Business innovation, in the real world, is often small and may appear insignificant at the time, but it’s no less important. Small innovations are easier to accomplish and are as likely to have a long-term impact as the ‘big idea.’
Early in my career, when I still lived in Canada, I was the Account Executive on Dentyne Gum. The brand’s positioning was social confidence for young adults. We were asked to launch a sugarless version. (Yes I’m that old.) We needed to find an innovative solution to the age-old marketing problem; how to introduce a new product to a young, highly mobile, low-media-consumption audience.
The new product was excellent so trial was the obvious strategy. If we could do this with reasonable scale we would have a successful launch. The challenges were reaching the target, they were elusive back then too, and getting them to try the product. We needed to find a business innovation that would allow us to sample the new product with its best customers.
All of the traditional trial vehicle were trotted out but none were efficient against the younger target. I suggested that we were looking at the problem from the wrong viewpoint. Instead of the tried-and-true marketing tactics we needed to consider the problem from the consumers’ perspective.
When was social confidence important to young adults? When they were dating. What did they do on a date? They went to the movies. And as a bonus, the movie titles would help us fine tune the targeting. Perfect. Lets give them a sample of the gum when they enter the theater.
Small problem. Theaters were, and with good reason, reluctant to give gum to patrons that they would then need to scrap off seats when everyone left. Besides, taking the consumers’ POV again, social confidence was more important after the show than it was during the show. Solution, we gave samples to young adults as they left the theater.
This approach to sampling had never been done before we did it. A small business innovation that was a significant contributor to a very successful launch.
Hip Shots
- Business innovation can often be found by stepping out of the confines of traditional solutions and activities, and considering the problem from the consumers perspective.
- Look for bottlenecks, for places were your target consumers are concentrated, and consider the activity that draws them there. Use this as a stepping stone to insight.
- Consider the inevitable speed bumps as opportunities to rethink your assumptions. The bumps in the road are obstacles for a reason. Behind the reasons you can find more stepping stones.
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