5. Design for Desire—The New Product Prescription

The average consumer is full of unmet and unconscious desires for a wide range of experiences. Connecting with consumers' emotions and desires will make one product more appealing than another. The right blend of emotion and basic needs drives purchasing decisions and maintains brand loyalty and integrity while fulfilling consumer fantasy. Developing a sense of delight and trust in products is at the core of pragmatic innovation for both lifestyle consumer products and more functional business products.

Rochester, NY. On June 20, 2003, at 9 p.m., Susan Vaughn took her daughter Stacy to the Barnes & Noble in the mall. It was a Friday night, so the mall was still crowded for that time of the evening. Even so, Susan was amazed at how many people were in the store, and still coming. As she walked in, someone reached out to give Stacy a plastic pair of wide-rimmed black glasses, but she turned them down. They just did not go with her witch costume. Half the store had witch or wizard costumes on. For at midnight, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix would become available. The party was just getting started, and the store would be open until 4 a.m., with food, music, Harry Potter readings, and, of course, the book for sale.

The Harry Potter Phenomenon

Order of the Phoenix is the fifth book in the Harry Potter series, the escape into the world of witches and wizards through the eyes of Harry, the lovable, only slightly mischievous wizard whose parents were murdered by the evil Voldemort when Harry was just an infant and whose soul, during the murder, somehow connected with the evil one himself. The series documented Harry's progress from his first year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, when he first found out about his roots, through each year of school, and deeper into his battle with Voldemort.

The anticipation of the fifth book was an international phenomenon. The previous four books had sold nearly 200 million copies in more than 50 languages. Nearly 10 million copies of Order were preprinted, and more than 6 million of those sold the first day of its release. It was the fastest-selling book ever. Susan was one of those 6 million customers. Stacy had begged her to take her to the Barnes & Noble party and prepurchase the book “in case they run out.” Susan had also been looking forward to the release of the new book and had wondered how long it would take her daughter to read it before Susan got to read it.

Although targeted to ages 9 to 12, the book reached younger and much older readers. Everyone could partake in the Harry Potter phenomenon. You didn't have to be one of those who loved “fantasy” literature. Harry was, really, an ordinary boy. Everyone could sympathize with Harry's childhood as an orphan raised without love by his aunt and uncle and bullied by his spoiled cousin. It is that seemingly ordinary front to Harry that allows us all to accept without question the extraordinary part of his being a wizard. Once we accept that he is a wizard, we can partake of and enjoy all that the world of witches and wizards has to offer—Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans (be careful which one you try), Quidditch (a game played on brooms), giants, werewolves, dragons, screaming plants, the feasts at Hogwarts with the ghost Nearly Headless Nick, potions that really work, and the evil spirit of Voldemort. Everyone, too, wants to visit Hogsmeade and indulge in a hot butter beer! Author J. K. Rowling has designed an entire realm by integrating new experiences that readers desire with the best of what readers remember and long for in historical context, such as Victorian England and quaint villages.

One of the most interesting parts of Rowling's world is Quidditch. It is a complete game that combines elements of competitive field games such as lacrosse, cricket, hockey, and roller ball with athletes playing in the air on broomsticks. What a great innovation to take a symbol, the witch's broom that is associated with scary women in black, and turn it into a vehicle for a game that children play. The Wizard of Oz had immortalized the flying witch when the spinster schoolteacher on her bicycle turns into the Wicked Witch of the East during the cyclone. Rowling redefined witches on brooms as inviting playmates.

Her books have inspired girls and boys to read—not just short stories, but huge volumes—and they cannot get enough. How many parents like Susan do you know who were forced to stand in line to make sure they could get the first available copies of the latest installment? Just when kids' primary interests appeared to be digital entertainment and the Internet, Harry Potter turned them back to the printed word. There has not been a dedication of this magnitude in children reading for entertainment since dime novels about cowboys and the Wild West hit bookstores in the United States and Europe around the turn of the last century.

Form and Function

Form has usually been thought of as the envelope that encloses a technology. In some situations, the two are seamless, so the technology and the form are seen as continuous. An airplane propeller or wing is an example of blended form and function. Such examples are rare. In most cases, the internal structure or mechanism must be covered by a surface to protect consumers from the product's inner workings, which might be sensitive, dangerous, or just ugly. No one covered a horse pulling a carriage, but automobile engines had to be covered by hoods for a number of reasons.

