BY Corrinne Goenee

E-mail: info@innovaction.nl

It is surprising how human beings act and react with regards to new products. Most of the time, it seems that we are being "overruled" by our habits. Especially in the area of fashion, only few of us are very outspoken when it comes to what we wear.

The same situation/phenomenon occurs in other contexts. There is a certain attraction from extremely new developments, but only in lab or exhibition type situations. When it comes to testing for the marker place, establishing intentional buying rates from consumers, a major change takes place.

The fanciful customer

Consumers need variation and like to be surprised by new products, but on the other hand they need a level of security too. When it comes to spending money on something, they want to know exactly what they are buying, and they want to know whether or nto they would like the object of interest in a "real life situation" too (wearing something, eating something).

At the same time, many consumers are really disappointed with the "innovative-ness" of products appearing; they don't even notice your new product. "Radical changes are likely to be rejected, and minor ones ignored" (Goldenberg). This is a very frustrating phenomenon for product developers and marketeers.

So, what can we do to improve the acceptation of our new products? It has been found, in recent studies, that the rating for "attractiveness" is very much influenced by people's perception of newness and of complexity. Whenever a product is not very new, attractiveness in testing is relatively high, but these products pass unnoticed in-store. Whenever a product is perceived as very new, questions tend to raise. What exactly is it? What does it do for me? How does it work? Consumers often lack context and references, and this causes them to drop scores for attractiveness. In the end, the consumer is looking for innovative products which are, to a certain extent, familiar to them.

How to improve your innovation efforts?

We come from a situation in the eighties where innovation and creativity were buzzwords, For a long time, creativity was regarded as a talent, as something you did or did not have. After that, focus was on "brainstorms", where ideas could not get plentiful and wild enough. Now, we are entering an era of "controlled brainstorming" or "systematic inventive thinking".

Controlled brainstorming

The principle behind the method is that you are supposed to make use of what's there in the "closed world" of the existing product (the product itself and its immediate surroundings). So, instead of looking away from the product, "escaping" from it, you are concentrating on the product itself. You dissect the product and its closed world in components, and you then start making variations, along some predefined routings.

These "routings" are based on thorough research on product evolutions, as described in patents. There is a repeating structure here, as it seems there is a predefined path for new thoughts to develop in your mind. Using these patterns or "templates", you not only develop truly creative and innovative ideas and products, but also consumers will recognize the underlying patterns to the thought process which lead to the product idea, which makes the product new, but at the same time a perfectly logical development from its original. This process leads to surprisingly new products with distinct other features than before, whilst still being very acceptable. The method works for products (food and non food, high and low involvement), services AND processes.

In the framework of the theme, we have chosen a product example from the world of fashion, hoping it may bring you some inspiration for your pet food and pet care markets.

Example

Just think about sunglasses. For a long time, new product developments were focused on producing better (high tech glasses, different shades and tones, more beautiful and fashionable frames, etcetera. A recent introduction which is much more surprising is the "sunblade".

Obviously, we don't know for sure how the idea originated, but we can recognize a template in this new product.

When we dissect an ordinary pair of sunglasses, its components are the frame, the glasses, the hinges, etcetera. One of the "creativity templates" tells us to remove and essential component. That's exactly what has happened in this product.

Every pair of sunglasses has "glasses", right? Except for this one. Removing the glasses changed the entire product!! It seems to work though. It gives shadow to your eyelids, keeping them cool and keeping direct sunlight out of your eyes, it doesn't influence your color perception or eye-sight at all, and it doesn't hide your eyes. Still, the way they look, and the way you sue them, is very much a like the way we wear sunglasses. Now, you may think that this is not a mass market product (yet), and you may be right. As a matter of fact there is a compromised version or intermediate product available as well. Sunblades with glassed. Which definitely have an advantage over ordinary glasses, as the extra "lid" over the eyebrows keeps incoming light (from above) out of your eyes.

Conclusion

A successful innovation must at the same time be both new and easy to comprehend. Whenever a product is perceived as very new, but at the same time as very familiar, you have found yourself a potential winner.

The Sunblade has several unique properties:

. Incident light is blocked rather than filtered so that colors are perceived without optical distortion.

. The adjustable visor mitigates the irritating effects of incident light.

. The shadow action of the visor has a pleasantly cooling effect on the eyelids.

. Eye contact remains unhindered.

For further information: sunblade.nl

PETS International Magazine No.6 – September 2004