Who's Responsible for Innovation?

If a company wants to be innovative, it must create an atmosphere that encourages innovation. A healthy atmosphere of innovation will exhibit three conditions:

1. Innovation - The company must give employees - ALL employees, not just those in the R&D department - the freedom to innovate. Supervisors at all levels should welcome their subordinates to discover creative solutions and to constantly look for ways to do things better. Employees should be allowed to generate new ideas, and should feel that their supervisors will be receptive to their ideas. Employees should be empowered to innovate.


2. Submission - Once an employee develops an innovative idea, she must share it with her supervisor. The supervisor should listen eagerly, ready to assess how this idea could benefit the company and customers. The supervisor should ask questions and coach the employee on how to improve and adapt the idea to best fit the company and the situation. The employee should trust that her supervisor will be an advocate of great ideas; because of that trust, the employee submits to her supervisor's final decision about whether or not - and how - to move the idea forward.


3. Protection - Once the supervisor gives his employee the authority to implement the idea, then the supervisor becomes a protective covering for the employee. As long as the employee follows the supervisor's instructions, she doesn't need to fear the consequences of failure - the supervisor takes those consequences upon his own head. If the employee makes a mistake or makes someone angry, or if the idea doesn't work, then the supervisor bears the responsibility. He protects his employee, because the employee was acting under his authority. This gives the employee the freedom to fail - and the freedom to succeed.

These three measures - innovation, submission, and protection - are essential if a company wishes to be innovative. Employees throughout the company must be inspired to think creatively and to generate ideas, no matter how raw or ridiculous the ideas seem at first. Employees must vet those ideas through their supervisors, trusting that their supervisors will want to bring great ideas to life, and ultimately submitting to the final decision of the supervisor. And supervisors must protect the employees as they start implementing their ideas under the supervisors' authority, empowering the employee to succeed by bearing the responsibility if they fail.

If one of these conditions is missing, innovation within the organization will be stifled. Companies stagnate if employees don't generate ideas. Ideas go awry if employees act without the authority of their supervisors. And employees stop innovating if they can't trust their supervisors to protect their efforts.

If your organization wishes to be innovative, does it have these processes in place?

Creating for Your Audience

Ad Age published a white paper this week called "Shiny New Things", exploring the influence of those customers known as the "early adopters".

The term "early adopters" was introduced in 1962 as the valued second category in Everett Rogers' diffusion of innovations theory. The theory asserts that all consumers can be grouped into one of five categories - innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards, consecutively - according to their willingness and quickness to adopt new ideas and products.


Rogers' diffusion of innovations curve. From the Wikimedia Commons.
For a good, brief online explanation of these five categories, I recommend ProvenModels.com/570.

Of these five categories, the early adopters are the consumers whom many marketers seek to impress when they release new products (hence the motivation behind Ad Age's white paper). Early adopters are revered as the consumers who can "make or break" a product's success. They are the ones who will tell the rest of the world whether the product is worth buying or not. They tell the world this by their words (increasingly so, in the days of social media), but also by their actions (are they seen actually wearing and using the new product or brand?). And they are the ones to whom the rest of the world listens.

(Of course, very few brands or products would do well to target the early adopters exclusively. As Seth Godin is quoted as saying in the Ad Age white paper [and in his blog], "if you want to stick around for a while, you need to make the difficult sales to the middle of the market or have a ready supply of new stuff ready to entertain the never-satisfied early adopters.")

The Ad Age white paper expanded on Rogers' theory by sharing findings from a study done for Serena Software that dissected the diffusion of innovations curve beyond its original five categories. The Serena Software study broke the "early adopters" segment into five micro-segments of its own by characteristic (rather than by adoption rate):

• Alphas - "These are the tech elite, immersed in technology. Alphas see technology as having a significant, positive impact on their lives and ability to communicate. At work, they are delegators, developing solutions to hand off."


• Accidental - "Not as comfortable with technology as Alphas, Accidentals still have a deep understanding of how technology can improve their lives. With a less direct approach at work, they consider technology a tool to solve problems, but not the key to everything."


• Practical - "Using all the technology that most other types are excited about, but they are less enthusiastic about the devices. They typically report to the Alphas and Accidentals at work, but are focused on implementation."


