InnoMarCom

Creating awareness of your innovations

The best innovations are based on an unexpected combination of two or more existing inventions. The process from an idea to an innovative product usually is not rocket science. The challenge starts after that phase: how to valorize this innovation by way of marketing and communication. The question is how to cash in on that once-in-a-lifetime breakthrough innovation?

What is described above is the traditional path from an idea to an innovation and into a prototype.

Traditionally, just before the finalized product was about to hit the market, the marketing and communications department would come in to do its thing. Yes ‘would’… this is how it used to be. These days, it is better to work the other way around when it comes to innovation and business development.

Open innovation

Nowadays, marketing and communication should be involved in the innovation process from the very beginning. That is the implicit start of so called ‘open innovation’. The role of the marketing and communication department is changing as the innovation process is developing.

Let’s take a closer look at what I call ‘InnoMarCom’ – innovation in marketing and communication.

Reverse innovation

In the first phase of product development – the ‘feasibility study’, when an idea evolves into an innovation – the marketing and communication department can actually drive the innovation process rather than just support it.

This is how you do it: ask your salesmen, business clients, pet shop owners and even end consumers what their preferences are for a certain innovation and do a market test even before you start developing a prototype. 

Here’s an example: I remember one of my strategic innovation projects for a telecom provider. The challenge was to develop a smartphone that would easily sell itself when shown to customers. The sales people were asked what kind of features, apps, videos and so on should be installed on this device to make it an easy sell.

One of the salesmen suggested to put some mock conversations in SMS text messages, WhatsApp and Facebook as this would convince consumers to buy the phone because it was shown how easy it was to use these apps. This so-called ‘reverse innovation’ is typical for open innovation. It is market-driven instead of product-driven.

Crowd funding

This is exactly what is happening on websites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo and RocketHub: a free market scan by way of crowd funding. Excellent ideas are funded, weak ideas are not. If consumers and other stakeholders love your product or service even before it has been developed, you can be pretty sure it will be a success when marketed.

As a trend strategist, I was once invited by a pet food and care products manufacturer to accelerate their business development by way of innovation. For the occasion, they had gathered all their agents from all over the world in their headquarters. After inspiring them with global trends in the pet industry and regional market differences, we started a decentralized brainstorming session. Their high level of local market knowledge was astonishing.

One example of an area in which marketing and communication could make a distinction is in promoting dog food that contains fish. In most Asian countries, it is regarded as positive when fish is processed in dog food. In Europe, however, most dog owners prefer dog food containing meat. Few European pet owners know that fish remains are processed in food for their beloved pets. Since this is the case one could use marketing and communication to explain how it is positive that fish-based products are usually healthier products than meat-based products.

Trans-sector innovation

Even more powerful than ‘open innovation’ is ‘trans-sector innovation’. Trans-sector entails public and private organizations from several industries cooperating to develop a brand new innovative process, service or product.

The role of the marketing and communication team is crucial in this process, because one has to get across the concept behind the new process, service of product in order to be successful.

Micro-chipping as an enabler

An example of trans-sector innovation is micro- chipping. More and more countries make micro- chipping mandatory for cats, dogs and other pets. In some areas it is available for free, while in other regions it is a commercial service. This trend offers new opportunities for trans-sector innovation.

For example, you could link micro-chips to pets’ insurance policies. This would make it easier to recognize and track animals during their lifetime. The same micro-chip could also be used in relation to pet stores. Even online retail could be boosted by knowing to which pet and owner a particular product will be shipped. The role of InnoMarCom is to create awareness around these new products.

Data is the new gold

When discussing innovation in marketing and communication, the internet of things and big data are important concepts to take into account. The impact of these two technological developments on the pet industry could be huge.

The internet of things connects all objects around us to the internet, thereby making available an avalanche of unstructured data, via our webcams and sensors in our living room, for instance. This endless flow of big data, also encapsulates some relevant information on the behaviour of pets and their owners. How to find this needle in a haystack?

Data-mining will do the trick with algorithms for pattern recognition. Following on from data-mining, one could use autonomous targeted marketing and communication processes.

In all, it is a whole new area to be developed, one which offers endless opportunities.