In the best examples of form encasing function, a product's shell can be used to accomplish a number of goals. The cover of a CD player can protect the inner workings from damage or dirt, make the product easier to hold, help the person who uses it to find the controls, be made into a form using a material and color that will connect to and enhance the consumer's lifestyle, and make the product distinct in the marketplace. Even the simplest of products can be differentiated from the competition with a thoughtful addition of details. The concept of form and function is at its best when both are integrated to fulfill the complete expectations of the manufacturer and the consumer. In this case, form and function can fulfill the fantasy of the consumer and generate a profit that is sustainable and that allows the company to prosper. In the case of a propeller, the form must keep the plane in the air. Beyond that, it has little additional value. A car body must protect a customer from crashes, it must house the engine, and it must also create a visual statement that people respond to. There are a variety of airplane propellers, but all the variations are driven by function. No one would use a propeller to make a fashion statement. With a car, the statement and the function are equally important, so the form and the function must work in complement. A sports car and a van have the same basic function, but the forms vary significantly to meet the needs of the different types of consumers who buy these vehicles.

The Experience Economy

Since Pine and Gilmore's insightful book, there has been much discussion of the “experience economy.”¹ To a great extent, today's consumers buy experiences. Rather than vacations that are simply observational, such as traditional trips to Europe, recent years have witnessed increasing interest in participatory excursions such as backpacking in the Himalayas. Rather than just purchases of nondescript coffee in generic white cups, coffee consumption now entails carefully crafted purchase environments and containers, not to mention the new quality levels demanded of the liquid itself. Consumers are increasingly interested in the experiences that accompany products and services, in being personally engaged.

Consumer demand for experience is part of an evolution of the marketplace and of society. In an agrarian society, microeconomies at the household level produced and sold commodities. Food and clothing were goods created from commodities, put together in-house. As the industrial age replaced the agrarian, manufactured goods replaced the homespun. Food and clothing looked homespun but were mass-produced. Diners, for instance, served the same foods that were served in homes, but on a larger scale. As the service industry has grown to be a major portion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it has added its own unique value to the marketplace. Chefs created new blends of commodities, and food no longer mimicked the homemade. The fashion industry reinvented clothing. Now that consumers are moving beyond simple services to experiential purchases, not only do consumers at Asian restaurants manipulate chopsticks rather than knife and fork, but restaurants such the Rain Forest Café have emerged that imitate the environment of South American rainforests, or at least what people want them to look like. Clothing fabrics, such as Eliotex, speak of outdoor adventure even while worn comfortably indoors. Of course, this progression applies far beyond food and clothing to other product spheres. Lawn care? Homeowners who once replaced their lawn mowers with lawn services now use professional landscapers to achieve outdoor gardens of bygone castle eras.

The Fantasy Economy

When Thomas Jefferson penned the goals of the United States as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” he set into motion one of the most powerful engines of change in the history of the world. Two hundred and thirty years later this objective has been adopted as a global mantra.

Now that China has joined the world of economic freedom, the overwhelming majority of the earth's population feels entitled to live in pursuit of the themes that Jefferson established as a basis for the founding of the United States. The end of communism and the overthrow of dictators around the world have increased the potential of individuals to achieve a life where liberty is a basic right. People have more freedoms than ever before and, as a result, more options to choose from.

The increase in global consumption has driven the pursuit of desire, or fantasy, to achieve everyone's personal sense of happiness. Not only has this pursuit altered the direction of life, for the concept of life itself is being understood as never before, but life itself has simultaneously been extended, for the average life span has almost doubled from the time when Jefferson lived. To meet this new global demand, companies now have the goal of developing innovative products and services.

Fueled by global communication of information, infotainment, and pure entertainment, individuals around the world have access to the latest changes and emerging ideas, and change occurs with an ever-quickening pace. What is the next step in the progression from commodity to good to service to experience? In our view, it is fantasy. Fantasy, according to one definition,² serves the purpose of fulfilling a wish or psychological need. People not only want to experience their environment, they also want to project their environment and their emotions about that environment to a deeper level of desire. They do not want to just participate in the experience; they want to live it. They already live one experience—the reality of their own lives. Fantasy is a desirable experience that, at least currently, is not that reality.