• Balanced - "Although similar to Accidentals, they do not place technology or work at the center of their lives. Approaching their jobs as a means to fund other things they enjoy, this group leads more relaxed lives than other types, and are hesitant to adopt emerging technology until they see how it relates to their personal lives. The most likely to be students and the least likely to be workaholics."


• Lite - "The most resistant to adopting new technologies before they are mainstream, they are less likely to take risks, actively solve problems or create efficiency. At work, they may adopt a new process once it is proven effective in another department. The most risk averse segment in relationship to technology, their work life, and at home."

These five micro-segments intrigue me. I want to discover how I can reach these customers - that is, how I can design products that fit their needs (rather than trying to convince them to buy a product that they really don't need - a much more difficult and much less honorable sell).

If I were to create a product with these five groups in mind, here are the steps (and priorities) that I would take:

1. Build for the Accidental. These are the consumers who see technology as tools, not as toys. Accidentals expect new technology to solve a problem. They will be my most valuable critics - the ones who tell me whether a new product is actually worth the materials from which it is made. They will tell me if a product actually meets a need in consumers' lives. If my product is going to be worthwhile, it needs to work for the Accidentals.


2. Support for the Practical. The Practicals are the ones who implement the technology, and are responsible for making sure that it works for their (or their organization's) needs. They use all the new technology, but they rarely get excited about it - they have to work around all the bugs, and make the solutions work for their supervisors or clients. Having technical support - especially, letting them tell me where all of the quirks and faulty solutions are, and then working my hardest to correct those things - will be key for these folks. The Practicals will be the ones who tell me how to make my product function the best.


3. Design for the Alphas. The Alphas get excited about technology, and are most likely to agree that technology has a positive impact on the world. If a new product has some new, better feature, and if some group of fanboys say that the product will be the next great thing, the Alphas will eagerly adopt the product, expecting great solutions. For this group, products should have good functionality, but also good form. Sleek design and intuitive user interface, added to great features, indicate quality to Alphas. If I care about design, I should design products that Alphas would be proud to carry.


4. Connect for the Balanced. These guys care about life, relationships, and well-being outside of work. They will adopt new technology if it improves the quality of their personal lives and social interactions. If my new product is a time pit or an end in itself, the Balanced won't accept it. My product should help them to simplify their lives, or connect with friends, or save time for the important things. If my product can possibly benefit people in a personal or social context, I should look to the Balanced to see how I can make it happen.

If I can create a product that meets these consumers' demands in terms of functionality, support, design, and connectedness, then I can sleep at night feeling that I've created a product worth buying. If my product satisfies the needs of these four micro-segments, and if the rest of my marketing mix can deliver my product to the world, then my product has a chance of being adopted by the other groups from Rogers' bell curve.

Innovative Boost to Tourism

Need to boost tourism in your corner of the world?

Try this: Pick the most distinctive thing about your location. Hire somebody to take, essentially, a six-month vacation in that place, doing all of those fun, distinctive activities, and blogging about it for six months. Don't search for this fortunate fellow in just your local area. Instead, place classified ads in newspapers around the globe, inviting anyone to apply for the Best Job in the World. Require them to submit their applications via online video. Invite the top applicants to fly to your site for interviews. Pick the best one and set him to work.

And get $98 million (USD) of publicity for your location in the process.

That's what the tourism board of Queensland, Australia did with their "Best Job in the World" campaign this year. In January 2009, they announced their position with classified ads stating this:

The Best Job in the World

Position Vacant: Island Caretaker
Location: Islands of the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia
Salary: AUD$150,000 six-month contract
Responsibilities: Clean the pool, Feed the fish, Collect the mail, Explore and report back
Applications close: 22 February 2009 Interviews: 4 May 2009 Announcement made: 8 May 2009
Work begins: 1 July 2009

Anyone can apply.
www.islandreefjob.com


The website received over 34,000 applicants. 15 finalists spent four days together on Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef, taking tests in snorkeling, swimming, eating island barbecue, and blogging. The winner, Ben Southall, 34, a charity worker from Petersfield, UK, began work 2 July 2009.

