23

Shaking the box up and down

Business innovation is fundamentally about the continuous development of new products and concepts. In marketing and management literature, this is often simplified to ‘you should stick to your core business’. This is seldom a piece of advice that holds in the really long term. For example, how would things have gone for the rubber boots manufacturer Nokia, or the record company Virgin, if they had just stuck to their core businesses? In addition, many people tend to interpret the term core business far too narrowly as meaning to keep doing the same thing all the time. But even if Volvo, for example, is sticking to its core business of motor vehicles, it is also extending it all the time with new products and concepts; naturally enough through new (and for the company unexpected) vehicles such as cross-country vehicles, but also through services such as rental and financial solutions and even IT (and you can also find the Volvo brand in boats and planes).

All products and concepts eventually hit a ceiling for their development and profitability, and sooner or later they start losing value (even the world's strongest brand Coca-Cola experienced tangibly that its core product of the same name was losing ground in the 1980s). And that's why you must continuously work on product and concept innovation. The problem is that your existing products and concepts can create thought tunnels and riverbeds that make it difficult to be creative and innovative. But if you use those products and concepts in the right way, they can instead become assets for your creativity.

We have already come to the conclusion many times that a product or a concept does not need to be particularly revolutionary to be successful. Instead what is important is that it is meaningful to the consumer. By using existing products and concepts as a springboard and placing them in new contexts and combining them with new associations, you create bisociations that people can relate to. And with every new step, you are creating a natural pathway from rubber boots to mobile phones without making any huge leaps or taking any big risks.

This chapter contains exercises to help you to develop ideas for new products and concepts. They are based on your current products or business and aim to identify potential new orientations towards new target groups, areas of application and categories. The result can involve both big and small changes. It's easy to be seduced by the idea of big changes but don't underestimate the small ones. The creative result has nothing to do with the length of the step you take.

Random verbs

This is a simple exercise that is great to warm up with, but can also generate really useful results. A common thought tunnel that hinders us in working creatively with a product is that we already ‘know’ how it is used. Whether it is customer surveys or common sense that is telling us so, we can be hampered by the fact that the product is used in a certain way. That is how a company called Facit died, for example, because they ‘knew’ that you used calculators to calculate with! Instead, handheld game consoles, computers and other products that could calculate, communicate, offer memory functions and much more came onto the market. By artificially combining your product or business with apparently unrelated verbs (that is, ‘doing’ words) you can break free from all that common sense and see new possibilities and paths for innovation.

The challenge with this exercise is to not give up before you find a solution to how the product can be used, using the verb. The more remote the connection, the greater the possibility for innovation. You might not be able to find sufficiently ingenious concepts and products for all verbs in the final analysis (but remember that nothing is impossible, some things are just more difficult than others), but a random verb can also stimulate worthwhile ideas about cooperation with other brands and products, and new metaphors and offbeat communications ideas (‘this watch look so scrumptious that I could just eat it’ or ‘shoes to put a song in your step’).

Do the Following

List as many verbs as you can think of. Don't be content with verbs that automatically come to mind because you have already connected them to the product. For example, think of your activities during a normal day or what you can do with other products. Then match all the verbs you have thought of one by one to your product or a specific part of the product or your business. How can you use the product as the verb suggests?

For example, if we take a watch and combine that with the verb to eat, you could develop a watch with a calorie counter that would probably interest many people. Or we could match eating lunch with banks, which you could do in Shanghai as we saw earlier in the book. Combine banking with the verb to go and we get drive-thru banks as in the USA.

Another time of day

Just as our thinking is limited by knowing how you use a product, it is also limited by the context that we associate with the product. Very often the context is associated with a certain time of day. Besides the fact that we use porridge by eating it, we also use it primarily in the morning for breakfast. As long as porridge is used for breakfast, its development potential is rather small, and it is scarcely surprising that this product has remained more or less the same for ages. But what would happen if instead we decided to sell porridge at another time of day, such as in the afternoon? Immediately potential new concepts and products come to mind, which, for example, a highly successful company in Scandinavia has demonstrated using rice porridge and fruit, with a range of different products and concepts based on healthy snacks with an energy boost, which nowadays even compete with sticky buns and similar alternatives.

By thinking in terms of other times of day, you can break free from the conventions governing how your product is intended to be used and instead get leads to the conventions of the new context about what the product can do and what it means. (Most times of day are associated with certain routines and behaviour patterns. Try to list them and you will see that this is correct.) The new context will have its own context effects on the product perception, which means that the product might not have to be developed very much, yet will still acquire a new meaning. In addition, it's worth remembering that by extending the contexts in which the product occurs, you also increase its conceptual fluency and thus you synergistically promote the original product in its original context, too.