Consumers are adept at life in realms outside their own reality, at times more comfortable in a fantasy realm than in reality. Individuals converse using movie imagery. Video games, an $11 billion industry, allow consumers to interact with and even control the fantasy realm. Disney World is more than an experience; it is a fantasy for every child and adult. You can stay in the Wilderness Lodge at Disney World and not only experience the simulated Great Northwest, complete with Aaron Copland music always playing in the background, but also fantasize about living it.

In the meantime, the definition of reality itself is being changed via “reality television,” where participants live for the short term in undesirable circumstances in hopes of a substantial prize. With such a definition of reality, an awkward and nightmarish world if we were confined to it, fantasy by contrast becomes all the more normal. In a post-9/11 society, people project a fantasy in which terrorist threats no longer drive reality. Even the world's money is increasingly virtual, unreal. Consumers spend money they do not have, and virtual markets exist with individuals buying and selling on the Internet with virtual PayPal accounts. Even at an international level, virtual money passes between countries in stupendous volumes in almost no time. As reality becomes more challenged and as people come to expect a more desirable experience, fantasy becomes the driver of product and service purchasing—for this is the fantasy economy.

Fantasy in Everyday Products

Product developers today understand this evolution in purchasing expectation. It has transitioned from the entertainment industry to any industry where people interact with a product or service—not only consumer products, but industrial and business-to-business as well. One consumer company that exemplifies the motto of form and function fulfilling fantasy, in each of its 500 products, is OXO International. OXO's first product, the popular GoodGrips vegetable peeler, has received extensive publicity. The product was envisioned by Sam Farber, whose wife had arthritis in her hands. She found it difficult to use the typical 100-year-old peeler design and most other kitchen utensils, but she loved to cook. Whereas younger consumers may not see the ability to hold a product comfortably as a fantasy, many arthritis suffers do. They long for the time in life when simple things, such as opening jars or waking up without pain, were something you took for granted. Farber's peeler was an unexpected entrance into the world of kitchenware. The large oval handle made from neoprene provided an easy-to-grip shape and surface for those with less grip strength. The patented fin pattern provided added grip when the handle was wet (and was a unique aesthetic that became the product's brand identity). The improved blade required a blade guard that added visual substance and balance to the overall design. The product cost five times its traditional competitor, the designed-for-manufacture metal peeler that had been the standard design for the past century. Yet the peeler, originally designed for people with arthritis, met the needs of the growing societal trends toward improved aesthetics within refurbished kitchen environments. Soon, the GoodGrips became a mainstay for all kitchens, and all people, young and old.

The GoodGrips led to a revolution in kitchenware from an aesthetic or style perspective, but also from the perspective of comfort and usability. The idea of great-looking products that could be used by people of different needs became the company's identity. Today, OXO has more than 500 products, all designed with the goal of universal design. In other words, anyone who should be able to use the product will be able to do so, as with the Mirra chair featured in Chapter 4, “Identifying Today's Trends for Tomorrow's Innovations.” OXO has received numerous design awards, including a Gold Design of the Decade award from the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and Business Week. OXO, which began as just a vegetable-peeler company, was bought in mid-2004 by Helen of Troy for $275 million.

Every product that OXO makes competes against mature products. Yet each of the 500 products designed by the company is a unique innovation, usually focused on usability and aesthetics. In other words, every innovation from OXO is an extraordinary part of the ordinary. Each product—a vegetable peeler, a salad spinner, a measuring cup, a dustpan and brush—has well-established overall functionality. But the way that the functionality is met through its design is extraordinary, unique, and an improvement over the state of the art.

Consider what some regard as OXO's best product—its salad spinner. Traditional salad spinners are bowls with colander inserts and a cover that meshes with the colander and enables the colander to spin through a crank mechanism on top. The user turns the crank with a rotational motion of the arm while pulling the crank knob, and the spinning colander then throws the water off the lettuce and into the bowl, thus drying the lettuce and inviting your favorite salad dressing to stick to the dry green leaves. The problem is that the motion and effort to make the colander spin is difficult for some and cumbersome for all.

OXO's innovation came from the desire to have a person use a simple one-handed motion to cause the colander to spin. The insight came from children's toys where a pump on top of a clear plastic dome causes the dome within to spin, providing the means for images to rotate and colored balls inside to jump over bumps on the base. OXO figured if a two-year-old can use one hand to get a bowl to rotate and balls to jump, the same mechanism could allow an adult to spin a colander to dry lettuce.

