Pop-Tarts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They don’t care about your business strategy, your marketing strategy, your supply chain, your approach to human resources; nothing.

They also don’t care about your latest innovation program. And, unless you’re Apple, they don’t care about your latest product extension. Seriously, they don’t.

A recent post on the Wall Street Journal has pretty much put it in perspective how executives are looking at innovation the wrong way: something that is innovative to them, not the customer.

Basically, the Wall Street Journal article shines a light on how diluted the definition of innovation has become. It’s become a marketing ploy. Before I addressed this here, a couple of bloggers beat me to it. Both addressed the mindlessness thinking that the article uses as an example. You should read both their posts (here and here).

Of course, innovation is a buzzword, this isn’t new. But seriously, the example they used in the article is common across many industries. The way companies want to innovate, or the reason they are investing in it, is because they are playing not to lose by out-featuring competitors.

Reactive mindset, not proactive.

When they act this way, they forget a very important principle about marketing: people don’t remember specific features, they remember the experience they had. Companies are confusing a product upgrade with innovation, and to believe that changing one thing is enough to make a splash is short-term-ism at its finest.

I love Pop-Tarts, but a different flavor of Pop-Tarts is not an innovation. …