The business world is no stranger to innovation and with the continuous move to open-sourcing and collaborating, there are significant changes in technology and the digital world that enable greater innovation.
Being connected across the processes of innovation in any industry is now becoming the focus of providing better value to businesses. With the addition of collaborative tools to the business arsenal, this is expected as much as it is needed.
Connected innovation
According to the latest Kantar Report, the most successful innovators don’t work in isolation but work cross-functionally thinking creatively across the production process. Ultimately, what brands want is the right experience to be delivered to the customer, and connected innovation gets it done.
As part of the innovation process, brands need to have excess perceived differences. This means that a brand’s perceived difference goes outside its user base. This is important because it provides value by positioning the brand for growth.
Furthermore, making one’s brand stand out amongst one’s target audience can happen successfully when it is evident that one understands one’s audience through the difference it delivers.
Thus, in differentiating one’s brand through innovation, this innovation should span the whole brand experience. This entails the value added to a brand through its experience and not just the functionality, making customers want to choose it over competitor brands.
How can connected innovation be done?
Starting conversations between the various stakeholders of a brand can be the way forward. Exploring ideas from customers, investors, employees and everyone involved in a brand’s place in the market can facilitate new ideas. We must be open to these ideas and be prepared to tread outside the beaten path to make the industry ripples we desire.
When the ideas are produced and the decisions are made to innovate, businesses must align the technology at hand, people and design innovation. This will take time, but it must be a patient learning process that is built on modelling and remodelling the system.
In this, the flow of knowledge should be fluid and any barriers to the movement of information should be removed. Therefore, ideas and knowledge should travel across management levels and hierarchical structures.
Technology and digital media are the drivers of innovation. Just as Artificial Intelligence has been spearheading new ideas and innovation across industries lately, various technologies such as Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality have been presenting new ways to introduce products and brands to consumers. So, while naysayers may want to discourage, don’t be afraid to take risks within reason as this may have significant payoffs in the long run.
The best-connected innovations
Keep one’s brand identity in mind. A brand’s core values should be at the heart of its innovation. This is because it builds on the emotional connection a consumer has with one’s brand. When these emotional connections are maintained and developed, brands tend to address real needs. This is the secret to success.
This, in turn, builds trust between a business, a brand and its audience. It also paves the way for more customers to join the bandwagon because a brand is delivering a differentiation that the customer wants and aspires to. Excellent examples of this are sports brands like Nike and Adidas, which know and anticipate what their customers want, thereby striving to produce sports and activewear that meet their changing needs.
Understand to innovate
Understand why you’re innovating. It shouldn’t be for the sake of innovating and not for added profit margins, but to meet real customer needs.
Finally, don’t delay building your advertising campaign around your brand’s differentiation. Kantar research shows that brands that demonstrate product usage have a +10-point increase in brand affinity among customers. Demonstrating the benefits of the product has seen a +14-point increase in the feeling that the brand is meeting customer needs. On the back of this, make sure that your campaign reaches a wider audience to bring about brand conversions as well.
So don’t delay—start innovating!
(Anouk De Silva)