Since the job began, Ben has been staying in a multi-million-dollar three-bedroom beach villa with pool, exploring the island, snorkeling the reef, posting photos, videos, and blogs, and earning AUD$150,000 (USD$134,000) in the process.

With 34,000 applicants alone (not to mention other visitors to the site and followers of Ben's blog) and estimated USD$98 million in free publicity from news media around the world, I would imagine that Tourism Queensland will be doing pretty well for quite a while.

To see a video recap of the campaign, visit http://adage.com/u/lvfdVaM.

The Odd Couple: a magazine and a fuel company

Little League Baseball has an official sports drink. The Super Bowl has an official beer. NASCAR has an official everything - tires, batteries, insurance, soft drinks, shaving products, heartburn remedies, and 45 other "official [items] of".

And now, a magazine (actually, three of them) have an official fuel. That's right, three magazines have an official fuel. Why? Well, when your magazines make their money by talking about motor vehicles, they use a lot of fuel. The magazines (all owned by Hachette Filipacchi) are Road & Track, Car and Driver, and Cycle World. The official fuel provider is Shell.

Having an official fuel will come in handy for these mags - and not only because of the advertising dollars. All three buff books involved in the partnership conduct road tests of cars, trucks, and/or motorcycles. The magazines have frequently used Shell gasoline and Pennzoil and Quaker State motor oils (also owned by Shell) in these road tests; now all parties can extend and leverage this relationship.

According to an article in MediaPost's Marketing Daily, Shell gets extensive benefits for the price of its sponsorship: its logo with an "official fuel of" tag on the mastheads of the three magazines, as well as on data panels for all road test articles; co-branded ads in the three magazines' print, online, and radio broadcast versions; and access to Hachette's market research data, provided by survey management firm Vista Studies.

Road & Track, Car and Driver, and Cycle World all benefit from Shell's sponsorship funding, naturally. In addition, they are able to guarantee that all of their road tests use Shell nitrogen-enriched gasoline, specifically.

The co-branded ads featured in the magazines are rather droll, too. Each features a Shell engineer smiling wryly as the camera catches him hiding his Road & Track magazine (or Car and Driver, or Cycle World, depending) in an open Petroleum Engineering textbook.

All this to say that strategic business partnerships have room for innovation. Perhaps your company can find an official snack food. Or official office supplier. Or official airline. Or official hotel chain. Or official search engine. Or official deodorant. Or official social networking platform. The opportunities are, apparently, endless.

Domino's Rethinks One of the 4 P's

The classic "marketing mix" is often referred to as "The 4 P's" - Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Folks in the pizza business seem to focus most heavily on Product (new toppings! new crusts! new sauces! dessert pizza! breadsticks! cinnamon sticks! should we add pastas? salads? pizza buffets?), Price (large pizzas for $5! 2 mediums and a 2-liter soda for $10.99! free cinnamon sticks when you order a two-topping pizza!), and Promotion (telling customers about all these great products and prices). There seem to be few options for changing up the Place (or Distribution) - it's eat-in, carry-out, or delivery. Not too exciting.

Until now.

Domino's Pizza apparently got bored with the standard Place options for serving delicious pizza. Providing pizza for carry-out or home delivery was simply not enough. They decided to think outside the box - or outside the building, in this case. Why deliver only to homes and offices and physical edifices? Why not deliver pizza outdoors?

And so, Domino's Pizza and Indie Amsterdam have teamed up to deliver pizza wherever hunger may strike - even in the Great Outdoors.

Domino's "Delivery Points" - white front doors, complete with doorbells - can now be found at parks and beaches in Amsterdam. Get hungry after surfing, or playing Frisbee, or rollerblading? Call the number on the door, and Domino's will deliver your pizza to your local delivery point for a pizza picnic.

Domino's calls the new campaign, "Man Hungry. Ding Dong Pizza." The effort seems to be largely guerrilla-style (there's a giant door in the middle of a park. duh.), but they are also showing some television commercials to introduce the concept.

I definitely did not see this one coming. But I like it. I can think of some great sites for Domino's Delivery Points right here in the U.S., too.

Lame Excuses for Being Boring - #4

To continue this series, which started in June, here is excuse #4:

"If we become more innovative, we'll become too advanced and too expensive for our strategic partners."

