There are a number of industry lists available that highlight top innovative and/or game-changing products. While it would be simple to repurpose these lists and provide my own take on each product within, I felt a different approach would be more intriguing.
As a fun exercise, I asked my fellow colleagues at InsightsNow to provide me with their opinion on what product(s) they felt were truly innovative, or have somehow served as a gamer-changer in their world. In no particular ranking order, the results are (drum roll please…).
1) Bissell Stomp N' Go
"A rescue puppy can bring joy to your life but wreak havoc on your carpet. This product has 'saved' several things in my life."
I can totally relate to my colleague's pain. Having two dogs of my own, one of which is now safely beyond the potty-training phase, having access to a quick, easy, effective solution such as this, is a must. |
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2) Schick Hydro Razor
"This last year I started using the Schick Hydro Razor. Prior to, I've always been an electric razor guy when shaving. I'd wake up, turn on the razor and massage my brain awake. Then after the new five-blade razor came to market, I got curious. Since I had a free razor coupon, I figured I'd give it a go. I honestly did not relish the idea of washing my face and using shave gel – it's just way too messy to be doing while trying to wake up. Nonetheless, I tried it anyway. Sure enough, I reaffirmed that I really don’t like it. Then one morning my rechargeable electric was dead and I was short of time. I decided to multi-task and take the razor into the shower with me. For some reason, that stuck. Of all the razors I've tried, the Hydro is my favorite. I still don’t like shave gel, but and the Hydro has it all built in. Without using anything extra, I still get the benefit of a cleaner-feeling face. Sure it isn’t as close a shave as the electric, and I don’t get the same massage to wake me up, but five sharp blades touching my face works equally well for waking the brain." |
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3) Gerber Graduates
"Two words describe this product, Life Saver!"
While I don't have kids of my own, my sibling does and my close friends do. They too would agree with my co-worker, Gerber Graduates--truly a life saver. |
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4) Recipe Inspirations - Garlic Lime Fajitas
"My wife and daughter came back from the store and asked me if I'd heard of this product line (Fajita is one example). They thought it was a terrific idea. I do as well. It resonates on several levels: convenience, speed, mistake free, experimentation without risk, cost--no need to buy multiple bottles of spices, and impulse-meal decisions--no need to think about whether you have all the spices/ingredients you need at home. Think about those 20-somthings starting out in their new households, learning to cook, wanting to make more interesting meals, but worried about failed attempts. When they do start stocking their spice shelves, what brand will they think of? Recipe Inspirations is a great example of taking an existing product portfolio and introducing a form that fits the needs and behaviors of today's consumer."
Thank you co-worker for bringing this to my attention. As one who likes to cook, but, at times (ok, let's be honest, most often) struggles to do it successfully, I must stay I am thankful to learn there is such a solution available in-market. This will increase the odds of successful cooking, especially for someone like me. |
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5) Heinz Dip & Squeeze
"Dip & Squeeze. Do I dip? Do I squeeze? Do I dip? Do I squeeze? Ahh, the luxury of choice."
Talk about a creative product idea. Imagine how many people this caters to. As much as I shouldn't admit, this is a great solution for on-the-go meals. Most can relate with this one. You're short on time, need something quick to eat, so you run through a drive-through window and grab a burger and fry. When asked, "Would you like ketchup?"...you respond, "No. It would be way too messy." Now with the creation of Dip & Squeeze, saying "No" to ketchup with your on-the-go fries is never a problem (of course, you'll need to carry your own Dip & Squeeze or hope the resturant you've just driven-through has them). |
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6) Gatorade G Series
"With Gatorade's G Series, they've successfully related to their consumers' workout experiences, making their product relevant and relational--once again."
Gatorade G Series has become a staple in my household, and solely for the purposes of replenishing the body after a workout. |
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Tell us about a product (or products) that have been a game-changer in your life.
Posted by
Alec Maki on Thu, Apr 12, 2012 @ 05:10 PM
In March, the Harvard Business Review focused on the challenge of U.S. economic competitiveness. This challenge is, indeed, complex -- as it intersects the economy, society, culture, globalization, politics and education. That said, historically, the USA is most successful when it has a central mission or purpose. So what now is the nations’ central purpose? Personally, I think it’s the pursuit of profit.
As a nation, we've been hard-wired to make money and make it in bundles. To make money, you must make a profit. Profit comes through selling goods/or services at a price greater than the cost to manufacture and distribute them. Profitable new goods and services come through innovation.
In other words, successful innovation is the key to achieving profit. Ironic, then, that in the pursuit of profit, many U.S. companies are in fact killing innovation. One of the world's foremost business thinkers, Clayton Christensen, dissects this issue here.