But what if your product isn't associated with a certain time of day? Then think instead of how you would associate it with a certain time of day or a particular occasion.

Do the Following

List a number of times of day and junctures in a day. These might be particular times or routines in people's daily lives (lunch, school, exercising, dating, taking the bus, etc.). Then match each of these times and junctures to your product. How can the product be used then? What is required for it to fit in to the new context? What are the typical associations to the time or the routine that could be transferred to the product?

An example of how you can develop new products by changing the time of day is when Oral-B developed ‘Brush-ups’ teeth wipes (an interesting name in itself for a new product). Toothbrushes are conventionally used in the morning and at night. But the ‘Brush-up’ (which you can have in your pocket or handbag and just slip onto your finger) can give your teeth a quick clean for example when you're travelling (at the airport, in a taxi, etc.) or going to a date.

This exercise is called ‘Another time of day’ because it's a name that fires the imagination and is easy to work from. But it's really about choosing another time, which might just as well be another time of year, the season, or the buying cycle. By finding another time of year for example, Swedish ice cream company GB broadened its market considerably by launching an ice cream flavoured with a Christmas tradition (Swedish ginger snap biscuits) for the Christmas season. Previously, almost all ice cream was sold during the summer, which is very short in Sweden, and was not popular during the winter period, which is very long in Sweden. In recent years, many publishers have gone against the norm and started launching books during the summer instead of primarily during the autumn and spring. ‘Holiday books’ in paperback form have created new behaviours (people read books everywhere instead of just at home) and increased sales of physical books, which had been dropping due to competition from digital media (which is generally found in the home but not necessarily everywhere else).

Break the assumption

In the two previous exercises, the focus has been on challenging the conventions surrounding the use of the product. This exercise is instead about challenging the rules surrounding the design of the product. In most product categories, the designs of all competing products have many similar traits. Some traits are the same because they are necessary; the product cannot be made in another way. For example, trials with both fewer and more wheels have shown that cars are most efficient as products with four wheels. But many traits are the same just because ‘it's always been like that’, because no one has thought about what would happen if you change them, or because they are the legacy of technical, logistical or economic limitations that no longer apply (for example, the milk carton, or subscriptions for morning newspaper deliveries).

Putting your finger on the assumptions behind a product's design is the first step in finding new innovation opportunities. Your eyes will then be opened to the characteristics that are common to the product category and create rigidity in the market because the products are very similar and compete within a given framework. By taking yourself outside this framework, you can both break through the market ceiling in the product category and extend the product category as a whole.

Do the Following

List all the assumptions that characterise the product category. Be thorough and be careful not to miss conventions and rules just because they are so obvious. If possible, ask people who don't work with the product category to describe the product as thoroughly and in as much detail as possible. For each of the assumptions, ask the question why: Why does the product look like this? What would happen if it didn't?

For example, take the assumption that everyone pays the same amount to travel on public transport. What would happen if they didn't have to? Then maybe those fare evaders, who are a big problem in public transport systems, would be able to afford to travel for less money in more Spartan and crowded carriages, while those who don't like crowding would be prepared to pay more to travel in a more comfortable and spacious carriage.

Not-Definitions

Just as we can be limited in our thoughts by assumptions that have become so ingrained that we often don't even see them, we can also become fixated on definitions. We know what a product looks like, and what it consists of. It is only after you have put your finger on the definition of the product that you can see this otherwise invisible limitation and give the product a new form. But definitions are important because they create conceptual fluency in both your mind and the minds of the people you want to reach. Therefore, it is important to create an alternative definition that makes it easy for people to understand and accept the new product, and which can replace the old definition. The simplest way of creating a new definition is to start with the current definition that everyone can relate to and turn it upside down.

Do the Following

Define the product in a sentence beginning ‘the product is…’. Remember to be detailed. Then add the word not: ‘the product is not…’. What happens now? What new alternatives come to mind?

An example we have already touched on is milk. Milk is a drink that is sold in cartons. By instead defining it as a drink that is not sold in cartons (but in funky bottles), new markets have been found reaching new target groups (primarily young people) and times of consumption outside the home and school and a whole string of new products has been developed. A local cocoa drink has made a reverse journey by redefining itself as a drink you do not have to mix yourself. It can now be purchased in cartons. A local brand of hamburgers has created the first low-carb hamburger using lettuce leaves instead of a bread roll with the help of the definition ‘hamburgers are not comprised of meat patties in a bread roll’.

