Archive for the 'What’s New' Category

Six Ways to Create New Demand for Your Brand

Published on 05.14.2012 in The Power of Collaboration, The Tenets of Innovation and What's New. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

Valuable learnings from the 2011 book, Demand, by Adrian Slywotsky with Karl Weber

What do you think is harder:  generating a supply of new products or generating demand for those products?  Given the large numbers of great new products introduced every year, and the much lower number that achieve their year-one and year-two sales goals, demand appears to be the greater challenge.  If you need to raise demand for your brand (and who doesn’t?), check out this highly readable book.  It provides six steps to help you open up the demand floodgates, illustrating each step with case studies from brands like Amazon Kindle, Zipcar, Netflix, and Nespresso.

The book starts with one simple fact – that there are usually significant gaps between what people buy and what they really want – and shows ways to use those gaps as the springboard to design products that create new consumer demand.

Here’s a quick overview of the six steps that are key to “opening the taps” of the consumer demand pipeline:

1)   Make it Magnetic. Keep developing the idea until it generates excitement among consumers and an irresistible desire to have it.  Great functional design contributes to magnetism; in fact, the emotional appeal is partly created by the beauty and functionality of the design.  It’s not the first mover who wins the race, but the first to create and capture the emotional space. Slywotsky wisely reminds us of a remarkable truth about demand and human nature:  We let little things govern big decisions. Zipcar’s research showed that they could unlock significant incremental demand by reducing the distance from a customer’s home to an available car from 10 minutes to 5 minutes – just 5 minutes made a big difference in the number of people willing to sign up for the service, despite the fact that Zipcar usage saves their urban customers thousands of dollars per year.

2)   Fix the Hassle Map. Map out every way in which your current product is less than 100% easy to buy and use – rooting out those characteristics of your product that waste your consumer’s time, money, and energy – and then figure out how to eliminate those hassle factors.   For example, Netflix experimented with many versions of their mailing envelope until they came up with the best design to turnaround movies within 48 hours.

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Beyond Physical: 7 Unique Expressions of Wellness Can Drive Innovation

Published on 05.14.2012 in Dynamics of Innovation, End-User Experience, Multi-Sensory and What's New. 0 Comments Tags: , .

How do you respond when asked, “Are you doing well?” Do you focus immediately on your physical health and say something like, “Oh, my blood pressure’s a little high, but otherwise the doc says I’m in good shape.”  Physical health is certainly a primary aspect of wellness, but the concept of wellness is increasingly understood to now include seven aspects:  physical, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, social, financial/occupational, and environmental.  As consumers come to understand this broader definition, new opportunities emerge for brands to incorporate additional aspects of wellness into their value proposition.

Whether you need to enhance the value proposition of an existing product or market a brand new one, try exploring the range of wellness expressions for new ideas.  Consider these examples of brands that have successfully and profitably made a connection with a particular aspect of wellness, either as the core brand promise or as a secondary mission.

Physical wellness is more than the absence of disease or disability; it encompasses personal responsibility for all choices that affect your bodily health, from wearing a seatbelt in cars to exercising and eating a healthy diet to appropriate use of the health care system.  Many food brands include physical wellness as part of their value proposition by promising to help us maintain the health of our heart, digestive system, weight, and so on.  In a more unusual example, Goodnighties sleepwear is made from fabric treated with negatively charged ions and promises to neutralize body stress and promote better sleep.

Intellectual wellness requires lifelong learning, creativity, and problem solving. As our population ages, finding ways to maintain our mental acuity is a growing concern.  Activities from video games to weight training are being touted as beneficial for intellectual wellness. Dietary supplements like Focus Factor and Procera AVH have successfully tapped into our desire for intellectual wellness by promising to help you concentrate longer and focus better.

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Retail Reinvention: The Differentiated Success of Beauty Retailers Sephora and Ulta

Published on 04.15.2012 in End-User Experience, Multi-Sensory and What's New. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Walmart is still the biggest seller of beauty products in the U.S., and they’ve been upping their game in recent years by introducing chain-exclusive beauty brands such as Hard Candy.  Nonetheless, two beauty-specialty retailers have thrived through the recent recession years:  Sephora, which focuses strictly on prestige products, and Ulta, which delivers unique value by bridging the prestige and mass markets.  In addition to being great examples of retailer differentiation, these chains have disrupted both the traditional department store selling model for prestige brands and the drug/mass selling model for mass market brands.  They are also great examples of retailers who have clearly defined their target market, have customized their in-store experience accordingly, and work hard to make their shoppers feel special and valued.  So – how do they do it, and what can we learn from them?