The result is a beautifully executed design. The black neoprene knob on top stores flush and pops up for use. A smooth vertical motion inputs the user's energy into the system. The knob's color and form contrasts with a white top and colander within a clear bowl. The colander and bowl work to provide minimal friction during spinning. The form is well thought out, with the colander having a refined rectangular mesh pattern that completes the clean look of the overall product, making it attractive enough to store on the countertop rather than hide in a cabinet.

Another one of OXO's products, the measuring cup, has an angled surface that allows you to look down at a partially filled cup to see exactly how much liquid is stored within. The extraordinary part of the design, the innovation, came from identifying the difficulty and frustration that people have with needing to level a cup, at eye level, while filling it to see how much liquid is being added. Since its inception, OXO has sold more than $9 million worth of these measuring cups.

Even OXO's simple dustpan and brush provide a superior means to sweep up crumbs off the floor. Its bristles flow out from an ergonomic egg-shaped handle that encourages a natural and effective sweeping motion. The handle also provides the means to wedge the brush into the dustpan's handle for easy storage and to make sure that the two don't get separated and lost, a frustration with other designs. The side of the dustpan is molded with teeth that serve as a means to clean the brush, another frustration with competitive products.

Many of these innovations have been patented. They all brilliantly execute their functions. The vegetable peeler easily and comfortably peels, and the brush and dustpan efficiently work in concert for dirt removal. They also beautifully express an appropriate aesthetic. If on display in a modern kitchen, any of them would make the kitchen look even better. All of these provide not just an experience, but fantasy.

Form and Function Fulfilling Fantasy

Fantasies take place on a personal level, in that individuals create fantasy. A product can support and even engender the fantasy, but the fantasy is that of the individual. It is like seduction, in which the seduced is a willing partner. Humanity has canonical fantasies; we have collective dreams. We dream of adventure, of independence, of security, of sensuality, of confidence, and of power. To achieve a sense of adventure, products promote excitement and exploration. To achieve the feeling of independence, products provide freedom from constraints. For security, products provide a feeling of safety and stability. For sensuality, products provide a luxurious experience. For confidence, they support the user's self-assurance and promote motivation of product use. For power, products promote authority and control.

The OXO vegetable peeler, through its ergonomics, gives older users the ability to work comfortably, which is independence. Along similar lines, it supports their health, touching on security. Because the product works so easily and efficiently, it promotes their confidence in daily tasks—confidence that tends to be eroded as people age. Although these everyday tools are not luxurious relative to jewelry, they are luxurious relative to other kitchen tools, providing sensuality.

How does this vegetable peeler foster fantasy for a broad market? It is simply that the experience it provides exceeds the reality of the typical user. A young buyer does not have luxury throughout the house, so a luxurious vegetable peeler speaks to the fantasy of a life of luxury. Elderly buyers' physical mobility constrains their tasks, and the ease with which they implement this peeler speaks to their fantasy of independence.

How is fantasy put into a product? What elements of a product induce users to fantasy? Customers expect a product to enhance and fulfill their lifestyle, not simply to perform a function or even to exhibit a desirable aesthetic. When a product fulfills fantasy, it fulfills a desired lifestyle beyond, and in contrast to, the current reality. In this book, the methods and tools support the development of fantasy-enriched products and services. The products and services fulfill some level of fantasy in their users, and the companies and product developers understand the paradigm of the fantasy economy. They drive successful product development under the mantra that form and function fulfill fantasy.

The Harry Potter Fantasy

Harry Potter is a great example of a product for which form and function fulfill fantasy. Almost all products are accompanied by a service, and the Harry Potter series is no exception. Although the creation of the book prose itself is relatively straightforward, coming from the mind of a single product designer, J. K. Rowling, a vast production and distribution system prints, ships, and sells the product. For bookstores, the book brings in people who are likely to purchase other books, or to drink a latte at the café. The book also has the same positive impact on Web-based retailers (minus the latte), where recommendation agents tempt purchasers with additional options and where delivery is an additional service. Because of the popularity of the Harry Potter series, Order of the Phoenix could be preordered months in advance on Amazon.com with the promise of quick delivery at a discount.

Beyond the book and the services that accompany it, Harry Potter has created an industry. Merchandizing has led to products including multiple computer and video games, Lego games, sunglasses, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor (Jelly) Beans (of course), and even Harry Potter cologne. The books have led directly to the production of movies. The first three Harry Potter movies each grossed around $90 million in the first weekend of their release. To date, they are three of the top six movies in terms of gross receipt their first weekend, each grossing more than $250 million over time.