Product RAT

This exercise is about combining characteristics of the product with characteristics of the target group to identify new concepts. You can use the characteristics of your current customers to find new areas of application and products for them, but you can also simply list the characteristics of target groups that you would like to reach in the future and use these as the basis for developing products that would appeal to them. Just as in the original form of the Remote Associates Test (RAT), here it's about making use of apparently unrelated characteristics to bring out remote associations and concepts that you otherwise would never have thought of. Take advantage of what you have learned from the RAT exercises in Chapter 15 and remember that all characteristics can be combined if you just shake the box enough to make sufficiently remote connections.

Besides inspiring you to think of new concepts and products, the exercise is useful for getting an overview of what the product has to offer, and what characterizes the target groups. It also helps you to put your finger on any gaps between what you are offering and what the target group wants.

Do the Following

Variant 1

List all the characteristics of your product in one column. In an adjacent column, for each characteristic indicate if and how it is connected to other characteristics. These two columns form the basis for making new connections between different characteristics. In some instances, this might involve breaking existing connections, and in other instances it might involve making connections between characteristics that currently do not exist.

Let's take cars as an example. Not so long ago it was discovered that by bringing together previously unrelated parts of a car (the chassis and the battery) you could reduce the occurrence of corrosion and rust considerably (an electronic device transmits electrons from the battery to create an electrostatic charge that hinders chemical corrosion processes). Similarly, you could do away with the fragile (and not particularly aesthetically pleasing) antenna by connecting the radio to another external part of the car, namely the defroster. A connection that is so obvious that few people would even think about it is the connection between the roof and the remainder of the car body. By removing this connection, the convertible car was created.

And talking about cars, an April fool's joke led to Volkswagen starting a new trend with its Polo Harlequin model which has different colours for the different parts of the car body. The company published a novelty advertisement in which the car had different colours for different parts of the body, which made customers see for the first time the value of a novel connection between the characteristics ‘body part’ and ‘colour’. The demand in response to this advertisement was so great that both Volkswagen and competing car brands began to offer multi-coloured cars.

Variant 2

List the characteristics of your product in one column. Because this exercise is about developing new concepts and ideas, the characteristics you list should not be at the detailed level as in the exercises in the previous chapter but rather at a more overarching and flexible level (instead of ‘chrome handle’ for example you would list ‘design’ or ‘aesthetics’). Then list the characteristics of your target group in another column in the form of their behaviours, habits or needs. Then combine the characteristics randomly from the two columns. You can develop this exercise and help yourself along by adding a third column with emotive values (such as fun, weird, luxurious, kind) to function as your remote association. With the emotive values as a third part of the combination, you will often get a clearer picture of how the concept could be developed.

As a conceivable example we could take watches again, in this case designer and luxury watches. They are exclusive. Think for a moment that you want to broaden the market and target a group of consumers that are not as wealthy as the core target group (a more economical target group). Then we get the combination exclusive (product characteristic/economical (target group characteristic). If we add the emotive value ‘fun’ we could develop an offer where you can purchase the components from the company, and design and build your own watch (‘it's fun to create your own style’).

Just as in the communications RAT exercises in the previous chapter, this work is mechanical, which will guarantee a large number of unexpected results but will also involve very challenging and thought-provoking training, which will develop your capacity to think. Obviously you can also combine characteristics from the columns intentionally when you have them listed in front of you if can see obvious connections.

Associations squared

In this exercise, the combinations you get will grow exponentially. In Part II of the book, we looked more closely at how associative networks link together the knowledge you have in your brain. By using your product or business as a springboard and expanding out from semantic associations to indirect associations, you will naturally find opportunities for innovation. This exercise is also excellent for giving you an overview of your product or brand in the form of what semantic associations people tend to make (which comprise brand awareness and position in the market), which associations could improve brand awareness and position, and what opportunities exist to develop new products and concepts.

Do the Following

Draw the brand or the product (this exercise works at both levels) as a circle in the middle of a piece of paper. First add the direct semantic associations to your brand or product by drawing them as circles surrounding the brand or product. Then take the indirect associations (closely associated with the semantic associations, for example red -passion) and link them directly back to the product or brand (see Figure 23.1). What could you do with the product to create a direct association to what is currently an indirect association?

In the same way, you can connect the indirect association to your current target group (how should this association be materialized in a product concept for them?) or go off in another direction that leads to a whole new target group (what kind of people will the association appeal to and how can you create a concept for them?).

Figure 23.1

To return to an example we looked at previously, Coca-Cola could be linked more directly to ‘passion’ via the semantic association to red by extending the product line to include a ‘love tonic’ or a version with extra caffeine for energy. You could make energy candies with the Coca-Cola taste, love potion sweets, etc. Via its semantic association to fruit drink, the Fanta brand could launch vitamin-enriched, healthy drinks and sweets; or via its association to summer, offer drinks (perhaps a kind of cider), and other products (what about ice cream) suitable for barbecues, picnics and beach parties. These are just some trivial examples to illustrate how, with much sharper insights and more thorough analysis, you could come up with solid ways to broaden the brand.