Here's my take. In the USA, the corporate mantra has been to achieve short-term profit gains (to please shareholders) without an equal focus on value creation. So we squeeze every nickel from corporate coffers, make that next financial statement look good by outsourcing and downsizing first this function, and then that function. The problem with this is that when you outsource core competencies (including production) you are, in effect, outsourcing competitive advantage. Over the past several decades, this has happened in drips and drops. But the cumulative effect has been monstrous. When firms are separated from the goods they sell, they reduce their capacity to innovate and drive new value into the economy.
Ultimately, profit comes from the creation of real, meaningful value. New value creation is driven through product/service innovation. Yet U.S. companies have, by and large, lost the ability to drive bold innovation. Instead, innovation has become the science of risk minimization. Minimizing risk, according to Peter Drucker, leads to rigidity. Rigid innovation is not a good thing. Yet, this is the status quo.
In turn, most mature markets are characterized by "me too" feature soup, commoditized choice and bewildered customers. Companies have lost hold of the fact that innovation should not be about minimizing risk but taking the right risk. This is a subtle shift in perspective -- but dramatically changes how firms address both innovation and the market. Apple is the "poster child" of innovation success and for good reason. It pursues the right risks.
To regain competitiveness, companies -- especially those in mature consumer markets -- need to re-master the art of bold innovation. This holds true for all firms, regardless if they are headquartered in the USA or not.
Posted by
Alec Maki on Wed, Apr 04, 2012 @ 02:48 PM
An excerpt from a recent blog on Fast Company entitled, Marketing From the Other End of the Funnel, by Joel Rubinson, President and Founder of Rubinson Partners, Inc. states, "How do brands start marketing from the other end of the funnel? First, realize that the shopper's mind is a prediction system, constantly operating, sensing hints or semi-conscious triggers called “cues” to anticipate how well a product will match desired outcomes in the ABSENCE of prior knowledge about that alternative. Shopper cues come from packaging, price, ingredients, the parent brand name, what something is next to on the shelf (e.g. gourmet coffees are easy to understand if they are near Starbucks on the shelf), signage, and the retailer (e.g. being sold at Whole Foods immediately cues product healthfulness). Not all cues are equal, so marketers need to learn which cues are the most important in the shopper's mind for the benefits they want to signal."
In the same blog post, Rubinson closes with, "When you market from the other end of the funnel, everything is flipped in what Procter and Gamble calls “store back” marketing. The brand narrative, brand values, social media engagement, even TV commercial impact come AFTER the purchase, so they solidify rather than precondition the brand-customer relationship. In this model, shopper marketing cues must be mastered as the main trial generator."
Rubinson couldn't be more correct.
At the end of the day, all marketers have control over are cues. The better we understand and manage the implicit (and explicit) signals elicited during the moments that matter (store shelf choice, pantry choice, consumption, etc.), the more likely we can design meaningful, relevant and differentiated experiences.
When it comes to new product marketing and innovation, we must start with the end in mind. This is foundational to thinking through every step of innovation. During the moments that matter, drivers of behavior rise to the surface, influencing product consideration, choice, usage and satisfaction. We must ask ourselves, how well, as marketers, do our cues deliver against this? Were these designed with intention -- or left to chance? These are the kinds of questions BehaviorLens addresses.
Nestlé CEO, Paul Bulcke is spot on in focusing their innovation efforts to drive growth. It is the only way to break out of the commoditization death spiral.
To further that point, it is equally important that companies focus their limited innovation resources in the right way. Traditional innovation is limiting as it’s primarily centered on segmenting consumers based on usage patterns and attitudes, and other measures such as need states. These traditional research methods are failed practices when trying to achieve bold innovation to break out of the product death spiral. And, depending on criteria, all of the above only net roughly a 5-20% success rate. The proof is undeniable - these approaches waste valuable corporate resources in chasing the wrong opportunities.
To break out of the commoditization death spiral and focus on the right opportunities requires a new approach to innovation, one that can get at the true concerns and wants of consumers. As researchers, we have the means to do exactly that. To do so, we need to leverage the voice of the consumer through listening techniques to drive future growth and bold innovation. But how?
Consumers are flooding social media networks with their stories. They’re voicing their concerns and wants as experienced in the past or hoped for in the future. Solutions like BehaviorLens™ Opportunity listens to the consumer voice, putting their stories into a quantitation that identifies whitespace (i.e. behavioral markets) to target. The identified “whitespace” or behavioral market is distinct from classical consumer markets defined through traditional consumer segmentation. Why? It has the ability to get at a specific moment within a consumers life. These moments are gold; they provide researchers with an understanding of where consumers are seeking newness or are most open to consider alternatives.