The movies, themselves an entertainment service, have stayed true to the spirit of the books. They are accessible to the young and old. Like the books, they are an escape into the world of wizards and witches. Rowling's rich writing is as descriptive and captivating as the movie set. The connection of the movies to the Harry Potter stories, which everyone fantasizes about being a part of, have allowed for an exceptional cast, each supporting the mystique of Harry's world.

The Harry Potter movies are an interesting contrast to the Dr. Seuss movie The Cat in the Hat. Dr. Seuss books, written for readers and soon-to-be readers who are younger than the Harry Potter reader, have brought smiles to children for the past 70 years. The books stimulate children's imaginations while teaching them the magic of words. Although some of the characters are slightly naughty, they are never bad, crude, or mean. The message of Dr. Seuss was lost in the movie The Cat in the Hat, which featured the industry of Mike Myers as a rude and crude Cat in the Hat. The technology was there, but the translation was a dismal failure. Rowling approved the translation of her books into movies, but unfortunately (or fortunately for him), Dr. Seuss did not live to see his book translated. The movie was largely panned and, although not a complete financial failure, likely because of the fans of Mike Myers, the film appears to have barely broken even through theater distribution (although video sales will probably bring the studio a fair profit). In contrast, the third Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which remained true to the Harry Potter themes, made a hearty profit in the just the first weekend.

If you look for other writers of fantasy with a clear English heritage, J.R.R. Tolkien comes to mind. With his extensive background in the mythologies of ancient cultures, Tolkien crafted a world of characters and dramatic contexts for The Lord of the Rings, released in 1954. Tolkien used his knowledge of geography to make an imaginary kingdom with subcultures that reflect ideal settings for epic adventures. Tolkien went so far as to create his own language, merged from different ones, and the theme of the search for the ring was modeled from ancient myths. This was a brilliant literary achievement and one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century, yet The Lord of the Rings did not flourish into mainstream until pirated paperbacks appeared in the United States in 1965. The success of The Lord of the Rings then quickly grew from a grassroots movement into cult status.

Although The Lord of the Rings movies that were introduced in 2001 were blockbusters and included an Academy Award for best picture for The Return of the King, the first attempts in the 1970s to make a movie based on the Rings trilogy did not have broad-based appeal. They were animations, most likely because special-effects capabilities were too primitive to effectively capture the story.

So the social, economic, and technological (SET) factors for the Rings trilogy were not as aligned as the SET factors for Harry Potter. Both the Potter books and films were instant mainstream hits with children and adults around the world because the social aspects of the story and technological aspects of the films were perfectly aligned with cultural and market demands. Although both were economic blockbuster successes in the end, it took more than a decade for the Rings books to grow in popularity and nearly 50 years for the movies to strike, whereas for Harry Potter, both were instantaneous hits. That is the lesson for product development. If you are developing a product in today's fast-paced world, you do not have the luxury of waiting a decade for your product to reach the tipping point to become mainstream.

The story behind J. K. Rowling and her writing of the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, is itself inspiring. A divorced mother who was on the dole in Edinburgh, England, Rowling would bring her baby in a stroller into a coffee shop and would write while her baby slept. Rowling, whose 2003 earnings surpassed even those of Queen Elizabeth, at present lives in a castle and is now one of the most recognized women on the planet. Although Rowling's success is clearly literary genius, her accomplishment is a lesson in innovation for all. Envisioning the extraordinary part of the ordinary, a wizard's bloodline in an ordinary-looking boy, was the kernel of her success. For each of us, all that is ordinary holds the possibility of the extraordinary.

Harry Potter serves as a metaphor for innovation in product development. Finding a way to make the ordinary into something extraordinary is a key lesson in product innovation. Sam Farber, of OXO, is a J. K. Rowling of new product development, taking the ordinary peeler and transforming it into an extraordinary kitchen utensil.

Fantasy-Driven Products in Everyday Experiences

It is easy to see the fantasy in the Harry Potter series. In the fantasy economy, however, fantasy can be fulfilled in the midst of everyday experiences, for fantasy is just a wish or desire. Another ordinary product is the bicycle. The basic design and function of today's bicycle is more than 100 years old. Yet the desire for improved performance on the racecourse for that added edge and the increased feature comfort for families on excursions have both driven new innovation. In each case, an unobvious aspect of the bicycle riding experience has improved the obvious design.

