Tag Archives: apple

Laser focused products are more emotional

in Innovation, Marketing, Strategy

steve jobs

This post isn’t about Steve Jobs, it’s about emotion and how to create it with your product.

When I was a kid I would spend endless hours reading magazines at supermarkets or bookstores. From PC Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Game Pro, National Geographic, Road & Track, SLAM, you name it. At one point I had subscriptions to 15 different magazines that I got in the mail, my mom wasn’t too happy about it. And she also wasn’t happy because I kept them all well after I read them.

Out of all the magazines I read, the one’s I look more forward to reading were the ones about cars. I just loved (and still do) reading Road & Track’s car reviews because of how they described their car experience, I can still remember some of the words used in the review of the McLaren F1.

Words like: ‘staggering power’ when pushing the accelerator, ‘stratospheric’ when talking about horsepower, ‘opera-esque’ when describing the sound of the engine, ‘astonishing’ when describing the car…you get the picture. So what’s the big deal? Well the fact that I’m telling you about it today and remember it is telling. Emotions are hard to forget and even though I’ve never driven these cars, the vivid descriptions make me feel as though I almost did.

I know what you’re thinking, we already know benefits trump features. Yup, but how?

Focus.

Jeremy Clarkson, host and source of Top Gear, is a like a little kid when talking about cars. It’s all emotion. Even if you aren’t a car fanatic you’ll love them after hearing Clarkson, just like in the video below where he drives the Ferrari Enzo. Tell me it doesn’t get your blood moving?

Did you notice how he mentions the word ‘focus’ to the describe how the car’s interior doesn’t distract you from driving? If you own and iPod, iPhone or iPad then you know what I mean. Steve Jobs is the master at creating emotions for Apple products. He makes it sound so genuine because his products satisfy him. So when he gives a keynote speech, he’s like a little kid talking to you about his new toy. Emotional!

Google did the same thing with Chrome. It’s laser focused on enabling us to browse the web faster. The user interface has only what’s necessary to browse and it makes you almost feel like the browser isn’t even there. That’s focus!

Another example I’ll give you to chew on is how Super Bike Magazine describes how the new Kawasaki ZX-10R ‘Ninja’ makes it’s driver feel: confident. Confident that you can get the best lap times and win the race. That’s what they really care about.

And with that last paragraph I get to the intent of this post: Focused products are more emotional. People don’t care about your products features, they care about what it does for them. And the way to do that is by making your product laser focused on satisfying that job.

In the Enzo’s case the job is driving, in the iPod’s case it’s carrying all your music in your pocket. They eliminated all the things that can ‘distract’ from satisfying that job.

Thoughts? Do you think products that are laser focused on satisfying a specific job more emotional?

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Use constraints to fuel your creativity

in Creativity, Innovation, Strategy

Quickly, think of as many white things as you can in ten seconds.  Now think of white things in your kitchen.  Did the more constrained prompt spark more ideas? Yes.

Recent research on the best approach to creating novel things says that the number one key to innovation is scarcity. In other words, constraints help you focus on what matters.

Apple knows that embracing constraints helps them focus on what matters. Google is popular for using constraints to fuel their design and development process which have resulted in ‘perceived innovations’ in user experience. The ever popular 37 Signals, maker of online business management apps, pretty much runs their business on constraints.

So, how does placing constraints to fuel creativity look like?…

The Two Dimensions of Market Orientation

in Innovation

This is a post by Ralph Christian Ohr (@ralph_ohr)

Recently, I was reading an interesting HBR article, named: “Meeting the Apple Game of Customer Perception” by Ndubuisi Ekekwe.

The key paragraphs for me were:

“But meeting customer needs is not enough. You must exceed needs if you want to remain relevant. Technology disrupts the habits of the customers so quickly that if you focus on needs, you will never be an industry leader. You can’t keep early adopters loyal by just meeting their needs. They want more from you.

They want you to understand their expectations. Even if you have met their needs, they want more. Your heating customers want green solar energy, but all they can afford is dirty coal so that is what you give them. You have met their immediate needs, but they expect you to do more, quickly. Agile firms serve that expectation and retain their customers.

While expectation can help you stay in the game, top firms meet the perception of customers. Perception is the king of business. Unfortunately, few firms get to that level. Perception is providing to customers what they never expected or imagined they needed.”

This reminded me again of the following: market orientation is two-dimensional. For companies it’s required to:

  • meet existing needs and expectations that customers are aware of,
  • anticipate needs that customers are not (yet) aware of (perception).

Both requirements correspond to distinct capabilities, timelines and approaches. Meeting existing needs tends to happen on a short term range and often leads to innovation derived from current markets. Anticipation often addresses future needs and is the basis to create new markets. Some companies have the propensity towards developing and exploiting existing markets. Others, such as Apple, are primarily targeted at tapping new markets by offering novel ‘proposals’. Successful companies of the future will most likely be able to combine both capabilities – in order to serve innovators, early adopters as well as the majority in the innovation diffusion cycle.

At the end, economic success is fueled by deeply understanding customers and empathy-driven innovation. Legal professionals who need help reaching your target market may consider working with an expert in lawyer marketing.

What do you think?

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Innovation posts of the week: 5 types of people that kill innovation

in Must reads of the week
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Innovations begin when the system is stuck

in Innovation

All great innovations emerge out of rigidity. They are born when someone recognizes that the system – the company, the industry, the country – has frozen and can no longer react to new opportunities or threats. When this rigid state appears in the business world, what you see is a company that is stuck in an old perspective. The competition is also stuck in the old frame, and so are the industry experts, customers, distributors. This state persists until someone with sufficient discontent recognizes the hidden opportunity in the frozen system.

Thus the starting point to innovate is to recognize when the system has fallen so far into a state of rigidity that the time is ripe for a new order of things and thus challenge the rigidity with a new idea. Doing this is not easy. Most rigidity comes not from physical limitations but from mental ones that are harder to recognize and harder to dissect.…

Innovation posts of the week: Innovation block by block

in Must reads of the week

 

 

Must read innovation stories of the week: Getting it done

in Must reads of the week

It was an ‘innovation packed’ week that had everything starting from making excuses, ideating around small ideas, how to get it done, popular tools to use to tackle challenges and how to test your ideas. Pretty good eh!