Change category

In the previous chapter, we looked at exercises based on borrowing the voice and logic of another category to use for your product. This exercise is about doing the opposite to that. How could you sell your product in another product category? We have seen many times previously how knowledge about your own product and product category can have an inhibiting effect, creating riverbeds and thought tunnels that make the market rigid. But the same knowledge and thought patterns can soften up the rigidity of the market for another category and add new values to it. In its existing or developed form, your product can give new dimensions to products in the other category.

Changing category is particularly effective if it involves not just your product but also your brand. In Filling the Box, we saw how brand gravity can serve to pull a rigid product category in new directions and create more space in that category than it in fact has room for.

Do the Following

Make an associative network around your product. What characteristics and associations does it have? Do the same with a number of different product categories. Now place the associative networks beside each other and work outwards in the network through the semantic and indirect associations until you find connections between the product and category as in the figure below (see Figure 23.2). In this way, you should be able to identify inroads into the new category.

Figure 23.2

An interesting thought experiment might be, for example, that SBAB, which is associated with challenging the establishment and better terms for banking services, could go into gambling services, which are associated with high stakes and competition. These associations can be indirectly connected to each other to give SBAB the same obvious values as the rising gaming corporations. You can perform the same thought experiment with your own product or business and virtually any product category and find interesting inroads.

The British brand Virgin has very successfully expanded their associative networks outwards into new categories. The brand established itself as an independent, ‘no fuss’ player in the record industry. It appropriated the semantic associations ‘worldly’ from its artists and ‘independence’ and ‘no fuss’ through its actions. The worldly association pointed to travel and a category where the associations independence and no fuss were in demand – the airline industry. The same associations (along with a new one acquired from the airline industry – communications) pointed to mobile telephony. And so on. Even if it has involved huge leaps to move between such diverse categories, Virgin has always offered something meaningful and novel to the market based on its associative network, and its organisation has always worked in the same way and according to the same principles, that is, ‘inside the box’.

Next customer

A growing problem in marketing is that companies have become much too clever at knowing their customers. Obviously it's good to give your customers what they want, but you also need to avoid the risk of focusing on your existing customers to the exclusion of all else. Empirical studies show that profitable and growing companies are characterized by continuously being able to attract new customers. Getting stuck with the same customer base is a contributory cause of market rigidity, since existing customers over time create habitual purchasing and consumption patterns, and therefore cannot be expected to extend the usage of your product to any great degree. Rather your product will be used less and less in the long term because those customers sooner or later will want some variation or will leave the category. In addition, they are often conservative and do not contribute anything to the development of the product (on the whole it's difficult for consumers to think along the lines of what a familiar product might look like in a different form).

By changing focus and always thinking about the next new customer and how you might attract that customer, you are forced to consider new ideas and propositions. Why isn't the customer using my product?

Do the Following

Set an extreme goal such as, for example, ‘all teenagers will purchase my product’ or ‘all car owners will use my car wash’. Move away from your existing customer base. Who are left? Choose different groups and describe them with the help of associative networks. Do the same thing with your product. Continue to work outwards from the core (the target group and the product, respectively) with the help of semantic and indirect associations until you find a connection between the networks as in Figure 23.3. This way you can identify associations that could form the basis for new products and concepts that will appeal to your next customer.

This exercise works to develop completely new products and concepts, but it can also be used to develop strategies for attracting new target groups. You might already have the target group, product or concept in mind, but don't know how to achieve your goal. In that case a gradual ‘picking off’ of the next customer might be the solution. You first target those who lie within close range of your current offer in terms of their behaviours and needs, then move on to those who are a little further away with a suitable product, and so on. This allows you to create a gradual acceptance for the innovation and sound business cases along the path to achieving your ultimate goal. You can find the right strategic direction by connecting up the target groups in a similar way, using associative networks.

Figure 23.3

McDonald's is an example of a corporation that is very good at working towards the goal of attracting the next customer. For those who are not fond of hamburgers, they first developed chicken nuggets and fish burgers. For vegetarians, they developed the vegetarian burger. For those who think their product is not healthy, they developed healthier products and provided more information about the nutritional value of each item on the menu. For those who don't eat at their restaurants during the day, they developed breakfast menus. For those who don't have time to stay or don't want to eat a meal, they developed cafes. They never stop working on redefining their target groups and continuously look for new opportunities to make contact with consumers.