why thinking inside the box creates ideas with higher rate of success? what means innovative ideas with higher chances for success?

we do not lack ideas at all. creativity, when encouraged, gives birth to lots of ideas and solutions. many consulting companies still promise 1000 ideas at the end of a brainstorming session. but the issue and challenge with innovation its not about lacking ideas. its how to make sure that, from the waterfall of ideas invading our mind and strategic agenda, we chose those big innovative ones that will bring real and sustainable competitive advantage. how to filter and how can we determine which ones will endure the market pressure and will generate sustainable economic ad social value?

the answer lays heavy on the strategic analysis side, when the intention to innovate is being defined. its fundamental to build a well characterized structure – process i name “thinking inside-the-box” – that defines correctly the true problems that have to be solved  (but also those ones that the team is committed and passionate to solve), that captures what objectives are to be achieved, why we have chosen a specific growth opportunity, what changes are to be expected in the market following the introduction of the respective innovation, what are the immediate limitations, what competencies exist in the organisation and what resources can be concentrated in the innovation program?

when the strategic analysis is profound and the intention to innovate is correctly articulated, the ideation session is fruitful and rich of ideas with high degree of distinctiveness and relevance. we validated this conclusion while running the innovation efficiency analysis in the company I have worked with those times, Reckitt Benckiser. we measured ideas, new product in development phase and those launched in the past three years and we’ve compared their results in various consumer tests, in-market simulations and actual results for those already launched. for some of the product categories, we’ve tested ideas born during creative sessions organized without a proper brief pre-agreed and then compared with ideas generated in same sort of creative sessions but organized after a thorough strategic analysis with clear set objective and well defined strategic direction. testing results have exceeded our expectations, ideas from the second set scoring significantly higher for key innovation metrics. in some cases, “purchase intention” and “uniqueness” have been higher by 15-20% relative to those ideas born purely “creatively”

there are therefore, these two important dimensions fro defining innovative ideas, that we call relevance and distinctiveness. function of the strategic decision to innovate and the competitive context, the ideas migrate from “power me too” to “pioneer rich” and towards the “breakthrough” revolutions. during the process of idea creation and development, these dimensions are setting the objectives, expectations and potential of the ideas that will be developed and launched in the market

a distinctive idea is the one that has a significant difference for the target segment. the distinctiveness / uniqueness is expressed in The Benefit or in the Reason to Believe (RTB). when we think about ideation in quantitative terms we must consider that running after many ideas dilutes the potential of idea distinctiveness. we must search for synergies in the ideas created and to articulate the Benefit or RTB so it brings absolute novelty to consumers and market.  and more, we must create that differentiation that has the power to endure more in the competitive context, meaning to be hard to copy

a relevant idea has a specific, evident and direct meaning for the consumer. but most important attention factor is the relevance of the point of difference. an idea can be extremely new (some call it “innovative”) and charming but has no meaning whatsoever for the consumer. an idea that is asking consumers to change their behaviour without a serious reason is not a relevant idea. we must therefore focus on this significant difference and make it relevant. example: for vodka (or tobacco) manufacturers  the options to market those products based on taste is almost impossible, so they focus their massages around the RTB: made from polish grains, distilled four times | made from american grains, on a four column installation | distilled four times, charcoal filtered | made in a family distillery

the innovative ideas created like this have a maximized profitability because the manufacturing capabilities and financial objectives are pre-set and pre-agreed. resources wasted with launching small, off-strategy and off-capabilities ideas are minimized

but not all ideas are absolute “breakthrough” revolutions. market demands that we deliver tactical evolutions like “flankers niche” or “line extensors” to maintain our competitive advantage. and this is okay. its is though important to set correctly our objectives and expectations and not to plan that these “evolutions” would give a proper shake the sales and market. there has to be an optimum balance between the tactical moved to maintain competitiveness and the strategic bets on those revolutions that drive sustainable growth

with such challenging objectives in mind and realizing that the ideation process its not just fun and creativity, when you now on here consultants promise a super-creative session that will generate 1000 ideas – which a poor junior marketer will have to decipher -, don’t be too excited! evaluate with prudence the role innovation will play in your growth plans and what you will be doing with those with 1000 ideas. “less” means “more”, even in innovation

Albert Einstein once said: “the formulation of a problem is more essential than the solution”. so, lets do our homework properly, think about the cube/box in which we want to innovate and then apply the most creative ideation methods that guaranty the creation of relevant and significantly distinctive ideas which generate sustainable growth