Having intel such as this when looking at where and how to focus innovation efforts and resources is the only way to break out of the commoditization death spiral to drive future success.
Posted by
Alec Maki on Thu, Feb 09, 2012 @ 06:10 PM
Recently, the president of the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), Bob Barocci, reached out to the ARF LinkedIn Group and asked this question: “If research could answer one unanswered question that would significantly improve marketing today, what would that question be?” First off, that’s a great question. Secondly, I wrote an answer that, seemed a little beyond the scope of a LinkedIn discussion. So I put the full answer here. Enjoy!
If research could answer one unanswered question that would significantly improve marketing today, what would that question be?
How do you consistently and repeatedly achieve breakthrough innovation performance? Great breakthrough products that deliver relevant, compelling, meaningful, differentiated benefits pave the way to success across the marketing mix. Mediocre "me too" products make marketing all that much harder. Unfortunately, that's the state we're in: "me too" mediocrity and commoditization of choice.
The growth engines of the future come through bold innovation -- not product enhancements, renovations and line extensions. Yet marketing consistently fails to account for the upside of bold innovation; they're content using tools that focus only on the downside - the risks. This risk-averse (and, worse, reward-averse) mind-set drives products to the rut of the center. Within categories, products converge upon themselves -- blending into bland, undifferentiated feature soup. Yummy!
For too long, marketing has failed to address this challenge, content to play the game of incremental(ism). As a result, supermarkets grew from 10,000 SKUs in the 1970s to about 50,000 today. Tools marketers employ across the innovation system shepherd safe, incremental initiatives while discarding potential market superstars -- what is the opportunity lost, measured in billions? Here's but one example (in billions): in 2007, Coca-Cola bought Vitamin Water for roughly $4 billion (a company with some $350 million in revenue), because Coca-Cola couldn't drive bold innovation in non-carbonated beverages.
Despite all this, we expect consumers to continue paying more for brand loyalty? Of course we don't, so we play couponing games and battle for position on store shelves, and look to “holy grail” shiny new approaches like digital media or neuro-marketing. That’s all really cool stuff and is, in fact, very shiny. Lipstick is shiny on a pig, too.
(To be clear, I’m not trying to demean shiny lipstick. It has its place. But shine, regardless of format, doesn’t change the underlying piggy-ness of pigs or innovation.)
Albert Einstein famously stated the definition of insanity, “doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.” Another definition is equally valid: doing the wrong thing, over and over again, and expecting success. When it comes to innovation, either definition is applicable. Yet, this is exactly what firms continue to do. There's an 80% product failure rate. Okay, let’s repeat that. Hope it goes better next time. Talk about insane!
Marketing needs to stop this insanity and address the fatal flaws systemic to innovation. Cobbling together piecemeal best practices to bandage individual flaws may solve microcosmic issues but, macrocosmically (quoting Steve Jobs), it equates to a solution that is less than the sum of its parts. Innovation needs a comprehensive solution that addresses flaws at a systemic level.
Such a solution lies in the hands of marketing. As Peter Drucker said, “because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two—and only two—basic functions: marketing and innovation.” When marketing fails to understand the customer, innovation fails to deliver successful products.
For too long, marketing has taken its eyes off the prize. And that’s where the real shine comes from: gold resulting from delivery of compelling, relevant, meaningful, differentiated new products -- the gold mined from bold innovation.
BehaviorLens™ announces the Bold Innovation Group (think BIG) on LinkedIn. 
The Bold Innovation Group (think BIG) is a networking forum for marketers, innovators, researchers, designers and engineers or simply anyone with an interest in big, bold innovation.
So what is "bold innovation?" Think of it this way, bold innovation is breakthrough, disruptive, radical or new-to-the-world. To get at bold innovation, it is important to understand how to drive repeatable breakthrough innovation performance for new product development (NPD).
Anyone that has ever tried to achieve big, bold innovation knows that, plain and simple, it is "H-A-R-D," especially in mature consumer markets. The purpose of this group is to share insights, opportunities, and best practices with other marketers, innovators, researchers, designers and engineers, or others, that are interested in addressing the challenges of bold innovation.
CLICK HERE to join the Bold Innovation Group (think BIG).
The Creators of BehaviorLens: Dave Lundahl - Founder of InsightsNow, Inc. Alec Maki - Vice President of BehaviorLens™ Research, Greg Stucky - Chief Research Officer, Johannes Schaefer - Associate Director of Emerging Methods, Dave Plaehn - Senior Mathematician of Research and New Methods, and Joel Rubinson - President and Founder of Rubinson Partners, Inc., look forward to the intriguing commentary each new member of the Bold Innovation Group (think BIG) brings to the table.
