Use the SCAMPER Technique.
The SCAMPER Technique is a 7-step method that helps you tweak and improve ideas creatively:
🔁 S – Substitute
🔄 C – Combine
🔧 A – Adapt
🗑️ M – Modify
📦 P – Put to another use
🚫 E – Eliminate
🔀 R – Reverse
🎨 Example:
Want to create a new product, service, or post? Run it through the SCAMPER checklist to reimagine it!
💭 Try it today on something you already do regularly!
https://tinyurl.com/4u959h7u
Creative professionals say they expect demand for video production, motion graphics, and creative strategy services to increase most, according to recent research from Cella by Randstad Digital.
The report was based on data from a survey of hundreds of marketing and creative professionals who work for firms across a wide range of industries.
Some 62% of respondents say they expect demand to increase for video production, 37% expect demand to increase for motion graphics, and 35% expect demand to increase for creative strategy.
Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin
The world changed. Modern consumers are too busy to pay attention to annoying ads. There are more opportunities to choose, and less time. If we are satisfied with the current product or service, we do not seek to find an alternative, and, therefore, we simply weed out unnecessary and irrelevant information.
The world changed. Modern consumers are too busy to pay attention to annoying ads
The reason for this approach: the congestion of the media and goods/services as such. Therefore, the past ways of doing business have become, if not irrelevant, then significantly lost their effectiveness. And here we need a new approach. Seth Godin suggests a new approach in his book “Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable”.
The main idea of the book is that each of our product, brand, just entering the market or modified, should be like a purple cow and cause exactly the same reaction as if you were out of the house, you would meet her on the street.
The essence of the purple cow is that it should be special, outstanding. This book answers the questions: What? Where? When? in relation to the concept of ” remarkable”. Remarkable marketing is the art of bringing something new to your product or service that attracts attention. Your business, your product or service should if not radically, be quite different from competitors. You need to stand out from the crowd.
The essence of the purple cow is that it should be special, outstanding
So, what does it mean to be visible? For the most part, the author insists on increasing attention and money in terms of design. According to the author, one of the main tools through which you can enlist the support of consumers is good design. And not just successful, but unforgettable.
But it must be remembered that outrageous does not mean outstanding. Further, when we have received an unusual design for our product, the author recommends paying attention not to all consumers, not to all potential audience, and, mainly, to “innovators”, i.e. those who are the first to try a new product, who then begins to talk about it and who, at the same time, is the leader of opinions.
Successfully entrenched in this position, we can expect that a favorite product, with a high probability, will go through the “early adopters” in the direction of the “early majority” and “late majority”, i.e. the main group of consumers who make a product or service profitable. In this case, the author refers to the work of Geoffrey A. Moore “Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling high-tech products to mainstream customers”.
As for the advertising of the product, according to Seth Godin, it is necessary to advertise the product when consumers are really looking for it, and in the place where they can find it.
As for the situation when it comes to services, there is also a rule of “differ”. It may not be the service itself as such that may be unique, but for example, the method of conveying information to the target audience, i.e. amazing PR-actions, the memorable appearance of employees, an unusual building and etc.
It is necessary to advertise the product when consumers are really looking for it
Everything that would make people talk about the company and/or its products. Since the more ordinary the company, the more unattractive its activities, the more difficult it will be to break through the noise of competitors that surround it.
Being boring is the riskiest strategy. According to the author, only something unusual attracts attention in today’s world. They criticize and scold those who take a step forward or to the side. If you do not have anything to stand out in the crowded market square – you are doomed to failure, you just no one will notice.
We mistakenly believe that criticism leads to failure. When people criticize your project, it does not mean that they criticize you. Peace and security are very risky.
People are often afraid of the purple cow, so it is very rare. But if you do not stand out in the market, you can go unnoticed and fail.
It should also be remembered that the purple cow is just part of the product life cycle. You can’t live with her all the time. But when you want to expand your business or introduce a new product to the market, the purple cow is the right choice.
