The Fundamentals of Innovation
The Fundamentals of Innovation
The Washington Post
Jens Martin Skibsted is a philosopher and award-winning design expert. The Washington Post asked him to answer five questions about the fundamentals of innovation. This is the first in a series where we pose questions to leading academics and industry leaders on innovation.
1. What should companies do today to foster innovation as they cut back on costs?
The financial crisis pushed efficiency onto the agenda of nearly every corporation. But there has been a general consensus, particularly among blue-chip companies, that you can’t cut out innovation, research and development. In Denmark, where I’m from, the biggest companies, Vestas, Danfoss, Novo Group and Lego, kept innovation expenditures at a considerable level throughout the crisis.
You have to sustain growth even as you cut back on costs, and, to do this, companies need to become more precise. For example, broad-spectrum research projects should be eliminated. Organizations will also need to decide in which part of the value chain they wish to innovate. Do they wish to create new business areas, also known as the “blue ocean” strategy, or do they want to foster incremental growth—the “red ocean” strategy?
The medium is the message—and never before has there been so much different media and, hence, so many ways to shade, inflect, blow out, or screw up your message. Marshall McLuhan’s formulation, more than half a century old, is more relevant now to the advertising business than ever before. The choice of media is the most complex, strategic, and formative part of any campaign. In many ways, media choice and strategy defines the brand. What’s more, the difficulties of achieving mindshare (not coincidentally the name of one major media buyer), once accomplished by mere repetition, have expanded exponentially. This issue celebrates the brains behind media planning. While often thought of as mere administrative function, as the winners of Adweek’s media planning competition show, the men and women who choose the space are some of the advertising business’s truly creative and innovative people.
Adweek this year selected 30 leading media agencies and asked them to submit their best TV, print, and integrated planning work across four dollar thresholds. The agencies were also asked to submit plans in three open categories: mobile, branded entertainment, and alternative. The following selections represent, in the estimation of Adweek’s editors, the most strategic use of media to best define message and maximize mindshare.
The Kids Aren’t Alright: A New Marketing Movement Aims to Protect the Childless from Germy Broods
AdWeek
Last April, European carrier Ryanair stunned consumers by announcing a new initiative called “Child-Free Flights.” The promo, which had been scheduled to launch this October, would have banned children on all its planes, a reaction to a passenger survey that indicated 50 percent of fliers said they’d happily pay higher ticket prices to avoid listening to babies squawking at 30,000 feet. “When it comes to children, we all love our own, but would clearly prefer to avoid other people’s little monsters when travelling,” Ryanair communications chief Stephen McNamara wrote in a company statement. Given that the release came out April 1, most recognized the story for what it was: an April Fool’s joke—but one that was on to something.
This past June, Malaysia Airlines announced it would institute a “baby ban” in first class on its A380 super-jumbo flights—and that came on the heels of an earlier prohibition against little ones from the first-class cabins of its 747s. The long-haul carrier said it had simply received too many complaints from first-class passengers that screaming babies made it impossible to sleep. (Babies were still welcome—so long as they were in coach.) And Virgin Atlantic and British Airways were also reportedly considering no-kids policies on their jets.
All of which means brat bans could well be the next frontier in destination and leisure-product marketing. “More and more resorts in particular continue to move [in this direction],” says a spokesperson for LeaveThemBehind.com, a website that lists vacation spots that welcome parents but not their progeny. Given the hectic pace of the new-media economy, he says, “people are looking to guarantee more peaceful vacations these days and one way owners are attracting them is though a no-children policy.”
Meredith Guarantees Top Advertisers Sales Gains
AdAge
Meredith, the publisher of large-circulation magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies' Home Journal, is beginning to guarantee some of its biggest advertisers that major ad campaigns in Meredith titles will actually increase their sales by a certain amount.
If a guaranteed campaign doesn't make cash registers ring as much as Meredith promises, the company will make the advertiser whole—most likely by providing ad space for free until it has delivered the return on investment that it pledged.
Many details will be hammered out on a case by case basis, but the program is the latest step toward greater accountability for media sellers and more assurance for marketers scrutinizing every dollar they spend.
"We've been hearing over and over again, and stronger in the past few years, that clients are demanding ROI," said Tom Harty, president of Meredith's National Media Group, which houses the company's magazines. "They're being challenged by their CEOs and their procurement officers to prove that they're generating sales."
GM Brands Track Social ROI with Facebook Integration
Direct Marketing News
Automotive brands GMC and Buick have integrated their online vehicle-configuration tools with Facebook to better track social media ROI. The General Motors Corp. brands worked with digital agency MRM Worldwide on the initiative. Consumers who customize a vehicle on the brands' sites can share it with their Facebook friends and solicit comments and “likes.”
“Everyone is trying to figure out how to use Facebook to market your product,” said Jim Kruger, digital and social media manager at Buick. “This offers an opportunity beyond just [publishing] a Facebook page.”
In addition to sharing vehicle configurations, consumers can also view their friends' comments and likes within the vehicle-configuration tools.
“We already know that consumers are asking their friends and family about their vehicle selection, so why don't we just bring that together in one seamless experience on GMC.com?” said Janet Keller, GMC's digital and social media manager. She added that one-quarter of GMC.com's monthly visitors use the vehicle-building tool.
Social Media “Incidents” Cost Companies
Marketing Daily News “Social Graf” Blog
Social media "incidents," including security breaches and negative publicity, have real financial costs associated with them, according to Symantec, which recently reported the results of its 2011 Social Media Protection Flash Poll, surveying 1,225 executives in 33 countries around the world.
Among businesses which reported experiencing social media "incidents," fully 94% said there were serious ramifications including revenue loss, data loss, reduced stock price, loss of customer trust, and litigation costs, not to mention general damage to their brand reputation. What's more, companies are liable to become victims of social media incidents (or victimize themselves through social media) more than once: the typical business reported experiencing nine social media incidents over the last year.
The single most common type of social media incident was employees over-sharing on public forums, with 46% of survey respondents citing at least one example in the last year. This was followed closely by loss or exposure of confidential information, at 41%, and exposure to litigation at 37%.
Five Tips for Marketers From MTV’s Study of Millennials’ Digital Habits
AdAge
MTV was Facebook's No. 1 fastest-growing brand last year. As we experienced this meteoric rise in social media, we were also madly studying our audience to understand their movements and behavior in the social space, or what we came to call their "digilife."
The study that emerged from that work turned over a plethora of fresh insights into what makes this generation tick (or should I say what makes this generation click).
The insights lead, we believe, to some provocative questions for the marketers attempting to connect with this elusive crowd in its native tongue and on its digital home turf. Here are some findings from our study, posed as a few key questions that marketers might want to consider as they strategize about how to connect to the latest version of consumers.
Digispace is like the real world, but it is also a world apart. It is a new place, a frontier one could say, where the rules and laws and ways of being are still forming. Millennials, the first natives to this new land, have disproportionate power in how this new world is shaping up. So if you want your businesses and brands to thrive there as they do elsewhere, keep your eye on the them.