I often meet people or brands saying everything has been done and there’s no room for innovation in their bransch.
Never, no, not in a million years! There is always room for product innovation.
Sometimes all it takes is looking at your business from a different perspective. What the iPhone has done to the mobile business is of course the obvious example. However, Mr. Singh’s Bangras Sausages that I found on the dieline is a more fun and almost better example.
What these guys have done is innovated a business that haven’t seen any innovation besides size and taste for the last 100000 years. They’ve created sausages that are “branded” with an edible henna skin. As often before it’s new technological innovations that drives the change. In this case the possibility to print the henna on the sausage and then cover it with a thin sleeve. I can only start to think what will happen to hot dogs positioned towards kids…
The best way (apart from staying curious) to force your brand into thinking different is asking the question; ‘what would happen if our customers…’ and then ad some kind of phrase that creates a momentum. The answer usually puts your products or services in a new perspective.
Here are 35 ways to help your brand thinking different. The list could go on and on but I had to go take care of the kids that woke up.
What would happen to our products/services if our customers:
- were as big as King Kong?
- were as small as a mouse?
- were rich as Bill Gates?
- didn’t have any money?
- could breath under water?
- could fly?
- slept at day and were awake at night?
- were religious?
- didn’t believe in a god?
- were secret agents?
- had to make people laugh all the time?
- didn’t have any brain?
- were as smart as einstein?
- had no sense of location?
- didn’t need food?
- didn’t have any ears?
- didn’t understand how to use a computer
- had no hands
- could all sing like hummingbirds
- switched to the competitors products
- never left their homes
- all lived on the country side
- all lived in the city
- were paralyzed by color
- were threatened by aliens
- were aliens
- smelled like fish
- were movie stars
- loved animals
- were afraid of dogs
- had kids
- had no kids
- had constant access to the internet
- didn’t have any internet
- were kings and queens!