The book is written in simple and understandable language, and can be read very easily. The book will be useful for business owners, sales directors, brand managers, marketing managers.
https://tinyurl.com/3wckz5fm
The authors give many reasons for the fact that existing marketing techniques are no longer so successful, it is connected with the reduction of the product life cycle, and with the revolution made by the transition to digital technologies and with the growth of diversity within the categories of goods and much more. All this only proves that the modern world needs a new approach. Innovation is the key and basis of modern competitive strategies. Innovations can be both from the inside of the market, and from the outside. From the inside of the market, innovations are based on modulation (variation of one of the basic qualities of goods or services, which is to strengthen or reduce this quality), sizing, packaging, design, complements development, effort reduction. But the most effective way, according to the authors, is innovations from outside of the market, such as the creation of a new market or category.
P. Kotler and T. de Bes do not oppose traditional and lateral marketing. They believe that lateral marketing is a complement to traditional marketing. Vertical marketing process is a sequence of steps: identification of needs, definition of the market, segmentation, positioning, development of marketing tools. A vertical marketing process is a logically consistent movement from the general to the particular. Lateral marketing – involves restructuring existing information and moving from the private to the general with a less rigorous thought process – research, risky and creative.
In their book, P. Kotler and T. De Bes attempted to formulate a theory of lateral marketing. They give the following definition of lateral marketing: it is a workflow that receives existing objects (goods or services) at the input and gives innovation goods or services that are targeted to needs, customer groups or ways / situations of use not currently covered ; thus, this process with a high probability leads to the creation of new categories or markets.
The authors propose a scheme for the process of lateral marketing. It consists of three steps and is based on the process of creative thinking:
Lateral marketing begins with a product or service. There are two options:
1 step. Having determined the goods, we must choose the focus in it. For the purposes of lateral marketing, it is necessary to divide all components of vertical marketing into three main levels:
The second step is to shift the focus, which is located on one of three levels. Here you can select six basic operations:
– Substitution
– Combination
– Inversion
– Exaggeration
– Elimination
– Reordering
Step 3 – establishing a connection or eliminating a gap. For this purpose, an analytical evaluation is performed. There are three ways to assess this: track the purchase process, identify useful properties and find the right situation.
The process of lateral marketing gives three types of results:
At the present time, when new products are brought to the market with unusual speed, a significant proportion of attempts fail. The book describes a new technique for successfully competing in the market, it allows you to develop new products, find new market niches and eventually make a breakthrough in business. The authors do not reject classical marketing but advise in addition to it to use non-standard ways of thinking.
The book will be useful for those who are going to use lateral marketing in their company, for specialists in marketing and advertising, as well as for those who are interested in unconventional thinking as an ideal way of developing new ideas.
https://tinyurl.com/29xx88vn
A process for generating ideas? Ideas
are a creative business not a mechanical one, do you say? In a world, where everything
is process-driven how can creativity be an exception? In fact, scientists are
trying to understand the principles (or process?) of even chaos to control it.
We are digressing. Let’s stick to creative Process.
James Webb Young, the legendary advertising
man wrote a great book – A Technique
for Producing Ideas in 1960, which is a classic even today.
He described the five steps in detail. Here is the essence:
Mind follows a method which is just as
definite as a production process or even an assembly line. There is a technique
for using the mind for producing ideas. Whenever an idea is produced, this
technique is followed consciously or unconsciously. And the good news is that
this technique of producing ideas can be consciously cultivated, thereby increasing
the ability of the mind to produce ideas.
This technique of mind follows five
steps. While you can recognize them individually, it is important to recognize
their inter-relationships more than anything else. One more thing. The mind
follows these five steps in definite order or sequence that is not
interchangeable.
2.
Masticate the material gathered and
start the mental digestive process. Masticate the material till gastric
(creative) juices are secreted. You have to digest before ingest.
3.
Now drop the whole subject and put the
whole problem as completely as you can. Turn it over to your sub-conscious mind
and let it work on it. Ideas come after you have stopped straining for them,
and have passed through a relaxation from the search.
4.
When you are totally pre-occupied with
it, out of no where the idea appears. This is your eureka moment! It will come to you when you are
least expecting it – while shaving, or bathing or most often when you are
half-awake. It may even wake you up in the middle of it. Remember what Sir
Isaac Newton said when he was asked how he discovered the law of gravitation.
He said by constantly thinking about it!
5.