Trek is a company that for 25 years has pushed the innovation edge on bicycles for both the serious racer and the casual rider. Trek has used emerging composite materials technologies to reduce weight coupled with functional innovation to improve ride performance and comfort. For example, Trek did not invent shock absorbers for bikes, but its “fuel” suspension system better reduces bobble and sway and its “liquid” frame design adapts the bike's geometry to maintain weight distribution toward the rear tire for better control. Most recently, the company has embraced industrial design as a means to emotionally bridge the gap between the company and the end users. The new sculpting in conjunction with engineering performance has provided an identity built on performance and fulfillment of user expectations.

Lance Armstrong is very much a model of Harry Potter. Raised in Plano, Texas, he overcame a troubled family life and pedaled his way to becoming the record six-time winner of the grueling Tour de France.³ Along the way, he also became a cancer survivor, furthering his mystique of greatness.

Trek has gained international recognition through its sponsorship of Armstrong. Armstrong's relationship with the company goes deeper than Tiger's or Michael's or Kobe's with Nike and others, who just use sponsors' products, maybe even exclusively. Armstrong is an integral connection to Trek's brand, and, as such, Trek has become an advocate for cancer research. Although the Trek brand will maintain strength without Armstrong, the long-term relationship has strong brand association with the public. The connection predates Armstrong's amazing world record, yet the long-term association has propelled Trek to the forefront as Armstrong became the wizard of bicycle racing.

Starbucks is the prototypical company that took a commodity, coffee, and transformed it into a high-value experience at high margins. Everything about Starbucks shows success: from the coffee itself—Arabica beans carefully obtained from select growers worldwide—to a roasting process that provides consistent flavor, to the brewing process, to the store environment that is a cross between a high-end European café and an inviting college coffeehouse, to all the coffee-related accessories you can purchase as gifts for others or self. Starbucks as a service provider is the Hogsmeade of Harry Potter, and its coffee the hot butter beer, both ultimate experiences that support fantasy.

Although Starbucks is still on a rapid expansion curve, CEO Howard Schultz recognized that the growth potential for coffee consumption and new store placement are limited. Rather than wait until that limit is reached, he wanted to begin to explore new ways to grow while maintaining the company's guiding principles. Schultz read the social, economic, and technological trends. He understood the trend in music laid out in Chapter 4. He also understood the sociological connection between sophisticated coffee tastes and sophisticated music tastes. Schultz stumbled upon the Hear Music retail store. He immediately loved its service-based approach to music. Customers could buy sophisticated, unusual music and call on the educated staff to help out not just with the transaction but also with music selection, much like the service provided to patrons of an intimate wine store. Rather than commoditizing itself with shelves of ubiquitous popular top-40 hits, the store is known for hard-to-find adult-oriented music, specialty R&B, and jazz. Hear Music reaches a larger market than its target, the affluent 25- to-50-year-old who listens to NPR. The music-shopping experience at Hear Music met the coffee-buying experience at Starbucks!

Schultz believes in organic growth, so the story continues. Not only did he buy the business, he made one of its founders, Don MacKinnon, his VP of music and entertainment. He didn't just keep the business separate; he began to merge and integrate. First, Starbucks sold compilation CDs of various artists made by Hear Music. Then, Schultz and MacKinnon created a new model for coffeehouses. Customers can get their double mocha nonfat grandé latte and sit at a music station where they have access to tens of thousands of songs. As they select their menu of music as eclectic as their coffee selection, they design their own CD. They pay per song, and the CD is burned and personalized with a CD label and jewel case insert that they select. They walk out with their half-drunk coffee and personalized CD in five minutes. The Hear Music Coffeehouses have so far been a hit, and expansion has begun, much like the initial expansion of Starbucks itself.⁴

From wizards to vegetable peelers to bikes to coffee, innovation is found by identifying the extraordinary part of the ordinary. Innovation is not wizardry or luck, but is the flower of diligent work—work that uncovers the potential that a product can achieve for its users. Harry Potter is a wonderful example of converting the ordinary into the extraordinary. Every product and service highlighted in this book is an example of meeting or exceeding the customer's emotional expectation, of form and function fulfilling fantasy. As long as those four Fs drive what you do you in planning, researching, developing, and executing your product, you will set the bar for innovation in your own field. You will deliver a product or service in the fantasy economy.