I have two responses to this lame excuse:

1) Who do you want to be your strategic partners? Are your current partners doing things to improve quality of life and to make the world a better place? Are they continually raising the bar? (And no, I am not referring to their cellular service.)

Or are your partners just maintaining the status quo?

If the former, your partners are innovating. And you will serve them best if you innovate, too.

If the latter, do you really want to be doing business with them?


2) Innovation does not necessarily equate to increases in price. If low cost is important to your brand, to your partners, and to customers, then be innovative at providing the greatest value while cutting unnecessary costs.

Lame Excuses for Being Boring - #2

Excuse #2:

"We've always been this way. This is who we are."

Being creative in your work does not mean departing from your identity as a company or as a brand. Being creative does not mean that you must become Apple, or 3M, or Southwest Airlines, or Starbucks, or Procter & Gamble. In fact, imitating other "innovative" companies is not "innovative" at all.

Being creative means proactively looking for ways that your brand can be even better at who your brand is supposed to be. Becoming even more aligned with your corporate identity, by creating greater value for your customers within that context. Be creative within the boundaries of who your brand is.

So who is your brand? What is your brand promise? Is your brand about luxury and status? Then find ways to pamper your guests in even better, more serving, more extravagant ways than before. Is your brand about family fun? Then spur on your imagination - and create amazingly fun products and environments that encourage kids (and their parents) to use theirs, too. Is your brand about bare-bones, no-frills, low-cost? Then be innovative about how you can cut non-necessities to help your customers save money. Is your brand about customer service? Then bend over backwards for your customers. Is your brand about drawing people together? Then probe for ways in which your products and locations invite people to share life.

Let your brand be itself. But make it the absolute best self it can be.

Marketers, just do work.

One month ago, I graduated from college. With a degree in marketing. Wanting to do interactive advertising.

Which means that, over the past few years (and even more over the past few months), I have been digging through job postings, prowling through lists of "The Top ___ Ad Agencies," and trekking through dozens of agency websites. I was quite impressed with the first several ad agency websites I explored - especially those for interactive* agencies. [for those of you not quite sure what "interactive" means, see my definition below]

Beyond the "coolness" factor of the clean or eclectic, minimalist or avant-garde, always esthetically pleasing, full-of-white-space-and-streaming-video, often Flash-driven sites, I especially loved the inspiring "our philosophy" sections that I would discover on these sites. Wow! these agencies "got it" - they understood things that we had been talking about in my marketing classes. They understood that marketing isn't just about shouting messages at consumers and convincing them to buy stuff so that companies can make money. No, it's about building relationships, and creating value, and partnering research with creativity, and having an integrated strategy, and being remarkable, and earning fans, and starting conversations, and developing trust and transparency.

I was so excited to discover that agencies have this fresh and original look at marketing!

Until, a few days ago, after wading through the millionth obligatory "marketing philosophy" page, I reached an exasperated conclusion: ALL of the advertising agencies that are worth their salt "get it" already. ALL of them understand the current approach to marketing, such as I described above. ALL of them have, basically, this same core philosophy. THEY'RE ALL SAYING THE SAME THING. Which means that none of them are really original any more. They don't need to keep saying the same thing that everybody knows already.

So, my fellow marketers and advertising professionals, quit talking and just get back to marketing. Take your lofty philosophies (most of which I agree with, by the way), and use them! Do marketing! And do it with excellence and effectiveness, and be remarkable, and earn fans for your clients, and stop trying to use your philosophy to prove that you're different. Just do great work.

Yesterday I stumbled upon this article on MediaPost.com, describing the website of NC-based agency Boone Oakley. Boone Oakley seems to be saying the same thing I've been thinking (just in slightly different words than I would have chosen). And actually, their "website" isn't a website at all, but rather an interactive (haha) YouTube video. Check it out: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=107402

*definition of interactive advertising (by Haley) - advertising that involves two-way communication between a company and its customers, rather than the traditional one-way communication found in media like tv commercials, radio spots, billboards, magazine ads, etc. To do this, interactive advertising agencies often use tools like public relations events, customizable products, Internet ads, company websites, online contests, customer review sites, microsites, blogs, text-messaging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, iPhone applications, etc. Hence the website of any agency that does any interactive work at all is typically very creative and...well...interactive.