Having produced one, don’t hold your
idea close to your chest. Submit it to the criticism of the judicious. Because
an idea has self-expanding qualities. It stimulates those who see it to add to
it.
What are you waiting for? Go and start
producing those great, unique ideas you have been wanting to!
by
In a recent class I was challenged by a participant whose organization wanted to be able to measure creativity. They felt that it was key to their artistic process that they hire and develop truly creative people, but they were having a hard time pinpointing exactly what they wanted.
The textbook answer is to “trust the process”, as the discipline of asking your team to formulate concrete intended results usually drives the design of meaningful measures. But the more I help organizations, the more I am starting to think that subject-matter expertise is also an important part of the formula.
The basic measurement development process embedded in our MPRA model is straightforward. We always start by articulating strategic intent using a disciplined process. Then there are four basic steps in measure development:
From there we move to target setting and an ongoing performance review cycle.
It is during the intended results and alternative measures steps that the team spend most of the time thinking through an intangible like creativity. The challenge is almost always to establish consensus across the team about what the desired result is in concrete, measurable terms. From there, various alternative measures can be designed and the ideal measure(s) can be selected through a disciplined scoring process.
During these two steps, having a subject-matter expert in the room can be invaluable. For example, a subject-matter expert will have a deep understanding on how others have approached your problem. Creativity, for example, is an intangible quality that academics have been trying to measure for decades. How one defines “creativity” can vary and will impact the desired result we want to measure. Some scholars define creativity as the ability to produce original and appropriate solutions to problems or challenges. Others view creativity as a combination of novelty, usefulness, and surprise. In general, creativity involves generating ideas, products, or solutions that are both original and valuable.
A subject-matter expert will likely also understand how others have approached measuring creativity. This is useful not because we want to blindly adopt something that others have done, but to learn from the past and apply ideas that seem appropriate.
Most methods that have been used in academia could be broadly categorized as either subjective, objective, or a hybrid of both. Subjective methods of measuring creativity involve using the judgment of experts or observers to evaluate the creativity of a person or their work. These methods are commonly used in the arts, such as music, painting, and writing, where the evaluation of creativity is based on subjective opinions.
Objective methods of measuring creativity could involve the production of products or sales generated. On the academic side, objective methods include standardized tests or measures to assess creativity. An example includes divergent thinking tests, which assess a person’s ability to generate multiple and diverse ideas in response to a given prompt. The most common divergent thinking test is the Guilford Alternate Uses Test, which requires participants to list as many uses as they can for a common object. Another example is the Remote Associates Test, which assesses a person’s ability to identify the common link between three seemingly unrelated words. If you are trying to create an organizational measure, these academic approaches might not seem that helpful in a literal sense, but understanding the reasoning behind those measurements might drive the right solution. Perhaps an index could be created that included end outcomes focusing on products and revenue generated, medium impact measurements around subjective evaluation of design, and contributing factor-type measurements around the skills tests.
https://cutt.ly/jwqwAtXo
In today’s business environment, there is mounting pressure for B2B marketers to do more with less. The pace of business is fast, teams are lean, competition is fierce, and the need to remain innovative is higher than ever.
Yet, what many should remember is that innovation doesn’t necessarily mean creating “the next best thing”. Innovation is a continual process of improvement and seeking to better understand new and different ways of satisfying the needs of customers.
There is a lot that B2B marketers can borrow from consumer-oriented businesses to rev up their innovation efforts. One effective way is leveraging the principles of design thinking and applying it to product development / innovation initiatives.
The AMA defines the 5 steps in design thinking as:
In this article, we will look at each of the 5 steps in the design thinking process and how B2B organizations could apply them to their businesses – specifically for product development so that as new products are developed, they are desirable (customers want it), feasible (the company can do it), and viable (the business can scale it).
Design thinking is often associated with terms such as “human-centered design” or “user-centered design”. This underscores the clear link between the business and people – after all, businesses serve people.
The first step in the design thinking process is to bring a deep understanding of the customer or more importantly, the end-user, into the process. Oftentimes, B2B organizations rely on internal customer-facing functions such as the sales teams or customer service to act as the voice of the customer. While helpful, this provides a limited view of the true customer experience.
