

By using observational techniques, Design Thinking can uncover problems and issues as well as opportunities that are not immediately apparent. This kind of approach to innovation encourages us to believe in possibility and to think in the abstract. It succeeds with a less linear and more iterative approach.

The New Thing

The market is constantly being saturated with re-makes, re-hashes and sequels to established products and services. In order to break through the noise, truly innovative solutions are necessary. Adopting a new approach to how you shepherd your ideas through the product development pipeline will help retain the integrity of your concepts. It will insure that you hit the market with true disruptive force.

Remember, we put a man on the moon before we put wheels on luggage. Innovation is not always linear. But the road to it is short.

Image credit: Christian Heilmann @ flickr.com

It's All About You

I met with a prospective client recently. She’s a Harvard educated powerhouse, an accomplished musician and recording artist, has a wellness brand and is exploring starting a museum - from scratch.

In our meeting she shared the personal motivation and meaning behind her music, her wellness practice, her museum idea. She shared how they were all integral to one another, synaptically connected. Her musical/creative/wellness/education narrative was important to capture in branding them!

While capturing her philosophy does fit into the equation, I am encouraging her to shift her focus. The motivations of the customers for each of these businesses are quite different. One wants to buy a song. Another wants to de-stress with body work. Another wants to take the kids someplace that will fascinate them for an afternoon.

Your brand narrative needs to capture your passions, but what's key is how you will fulfill your customers desires. Great brands weave the two seamlessly together in a motivating and emotionally evocative way.

photo credit: flickr: rafa_luque

You Are A Package

I’ve done a lot of work in consumer packaged goods. The biggest challenge is getting consumers to choose your product from all the others on the shelf. Recently, in working with entrepreneurs and mid-sized businesses I have noticed how many of the guiding principles of CPG translate directly to their branding challenges. Here are three:

Shelf Pop: When you are on display, as an individual or business, you have to know what your competition looks like. What shape are they? What colors do they use? Iconography or photography? Bottle or box? You need to differentiate yourself in a way that makes you jump off the shelf when a purchase decision is being made.

Communication Hierarchy: At most, you get 3 levels of communication. Brand, variant and flavor. You have to make hard choices about what you want your customer to know. What motivates them? A functional or an emotional benefit? Are you going to make them look sexier? Make them smarter? Define what your label says. 

Shopper Journey: How do customers shop for you? Impulse buy at checkout? Always right next to the sunglasses? Are you with your competition or are you charting new territory in a different aisle to stand out? Create an intuitive path to help people find you.

These days, the physical and digital worlds are packed with brands to choose from. Your goal is getting picked. Becoming someones favorite. How will you make it from the shelf to the cart?