Posted by
Alec Maki on Thu, Feb 02, 2012 @ 07:05 PM
Open innovation has proven to be a great tool to collect and harness new ideas and technologies from outside corporate walls. A great example of open innovation success is the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser from P&G.
The challenge with open innovation is determining whether or not an inbound idea or technology will be lucrative. When applying open innovation to an innovation pipeline that is already broken, you simply add more complexity to a system in failure mode.
Companies desperately seek new paths to organic growth through innovation -- and many hope open innovation will pave the way. However, open innovation does not fix the root causes of broken innovation pervasive to mature consumer markets.
The key thing mature consumer markets need to focus on is how to identify -- and execute against -- future growth engines of success.
- How do you know that one market opportunity is better than another?
- How do you know you are going to market with the right portfolio of products to deliver against those opportunities?
Right now, there are no robust tools in place to make these determinations. Decisions are made on whim or based on data that come from viewing the market through the wrong lens. Open innovation may provide out-of-the-box new product ideas -- even huge growth opportunities. But how can companies consistently decipher a shooting star from a moving plane? Right now, they cannot -- and, further, do not have the tools available to help.
True, open innovation is a potential tool to find opportunities or ideas. But it doesn't help companies understand which to pursue or, equally important, how to fulfill them. How do you avoid putting more trash into an innovation pipeline where there's already too much garbage-in / garbage-out?
The industry needs to move away from a "spaghetti on the wall" innovation approach -- where you throw ideas out and see which sticks -- to something more reliable and sustainable. Open innovation is a great tool -- but how do you know which are "unsticky" open innovations and which one are solid?
Mature consumer markets need to change the game. If companies want to achieve breakthrough growth performance, they need breakthrough approaches. Doing things the same way no longer works.
Posted by
Alec Maki on Tue, Jan 31, 2012 @ 11:29 AM
Mature consumer markets face a huge problem when it comes to bold innovation. Namely, it is very hard to drive repeatable, consistent, organic growth through new product development (NPD). At the root, this problem has two fatal components:
- Companies struggle with the front end of innovation (i.e., identifying the right market opportunities for breakthrough innovation and growth).
- When a NPD initiative is moving forward, companies do a terrible job verifying how well the breakthrough new product delivers against the key insight(s) that were behind the idea / concept / product to begin with.
For simplicity, let's call these issues 1) front-end and 2) validation. These two issues are inter-related. That is, if you solve the front-end but do not solve validation, you have no way of knowing whether the product being developed actually delivers on its original market opportunity. On the other hand, if you validate the opportunity but have not solved the front-end challenge, then your risk increases for developing against poor / misguided opportunities. Either way, it's a crapshoot. Most companies do not have really strong solutions for either - so they have double the crap to shoot.
CLICK HERE to view our recent webinar, Fatal Flaws of Innovation, in which I cover how to effectively overcome these fatal innovation challenges so that your team can achieve big, bold, breakthrough performance.
Posted by
Alec Maki on Thu, Jan 26, 2012 @ 02:23 PM
When it comes to "big bet" initiatives, innovation is broken. At the very front end (pre-idea), companies struggle to identify good market opportunities. They lack robust decision metrics to help lead them to choose one opportunity over another. Decisions are made in the fog.
It's no wonder companies gravitate towards incremental initiatives! What this does though, is lead them toward "me too" mediocrity, product proliferation and commoditization of choice.
Even if a "big bet" initiative gets funding, traditional tools -- like purchase intent and historical norms -- fail to explain how well a bold new idea delivers against the original opportunity or market insight. Why? Because consumers cannot envision or articulate how well a novel, imaginative product fits into life moments. My point is, traditional tools often "kill" bold new growth ideas, while serving as a chauffeur for more incremental ideas because they fail to understand consumer behavior. To avoid this result, the consumer packaged goods industry should seek to understand how well novel products deliver against existing behavior within the context of the moment.
To do this, a behavior-driven approach must be adopted. This approach evaporates the fog and brings clarity to innovation. It focuses the front-end and proceeds with a clear direction at each step of the innovation process.
That said, we know certain things won't change: Companies still need to make decisions as to what initiatives to keep within their innovation portfolios and which to prune. They still need to make go/no-go decisions at various checkpoints throughout the innovation process.
However, certain things should and can change: for "big bet", companies need better decision-making tools to select innovation initiatives (based on opportunities based on consumer behavior) and to make go/no-go decisions across each initiative (based on how well new products deliver against previously identified behaviors). These things should change in order to beat broken innovation.