It is therefore crucial to capture the customer’s point of view in an unbiased way and to step into their shoes to better understand their goals, motivations, behaviors, challenges and unmet needs. Leveraging primary research such as ethnographies, focus groups, or in-depth interviews with customers and developing decision making eco-systems, buyer personas, and customer journey maps are excellent tools for building foundational knowledge about B2B customers.
Famous inventor, Charles Kettering, once said “A problem well-stated is half-solved.”. Truer words have not been spoken when it comes to innovation. To inspire creative ideas, there needs to be a clear problem to solve. By gathering customer insights from the empathy stage (and other resources) and looking for common trends or themes, teams may start to identify certain opportunity areas to plan to innovate around. It’s not uncommon for several opportunity areas or unmet needs to exist.
However, it’s important for organizations to prioritize which to attack first. This step could also help to build a pipeline of opportunities to explore over the near, mid, and long term. The output from the ‘Defining’ stage is typically a well-crafted brief with a strategic focus, clear objectives, and inspiration that can guide both design and research later in the process.
Armed with a strong foundation of customer knowledge and a clear direction on what problem to solve, it’s time to bring together a cross-functional team to collaborate and generate ideas for solutions. The purpose of these sessions is to focus on the main problem to solve – per the brief coming out of the Defining stage – and to generate as many possible solutions as possible. During these collaborative brainstorming sessions, it’s critical to create an environment that encourages divergent thinking – where everything from mild to wild is acceptable. Once all ideas are on the table, the goal will be to begin converging on a few high potential ideas worth pursuing.
The converging process is often where the blue-sky thinking gets a dose of reality and constraints are applied. Using tools such as a SWOT, customer value proposition, or impact/feasibility frameworks can be helpful in prioritizing which opportunities to pursue first. By the end of the Ideation stage there should be several potential concepts (and alternatives) as well as hypothesis about benefits to further explore.
Quickly bringing new product concepts to life in a way that customers / end-users can engage and interact with is a critical component for how B2B organizations can leverage design thinking in their innovation process. This step is mostly led by the product design team who take inspiration from the ideation stage and think of ways that the company could feasibly bring a new product to market. Depending on the subject, prototypes could take the form of 3D printed models, renderings, concept statements, wireframes, etc.
The intent of the prototyping stage is to quickly design stimuli for testing that customers / end-users can understand, react to, and provide feedback on how it may / may not work for them or their organization. Often there are several concepts and alternatives developed that each represent a unique benefit. The purpose of this is to isolate variables and build upon what is working.
Early in the innovation process these conceptual prototypes don’t necessarily have to be perfect – a term that is often used in this space is Minimally Viable Product (MVP). That means if the prototype is at a high enough fidelity for the general idea to be understood, it should be good enough for testing. As the concepts move closer to commercialization, the need for higher fidelity prototypes increases (i.e., close to a final working product).
The once conceptual ideas have been brought to life via prototyping and are now ready to be tested with customers / end-users. Although many associate product testing with quantitative benchmarking (which is appropriate at times), a qualitative approach can help product teams dive much deeper into the “why” and “how” of the feedback to truly understand how a potential product idea may be used in real world applications.
One common pitfall at this stage in the process is allowing customers to drive the innovation process. While customer feedback is extremely important, learnings need to be validated with business experts who understand both feasibility and strategy. This is especially true with upstream innovation (i.e., where product concepts are still in their infancy) and learnings are used as building blocks to continue informing the design process.
The key to the testing stage is to go in with a clear set of hypotheses and action standards / success criteria that can help inform go/no-go decisions for winnowing down the number of concept candidates to further pursue.
While there are 5 clear steps in the design thinking process, it is not always linear. In fact, the design and innovation process is meant to be agile and iterative, meaning teams might go back and forth between stages before moving forward (e.g., test, learn, ideate, prototype, test again) as new information may challenge ingoing hypotheses or lead to new ideas. The benefit of following this process is quite rewarding as innovation efforts are closely linked to customer needs and the design of products is strongly informed by customer feedback so products provide added-value, are differentiated, and commercially viable to produce.
References
https://www.ama.org/marketing-news/the-5-phases-of-design-thinking/
https://cutt.ly/934MUs7