Sephora: Trusted Advisor for Fashionistas

Traditionally, Americans have shopped for high-end, or prestige, cosmetics and fragrances at department stores like Macy’s, but when Sephora entered the U.S. market in 1998, they completely reinvented the prestige cosmetics shopping experience.  They now have over 500 locations in the U.S. and significant market share.

In the traditional department store, each brand is isolated at a separate service counter, staffed by a salesperson who only sells that brand, and all products are stocked in closed cases.  This creates a rather high-pressure selling environment, can lead to long waits for service, and makes it very difficult to explore and experiment across brands.

In contrast, Sephora has a low-pressure environment which encourages exploration and experimentation.  Open shelving allows Sephora shoppers to touch, smell, and apply any product.  Sales staff are trained to probe for the shopper’s needs and then recommend appropriate items from any of the 250 brands they carry (including some “exclusively at Sephora” lines).   Their newest New York store even features a mobile payment system so that staff can process customer payments on the store floor (skipping the checkout counter, the least enjoyable part of the store experience for most shoppers), as well as in-store iPads that allow shoppers to scan QR codes to access product information, ratings, and reviews (see also: Using QR codes To Speed Customers Through the Purchase Decision Process).

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How Brandwashed Are You?

Published on 04.15.2012 in Dynamics of Innovation, End-User Experience, Multi-Sensory and What's New. 1 Comment Tags: , .

Actionable marketing tips from neuromarketing expert Martin Lindstrom’s new book, Brandwashed.

Brandwashed purports to reveal the ways in which marketers manipulate consumers into buying more.  But it also gives us several good ideas for upping the effectiveness of our own marketing communications.  Based on Lindstrom’s extensive functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and observational research on how our brains respond to various images and messages, this book recommends several powerful ways to tap consumer demand, including appeals to fear, love, nostalgia, and peer approval.

How does it work?  When these emotions are triggered, our brains release “feel good” chemicals.  When we encounter these emotional triggers in combination with a branded product, our brains form a positive association:  get brand, get good feeling.  We want more of that good feeling, so we desire more of that brand.  And since the human brain is the result of millions of years of evolution, it reacts pretty consistently to these triggers, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, or other individual characteristics – so a great campaign idea can be effectively extended to multiple target audiences.

Fear. Whether it’s fear of death, disease, poverty, or social isolation, fear is a powerful motivator.  Further, by uniting us against a common enemy, fear brings us together.  We actually enjoy spreading news about possible dangers.  Just think about how often we talk about infectious diseases and germophobia.  Examples of brands that have effectively connected to the fear trigger to drive sales:  Allstate’s Mayhem campaign and Lysol disinfectant’s campaign against the flu virus.   Is there some deep-seated fear that your brand can assuage?

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The Scent of Success

Published on 04.15.2012 in End-User Experience, Multi-Sensory and What's New. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The smell of Christmas: pine trees and gingerbread.  The smell of a baby: baby powder and milk. Hundreds of scientific studies have proven what we know intuitively, i.e. scents can evoke strong memories and emotions and even inspire certain behaviors. Today, we take a look at some of the latest news on scent and the innovative ways scent is being used in consumer marketing.

Freshening Our Homes:  Clean Environment, Wild Luxury

Home air fresheners are the obvious place to start, and the April 2012 issue of Real Simple magazine provides a great example.  An ad for Air Wick air fresheners entices us to “bring home the vibrant scents of nature,” as they’ve created a limited edition of four new scents inspired by America’s great national parks, including Yellowstone’s Wildflower Valley and Alaska’s Glacier Bay.  A beautiful picture of Yellowstone Park is overlaid with scent, encouraging readers to “rub here to experience Wildflower Valley.”  While scratch-and-sniff spots are familiar, having one right on a magazine page is rare, making the Air Wick National Park product line seem even more special.   At the bottom of the ad, consumers are encouraged to go to their website to join the Fragrant Homes Club for exclusive coupons and to enter a sweepstakes to win a trip to one of the parks.

When it comes to scents for household products, Procter & Gamble scent experts say that fragrance megatrends seem to surface every decade or so. Following the rise of cucumber melon in the 1980s, scents evoking rain were popular during the 1990s, followed by clean linen and lavender vanilla.

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Backyard Gardening Raises Vegetables AND Marketing Opportunities

Published on 02.22.2012 in End-User Experience, Multi-Sensory and What's New. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

More Americans are growing vegetables, berries, and herbs in their yards, up 10% from 2007 to 2008 and up another 21% from 2008 to 2009.  Over one-third of American households now participate in food gardening.  The rise of buzzwords like urban gardening and suburban farming, as well as the number of new publications on the subject (e.g., Urban Farm), suggests we are looking at an important trend.  So what should marketers be doing with this information?

