BUSINESS MONITOR
free side order of indigestion, in my experience). In a company that big, you’d expect the Big Mac to have been developed by a team of researchers, food scientists and marketing specialists. And you’d be wrong. The Big Mac was created by a
franchisee called Jim Delligatti who asked a group of regulars if there was anything they’d like improved. They said they fancied a more substantial burger, so he cut the bun twice put in two patties, some more relish and… the rest is history. There are three important lessons there.
First, a good idea doesn’t mind who had it; in plenty of large companies the Big Mac would have been stillborn because it didn’t come from head office. Also, Mr Delligatti would have had the riot act read for tinkering with his franchise agreement. Second, new product development
doesn’t have to cost megabucks – less than a dollar in the case of the Big Mac. Third, ask your customers what they want! It’s free market research and there’s not a lot of that kicking about. You may be thinking that ‘inventing’ the
Big Mac hardly equals reinventing the wheel. At the time, however, it had a big impact on the fast food industry and also on quite a lot of waistlines. It demonstrates that products that change a market don’t have to be high-tech and complex. By contrast, there’s the Dyson bagless
vacuum cleaner. Working on a project focused on centrifugal forces, Dyson wondered if that could be applied to the vacuum cleaner. As we now know it could be, but it took years and thousands of prototypes before the product came to market. In the process some market research
was done and, to put it mildly, it was discouraging. The customer was broadly satisfied with the performance of their existing cleaner and not ready to pay far more for a better one. When the customer saw and tried the Dyson product, she changed her mind. Ignoring that research has turned James Dyson into Sir James and a billionaire, to boot. The bagless cleaner wasn’t of course
James Dyson’s first successful consumer invention. He it was who invented the Ball Barrow. With its spherical wheel it was easier and more stable to use and became very popular. I have an image of Dyson waking up one morning and thinking ‘today, I’m going to reinvent the wheel.’ Just trusting your gut-feel doesn’t
always work, however. Sir Clive Sinclair had an aura of ‘can do no wrong’ until he launched the C5 electric tricycle, then supposedly the future of transport. It
Do you actually need to go through the
cost and angst of coming up with a ground-breaking new concept? Plenty of ideas never make it off the drawing board and into the factory so it’s a wasteful process. Why bother? The answer is simple: the human race
is hard-wired to like new ideas. Go round a supermarket and check how many ‘new’ pack flashes there are on the shelves. But a cursory examination will tell you that in 99% of cases the newness
“The human race is hard-wired to like new ideas. Go round a supermarket and check how many ‘new’ pack flashes there are on the shelves. But a cursory examination will tell you that in 99% of cases the newness is marginal. It doesn’t matter, because ‘new’ definitely sells.”
www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk
“Just trusting your gut-feel doesn’t always work, however. Sir Clive Sinclair had an aura of ‘can do no wrong’ until he launched the C5 electric tricycle, then supposedly the future of transport. It destroyed his reputation, his
company and his wealth in a five-minute piece of TV coverage of its failings, which were many and would have been shown up by some research and consumer trial.”
destroyed his reputation, his company and his wealth in a five-minute piece of TV coverage of its failings, which were many and would have been shown up by some research and consumer trial.
is marginal. It doesn’t matter, because ‘new’ definitely sells. Everyone in this industry will recognise
that making a sales appointment is a lot easier if you have a new product to show. This is partly our fascination with new things but also driven by fear: if you’re not au fait with the latest products, you’re off the speed and that is a bad feeling. This ‘new’ fixation can actually have a
negative impact on reinventing the wheel. A lot of businesses recognise that they could genuinely improve a product, but at a significant cost. Far cheaper and easier to add in some extra bells and whistles, and put the price up (or boast that you haven’t). As a case look at mobile phones. They
are constantly changing, having additional functionality built in. But I am forever hearing people whinge about their phone not fulfilling its primary function – making and receiving calls and texts – as well as the model they had five or ten years ago. That’s a wheel that begs to be reinvented. Process re-engineering is one of those
nasty bits of business-speak I don’t like because it obfuscates an important principle: changing the way you work so you’re better, faster or cheaper – or all three – is a real game-changer for business. Don’t reinvent the wheel you’re selling, instead subtly reinvent the way you make it and sell it. A classic example of this is JIT – just in
time delivery. This process has reached the level of an art-form in the motor industry where it was first seriously developed. The JIT principle has trickled down through all business sectors including printwear such that increasingly the concept of stockholding is looking dated. On the other hand is fracking. The
principle has been around for decades but didn’t turn into a real source of fuel from shale until a smart guy proved (after years of trying) that it could be done with water alone. Suddenly, we learn that the price of a barrel of oil could fall by 50% within ten years. So, OK, when do you definitely leave
the wheel well alone? I’ve been staring at that question for several minutes without an answer. In the marketing world you tinker with branding and packaging very cautiously. Consider the Ford blue oval, the Mercedes three-pointed star, and the Volkswagen VW. Brasso and Tate and Lyle syrups are models of long-term packaging consistency.
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