Getting great ideas to market is a very difficult job. Whether it’s a new product, a unique service for consumers, a better way to engage shoppers or even a simple change in the package, the path from idea to the store shelf is fraught with peril. You can read HBR’s article about Innovations Hidden Enemies here, enjoy “Marketoonist” Tom Fishburne’s Innovation Funnel cartoon here, read ThinkWay’s articles about The Bias Against Innovation or The Innovation Gauntlet here and here. Or, if that doesn’t give you enough to go on, you can sabotage your own great ideas.
Don’t Understand a Consumer’s Real Life– Make sure you do everything you can to ignore even your own personal reality. Never mind the fact that consumer’s lives are busy, we have more things coming at us than we can possibly handle, and technology might actually be keeping us from thinking deeply about anything. And ignore the fact consumers aren’t thinking about your product 24/7. In short, you should stay in your office and out of touch with the real world of consumers.
Be Like Everyone Else– Especially in the aisle. After all, those nicely uniform, evenly stocked shelves are much more cost efficient to maintain. And the package can do all the talking for you, can’t it? Instead of doing the hard work of determining how to speak and stand out from the crowd by actually helping a consumer along the path to purchase, just buy some more shelf danglers to grab their attention and sell, sell, sell.
Last But Not Least, Don’t Learn From Others– Why should you humble yourself and learn from someone else? Isn’t that a sign of weakness? After all, what could you possibly learn from someone who may have experienced some modicum of success in a different business or industry? Why should you be the one to buck the trend to cut costs? Everyone stops learning when times get tough. Don’t go to things like the Shopper Insights in Action conference sponsored by IIR USA. You might find ways to actually get great ideas to market…