An important first step is to understand WHY food gardening is on the rise.  Research from the National Gardening Association indicates that the recession is one major factor:  consumers are motivated to grow their own food to cut their grocery bills.  An equal number are focused on eating healthier and getting fresher, more flavorful produce than they can get at the store.  Others are interested in sustainable living or getting their families more involved in outdoor activities.

Next, we have to wonder whether this is a trend that will last or fade away quickly.  There are several indicators we can look at for this.   First, as noted above, there are multiple converging factors driving the consumer behavior, and that’s always a good sign of a trend with longevity.  Second, we see retail sales trends involving numerous products across multiple categories – that’s another good sign.  Third, the Home Depot Garden Club website’s monthly poll for January 2012 shows that the number one gardening goal for 2012 is Growing My Own Vegetables with 41% of the votes  (admittedly, not the most scientific research, but still an indicator).  Let’s take a look at some of the new products that are capitalizing on these opportunities.

According to leading seed vendor, Burpee, sales of vegetable seeds and gardening supplies have grown substantially in the past few years, with the trend continuing into 2012.   Whereas tomatoes were the hottest product in 2010, herb gardening was on the rise in 2011.  Burpee offers some interesting new products targeting consumers interested in increasing their vegetable consumption for nutritional reasons, but who don’t necessarily have much gardening experience.  One example is their Healing Hands Lettuce Mix, a combination of four varieties of lettuce in a single pellet, which can be planted in a 10” container (if you don’t have an in-ground garden) and harvested every 3 weeks all summer long.  This salad mix promises 20% more lutein and 30% more beta-carotene than the average salad mix.

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Sleep Your Way to Success

Published on 12.01.2011 in End-User Experience, Multi-Sensory and What's New. 0 Comments Tags: , .

If the popularity of the 2011 book Go the F*#$ to Sleep is any indicator, American adults are desperate to get some sleep.  And manufacturers in industries from textiles to electronics are waking up to this need and responding with helpful products.  As we head into the holiday shopping season, here are a few of the latest and greatest innovations to put on your sleep-deprived wishlist.

  • Bedding made of the latest temperature-regulating fabrics isn’t cheap ($150 – $250 for a set of sheets), but it does promise to help you sleep better at the perfect temperature and objective reviewers generally back up the manufacturer claims.  If hot flashes, night sweats, or hot-to-cold temperature shifts are disturbing your sleep, look for brands like Sleep Number’s In Balance, Outlast, and Sheex for sheets, mattress pads, and blankets.
  • The Zeo® personal sleep coach ($150) is on display at Best Buy stores now.  Go to sleep wearing the wireless headband and the base station will record and graph your sleep patterns.  When you wake up, the base will display your ZQ score (a summary of sleep quantity and quality).  Pull the memory card from the base station, upload your data to the Zeo website, and get coaching tips for better rest.  The system will even help you determine your optimal wake-up time.
  • Wear the Jawbone UP wristband ($100) to bed, and (combined with an iPhone app) it will automatically track your hours slept, deep vs. light sleep, and overall sleep quality.  Tell it your desired wake time, and UP will wake you with a gentle vibration of the wristband at the ideal moment in your natural sleep cycle.  This device also provides diet and exercise support for an overall healthier lifestyle.

These technologies supplement (rather than replace) traditional sleep aids like ear plugs and sound machines to block disturbing noises; light-blocking eye masks and curtains; and oral sleep aids like Lunesta, Ambien, and melatonin.  Food science offers possibilities as well, with milk, bananas, and oatmeal all cited as sleep aids.

Take-Aways for Marketers and Manufacturers: Lots of opportunity remains for both internal and external solutions to maximize sleep-time.

6 Inspiring Ideas from Inspiring Conferences

Published on 12.01.2011 in Dynamics of Innovation, End-User Experience, Multi-Sensory, The Tenets of Innovation and What's New. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

While fresh thinking and ideas can come from anywhere – and oftentimes from the most unexpected places – we are certainly fortunate when inspiration comes in a focused, intelligent and highly-concentrated package. Such was the case this past month when Chicago Ideas Week and TEDxMidWest 2011 landed in the Windy City – creating quite a buzz in the Midwestern innovation community. The opportunity to meet and hear a dynamic range of entrepreneurs, community leaders, authors, scientists, and artists, was enough to satisfy the desires of any glutton of food for thought. The following are six meaningful nuggets that emerged from our sampling of the inspirational delights:

