A company asked me for advice about innovation, relevance, and the consumer. This is what I told them. The entire advice sounds to me like a whole load of corporate speak and essentially things that they should already know, but hey, they asked.
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Now, whatever the company does, few things are more important than its products, so if a company wants to be relevant to its market it needs to have compelling products, something that has the values and characteristics desired by the intended consumers.
Most of the time consumers don’t know what they want so it’s important for a company to take calculated initiatives to discover what consumers really want. You can’t just throw everything and the kitchen sink into the product because that would be highly inefficient and not to mention wasteful. It takes research and some difficult decision making to arrive at that product.
Product communications strategies always follow the reasons behind the product’s existence. Why was it developed and created? What sort of issues or pain points are the product meant to address? If a product is badly conceived, it’s never going to have a good story and while it’s not impossible to create a story post conception, it would be difficult. Stories sell products, it’s crucial to have a good story to push products to consumers.
A breakthrough to me isn’t always about something new but about achieving better ways to accomplish an existing task. Example, a bucket with a spout and a handle which makes it a much better bucket to use. In other words, through innovation. A breakthrough is something that changes the behavior of consumers.
Innovations aren’t always breakthroughs but a breakthrough is always born through innovation.
As to how [the company] can be more relevant, do a lot of product and consumer behavior research, find out their pain points as well as their pleasure points and work on a way to address them.
I don’t know how much input does [the local office] have in product development but having a fast follower strategy might help to address the gap with the market leaders but at the same time also develop a strategy to transition if the company manages to catch up with the leaders. Fast follower doesn’t work without anyone to follow.
AuliaSays 