World Changing Ideas – New Product Development at Its Finest (#M4BW)

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I always enjoy Fast Company‘s innovation issues. This year’s “World Changing Idea Awards honor the businesses and organizations driving change in the world.” There is always an emphasis on new products and services that make the world a better place — a natural connection to our Marketing for a Better World (#M4BW) theme in the most recent edition of Essentials of Marketing. Winners included:

  • Abbott Labs which made a tiny implant that keeps babies’ hearts healthy (see video below)
  • Carbon Lighthouse which uses AI which adjusts businesses energy consumption by up to 30%.
  • Invest Your Values (I love when the brand name tells you what the product is) is a digital tool that helps employees invest their retirement money in companies that share their values.

These examples can be used across a number of chapters — but may relate most closely to Chapter 8 (goods and services) and Chapter 9 (new product development). The video below (first 2:20) features a few of these companies and might be shown in class.

 

New Produce Development (again)

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I heard this great story, “The $100 Million Apple” on the NPR Planet Money podcast (November 25, 2019). The story walks you through new product development and commercialization (launched today, December 1) of a new branded apple — the Cosmic Crisp. The podcast story, while short (9 minute listen) walks you through the development of this new branded apple. The story provides a nice overview of new product development in an unusual context.

After listening, I thought this sounded familiar and that maybe I had written about the Honey Crisp apple on the blog before. Sure enough, almost 5 years ago to the day, I posted “New Produce Development” on the blog. Check that post out for some earlier background.

 

Promoting differentiation in a mature market

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Bloomberg’s short article/interview entitled “A Folding Bike Helmet That Looks Good and Still Shields Your Brain” shows inventors can still find room to innovate, even in a mature product market.  Spanish inventor, Carlos Ferrando, created a bike helmet that has two unique features – it collapses/folds to reduce space when not in use, and it is designed to be more aesthetically appealing than the traditional bike helmet.  Ferrando said he wants his helmet to “normalize the idea of wearing one (bike helmet) as a fashion accessory”.

Ask your students who they think the target market for this product would be.  If they say “bicycle riders” push them to go deeper.  It’s true that anyone who rides a bicycle could benefit from this product but a mass market strategy is unlikely to be as successful for a product like this.  A segmented strategy has a better chance of success.  In chapter 4 we offer a possible market segmentation for the bicycle-riders product-market.  If students believe this product could effectively serve multiple segments you might want to break them into groups and have each group focus on a particular segment.  Ask each group to develop a promotional strategy for their target market.  After a few minutes have each group share their strategy and discuss the differences.  If the students did a good job there should be distinct strategies for each market.  If the strategies are generally similar then they’ve taken a “Combiner” approach which doesn’t really cater to the unique attributes of each segment.  Either way, you have a good discussion!

 

“We wanted [our restaurant] to be Instagrammable”

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Most industries report a decline in the effectiveness of advertising as a means to tell customers about their product. As we note in chapter 16, customers tend to place more faith in what real people say about goods and services they might buy. Apps, including the online review site Yelp and social media site Instagram, offer customers an easy and fast way to hear about other customers’ experiences.

Restaurants have long benefited from word-of-mouth (telling a friend about that “great meal you had at the new bistro”). Today, some restaurants are looking for ways to be more “Instagrammable.” Read more at this trend in “Instagram is pushing restaurants to be kitschy, colorful, and irresistible to photographers,” The Verge, July 20, 2017.

This article could be discussed at many different points in the semester. It offers an interesting example of customer value (chapters 1, 8 and 17); for some target customers, improving the “shareability” of an experience enhances the experience. For many young people, sharing the experience is part of the experience. It also suggests how consumer behavior (chapter 5) with social media (chapter 16) can impact new product development (chapter 9). After sharing this example in class, students could be asked: why are these businesses doing this? They are likely to immediately get that it fosters word-of-mouth, but may not readily connect with other benefits.

What’s Now? Chapter 9 – New Product Planning at Gatorade

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gatorade-smart-cap-100650671-largeAs you know from chapter 9, identifying and developing new-product ideas — and effective strategies to go with them — can be key to a firm’s success and survival. So what do you do if your main product is a sports drink first developed 50 years ago by a team of scientists at the University of Florida after a request from the football coach (the football team is nicknamed the Gators — hence the name Gatorade)?

After years of focusing on new flavors and packaging, Gatorade is using technology to personalize its contribution to athletic performance. Read more about Gatorade’s “smart cap” bottles in this article, “How Gatorade Plans to Reinvent Sports Drinks – Again” (Fast Company, February 2016).

Read the article to learn more about Gatorade. Which type of the three types of innovation (continuous innovation, dynamically continuous innovation, or discontinuous innovation) discussed in chapter 9 best describes Gatorade’s “smart cap” and associated product line falls? Explain your answer.