  1. Confronting Fear: Alison Levine, is an adventurer, explorer and mountaineer. Having climbed the highest peak on every continent, and currently the Team Captain of the First American Women’s Everest Expedition, Levine is also an inspiration. She spoke about the intense preparation to reach the summit and the trepidations along the way. “Fear is okay,” expressed Levine, “complacency will kill you.” It’s a tenacity that applies to business as well. It’s okay to be afraid, Levine communicated, but it’s essential to confront that fear, to take action, and move forward.
  2. Vision: “Vision without action is a daydream,” says Pablos Holman, world-renowned hacker and futurist – but adds quickly: “Action without vision is a nightmare.” While Holman’s career has taken some curious twists, it has been a strong and unwavering vision that has set his course.  Currently he is working to minimize the impact of hurricanes by modifying ocean circulation patterns, to reduce malaria by zapping mosquitoes in Africa, and to slow global warming. While these challenges might seem daunting, by starting with a strong vision, it creates the platform from which even problem with global impact can be conquered.
  3. Resilience: Tim Westergren, Pandora founder and Chief Strategy Officer, knows that the path to success can be unpredictable and treacherous. When initial funding and potential venture partners dried up in the early 2000s, Westergren was left with the brilliant notion of an application that allows listeners to create their own radio stations based on their own musical preference – but no money. “We were in a pretty deep dark hole for a long time,” said Westergren in a recent New York article. Belief and resilience – along with maxed-out his credit cards and employees working for free – allowed Westergren to persevere. He pitched his company 348 times before he got necessary funding. Ultimately emerging as a hugely popular iPhone app helped Pandora turn the corner. Continue reading ’6 Inspiring Ideas from Inspiring Conferences’

Winning the New POPularity Contest

Published on 07.26.2010 in End-User Experience and What's New. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Part One: How the New World of Consumer Decision-Making Represents Opportunities for Innovators

There are precisely two times that marketers should use the word “funnel”: if they sell that handy kitchen tool that helps get sauces into Mason Jars; and if they hawk fried sugary treats at Midwestern county fairs. Otherwise, bury the word in the same graveyard that includes the concept of “competing only on price,” interactive agencies that insist Web sites start with Flash introductions, and just about all potentially toxic product spokespeople. No, the funnel model of marketing is dead, and in this article we’ll consider “why,” what’s replaced it, and how innovators can best leverage the new realities.

The funnel model of marketing worked extremely well for a long time. You ran a commercial that reminded media-saturated shoppers why they did, in fact, love your brand. The little voice in the back of your target’s head helped her decide to pull your item off the shelf. If the thing you were selling wasn’t half bad you might have the beginning of a long-term relationship. But the funnel model is clearly out of sync with two profound shifts in the marketplace.

First, the world in which consumers live has changed. Time-pressed consumers are continually bombarded with more messaging, delivered in more ways, more often (“Is that a advertisement on my plum?”). Media, however, isn’t just saturated, it’s fragmented too. A look at the number of arcane Grammy categories (do you recall who won for “Best Performance by an Orchestra or Instrumentalist with Orchestra – Primarily Not Jazz or for Dancing” last year?) gives you sense of how beautifully splintered we’ve become. Add to the mix the 25,000 new products introduced every year and you’ve got a pretty complex world for the push model to work within.

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Slick: Why Innovators Should Be Wary of Rebranding

Published on 05.26.2010 in Dynamics of Innovation and What's New. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Dead wildlife won’t be the only thing washing up on the Gulf coast following the recent environmental disaster because the mishap will probably erase hundreds of billions of dollars of BP’s brand value. The topic of brand value was the second thing that came to mind when reading about the disaster. Picture, if you will, a bevy of executives at leading branding firms furiously sending emails regarding a) who they knew at BP and b) when might be a good time to pitch them on a rebranding proposal. You see, rebranding is a panacea – an august sounding strategy that can meld opposing corporate cultures in a merger, signal a new day for a corporation, or erase associations best left to the dustbin of history.

Innovative managers who are considering these type of proposals should have eyes wide open about what rebranding can actually accomplish.

Let’s begin with a definition: put simply, a brand is a promise that creates a preference. Experience has shown that there are three degrees of sophistication about branding: companies stuck in a world where the brand = the logo; companies that are slightly more progressive in that they believe the brand should be consistently expressed across all touchpoints; and progressive companies that have embraced the idea that a brand must be consistently expressed across touchpoints and supported aggressively by operations. It’s probably fair to assume that most companies fall somewhere in the middle camp. Rebranding, therefore, becomes an exercise in revising the myriad of touchpoints any brand has accumulated over the years. What it doesn’t mean for this middle group, of course, is an actual strategic realignment. It’s the same business but with a different logo.

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