Innovation = what’s needed + what’s possible
This was the first description of innovation I ever came across. As a science graduate in 1996, I’d joined the ranks at P&G. I was in R&D working in beauty care. We were making a big ‘push’ for profit growth from new products. It was exciting. It felt like anything was possible.
I remember being astonished but proud to know that P&G employed more PhD scientists than MIT, Berkeley, and Harvard combined. The ‘mantra’ was ‘Stretch, Innovation, Speed’. FMCG was the place to be.
The equation was pretty simple. What’s needed was marketing’s job. Uncovering the ‘unmet’ needs that lead to new ideas. What’s possible was R&D’s role. Developing new technologies and processes to meet those needs.
Almost 15 years later, it’s funny to look back on those times as we go about setting a more purposeful and positive innovation agenda for business and society. On almost every level we need to reframe our efforts – not just what we make, but how we make it and most importantly, why we’re doing it
Looking at the world today, it strikes us that this definition of innovation is still pretty good. But the scope for how we define needs and the nature of possibilities available to us has moved on - driven by a deeper purpose about the role business can play in society.
To innovate with purpose, we’re starting to ask 3 simple questions that lead to new possibilities.
1. How good is good enough?
One of P&G’s big things was blind product testing. We aimed to make noticeably better products with scientifically validated claims. Stripping away the ‘halo’ of branding to see if the product does its job better than others. My first job was running these tests, and analysing the data. What we found was that most products scored over 80%, often nearer 90% – skin creams, shampoos, shower gels. We’d reached the point of ‘good enough’.
Squeezing out an additional 5% improvement helped but frankly it was a law of diminishing returns. Adding washer balls to detergents, or shower puffs to shower gels created ‘systems’ – this moved the game on incrementally and drove up consumption. But did it really improve the experience? And make the best use of resources?
If you are good enough, don’t over-engineer or tinker too much – celebrate the fact, and use your energy and resources to make what you do better….
2. What does better look like?
The real challenge for today of course is not just being good enough – but better. Better used to look like more features and benefits. New ingredients. More attractive packaging. Leading to premium pricing. But maybe better can be defined differently? Better for the environment, better for society, better for the economy.
For example, could you provide the benefit without a product? Make it into a service? Or deliver the same benefit using less of it? Or make it last longer? Can you provide access instead of ownership? Could you make the product way cheaper and still do the same thing? Could you change the ingredients to be less harmful? And the supply chain? Could you create a system that optimises resources using biomimicry – designing in the way that nature does? Could you create fairer trading and more local opportunities in the way you develop and deliver your product or service? Can you use your product as a vehicle for change – as a communications tool? Or as a way of encouraging more active participation in communities, or towards causes?
What great stuff might happen if we ‘pointed’ all those PhDs and the next generation of graduates to really innovate against this definition of better?
3. What do we really need?
The word ‘need’ is in crisis. We’ve all sat through endless presentations about needs. There’s Maslow’s famous ladder. And Damasio’s emotional decision-making. Zaltman’s Metaphor Elictation. Benefit laddering. Semiotics. Ethnography. Observational insight.
All this effort focused on uncovering ‘unmet needs’ – finding something that people didn’t realise they needed.
To be blunt, marketeers have bastardised the word ‘need’. We need to collectively get over it, and get back the real meaning of the word. At best we’ve been playing around incrementally. There will always be new inventions and technical breakthroughs. But much so-called innovation has really only lead to wasteful, pointless and ineffective brand extensions and incremental benefits.
Branding has played its part too – moving us into the world of wants and desires – our aspirations. This is not necessarily a bad thing. We need hope and optimism in our lives. But the issue is a deeper one of fuelling a consumption-based economy where we’ve been trained to expect a continuous stream of novelty. Where we seek validation in our self-identity via brands rather than more fundamental, restorative human activity ‘Now with 5 blades’ ‘Contains aloe vera’ ‘Because you’re worth it’…
I’d personally be delighted if I never have to sit in another meeting to find a positioning for a toothpaste or a shampoo around a ‘higher-order need’. Do we really need products or brands to perform that role? Can or indeed should a soap help me to self-actualise? Hmmm, I think not.
Instead, couldn’t we be repurposing the communication of brands to change what it means to consume – based on real needs? To remove ‘status’ and ‘positional competition’ which fuels inequality, to help not just individuals but whole communities to make ‘better’ choices, and to shed light on real societal or environmental issues that brands could help solve?
Real human needs are of course a much more interesting startpoint for innovation. We’re optimistic that business (and all those PhDs) will create a completely new forms of value and profit if you look at the world through this lens. Every business can find a relevant social challenge to tackle positively….
Could you help address poverty, inequality, the prosperity of societies? Or environmental challenges? Biodiversity, climate change, natural resource depletion? Or health? Or education? Or simply human energy challenges – how we use our time, participate in society, and improve our health and stress levels?
Innovating with purpose
Innovation = what’s really needed + the awesomeness of what’s possible
So maybe this is where this idea of innovation with purpose is heading. The process of identifying a bigger purpose and meaning. Reframing innovation against real societal needs that create new forms of value. Setting a heartbeat, and soul in your business that will lead you to choose paths that others might not.
Any ideas on expanding this manifesto on a postcard please. It’s exciting, difficult and important. We’re up for it – are you?
Image props to Hugh Macleod
[...] Good thing is I’m not alone. More and more of us like minds – who lets be honest have plied our trade and become expert and creating and selling stuff are starting to wake up to these realities and explore how we might re-apply our innovating smarts to create new & Better ways forward. Because it’s not all doom and gloom. Some clever people like Ray Kuzweik point out that the technology will soon be here to solve a lot of this. And there are pockets of passion and energy around that are way ahead on this stuff and doing good and Better things (note Mr Cameron). What might we add? What could we do? That is needed. Really needed versus old school ways of selling need. [...]
Pingback by Industry Approved Blog » Blog Archive » Doing Good — February 24, 2011 @ 6:39 pm
[...] of which we’re learning from our Good for Nothing and 50/50 experiences. We wrote about what’s needed and what’s possible which frames much of our work. We’ve also been capturing and developing a toolkit of stuff [...]
Pingback by Pipeline Project | Done and dusted -> but where did 2011 go? — January 3, 2012 @ 3:42 pm