“advertising is the price companies pay for being unoriginal”

 
These are the words of Industrial designer Yves Behar, founder of Fuseprojects while talking at TED. Among other things Yves has designed the OLPC. (One laptop per child project).
So, is this true? Well, I don’t entirely agree. But I do think that promoting a product that doesn’t live up to the standards of it’s competitors is cheating your potential clients and if you wanna beat the living hell out of your competitors, then Yves is absolutely right! This obviously goes for both the product and the communication activities. If you do it right, the stuff will spread like rings on the water.
The thing is that I’m quite surprised how few companies actually understand this or at least pull it off. Sure, the lot of you might think that it costs of fortune to get hold of those people that can innovate your product like that. But it’s a matter of scouting the people that ad that kind of quality to a project, people that think different. Make sure you put them in the same room as the strategy people to ensure the creativity is not off target. On top of that, bring your management into the process and make sure you don’t let them out of the room until they’ve signed for innovation. They’ve gotta understand that innovation equals cash.
So, ask yourself. Have you equipped your brand, product and communication with legs or is it yet another piece of disturbance in the matrix?
psst…Bauldoff pointed me in this direction.