Innovate don't Invent
Market Research Services
Innovation, when done well, can catapult a business to the highest levels of success (Apple being the poster child for this!).
However, like a lot of things with a big payoff, it takes an investment of focus and resources.
The reason it is challenging relates to not having a clear understanding of what innovation is. The best definition of innovation is:
A new product, service or system that adds value to the company providing it and to the person consuming it.
It is relatively easy to determine if the innovation adds value to the provider, quality commercial analysis will determine this. It is less easy to accurately quantify the value for the consumer particularly if the innovation requires them to pay more.
Since virtually anybody currently breathing is aware of Apple lets use them as an example.
The two Steve’s (Jobs and Wozniak) and the Apple organisation have created very little that is actually new. What they are brilliant at is understanding the value of things that already exist and how they can be redesigned and reconfigured.
Apple did not invent the mouse, the graphical interface, colour screens, the disk drive, digital music players, digital music formats, tablet computers or the mobile phone. These were all created by other organisations and in many cases those organisations failed to understand the value of the creation. Apple didn’t.
Marketing cannot be separated from perception, the two are inextricably linked. It is also true that most people struggle to articulate want they want and how they might value it, the job of the marketer it to lead them in this understanding.
What Apple did was take the functional benefits of things that had already been created, and design them to reflect fundamental human truths – beautiful things sell, many people want to be seen as progressive, a leader, and technology is the new magic, and humans have always been enchanted by magic. Make it magical.
Do you want to look at what is already available and see something different? Get in touch and let’s chat.