![\"istock_000010874645xsmall1\"](\"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/iStock_000010874645XSmall1.jpg\")
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Brands are perpetually innovating to keep up with the wants and needs of consumers in order to improve lives in real and meaningful ways.\u00a0 Yet, innovation can be broken up into three categories: breakthrough, platform and incremental.<\/p>\n
Incremental innovations<\/strong> are the logical next step for your products or brands and instrumental in keeping them up-to-date, while breakthrough<\/strong> innovation<\/strong> are generally higher impact, less incremental, and oftentimes more costly. \u00a0A breakthrough innovation that makes it big can put your brand on the map for life.\u00a0 A platform innovation is somewhere in between and introduce new products to grow market share and divert consumers away from competition.<\/p>\n But is breakthrough innovation right for everyone?<\/p>\n An example of breakthrough innovation would be Nestle\u2019s Nespresso system, a groundbreaking and interesting way to prepare quality coffee products.\u00a0 The system is comprised of the Nespresso Machine and different flavored Nespresso \u201cpods\u201d that are portioned and individually wrapped for one-time use. At its core, Nestle was simply serving espresso in a new format, but the way it was prepared was radically different and what made this innovation a big hit.\u00a0 Consumers were wowed by the ease-of-use of this product, the freshness of the espresso, the variety of the flavors, the way it was packaged and so forth.<\/p>\n Though the Nespresso system was an overwhelming success, high-impact and breakthrough innovations do not occur very often, nor are they a big hit all the time.\u00a0 Innovations such as this one take longer to plan and develop. They require companies to spend considerably more money for commercialization. Moreover, it\u2019s a fact that consumers, as a whole, shy away from breakthrough innovation\u2014especially if the benefits have yet to prove themselves.\u00a0 Thus, breakthrough\u00a0 innovations require a strong marketing spend to properly articulate the new functionalities and value proposition.<\/p>\n Product & Brand Managers generally consider breakthrough innovations high risk.\u00a0 On the other hand, if this breakthrough innovation hits, it may provide first mover advantage or technological leadership\u2014two very noteworthy marketing accomplishments.\u00a0 But is it always worth the gamble, especially when incremental innovations are less costly and more widely accepted?<\/p>\n An example of incremental innovation is Quaker Oats\u2019 evolution from a cylindrical tube to individual packets that were portioned, portable and easy to store.\u00a0 Though this innovation may seem minor, and is incremental in nature: it dramatically raised user convenience and diminished waste; therefore adding important benefits for the consumer. Needless to say, it was a big hit.<\/p>\n Incremental innovations, while not as glamorous as their radical counterparts, can be drivers of growth in their own right, but is generally much slower.\u00a0 According to a recent study by Accenture, Consumer Packaged Goods companies are spending half of their innovation budgets on incremental.\u00a0 This has a downside, as many companies get stuck innovating solely incrementally, and never push the envelope or do something really groundbreaking.\u00a0 When innovating incrementally, there are a few guidelines you must adhere to.\u00a0 Consumers prefer that incremental innovation represent more than just cosmetic changes.\u00a0 And if they are <\/strong>cosmetic changes, tell them how this change is beneficial:<\/p>\n Does it allow you additional storage for the product?<\/em><\/p>\n Is it more portable, more environmentally friendly?<\/em><\/p>\n How do these innovations make life simpler, or better?<\/em><\/p>\n Everyone should focus on innovation, whether its incremental, breakthrough or platform but don\u2019t get stuck skewing all your innovation in one direction.\u00a0 Breakthrough innovations are just as necessary as incremental ones.\u00a0 In today\u2019s market, where brand loyalty is measured in months, not years, and where copy cat brands are price slashing and hyper competing, brands that do not actively invest in innovation and perpetually further their value proposition cannot survive.\u00a0 If you always focus on incremental innovation, you are always \u201ctrying to keep up.\u201d\u00a0 Invest in some higher risk innovations that allow you to stand out from your competitors.\u00a0 Customer retention relies on this innovation. While innovation is not always a shoe-in and may not be lucrative, the alternative is not viable.\u00a0 To compete and even get ahead, brands have to continually serve the evolving needs of their consumers, and be able to perfectly articulate this innovation and value advantage over the competition.<\/p>\n Amina AlTai is the Marketing Director for the Imagemme New York City office.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brands are perpetually innovating to keep up with the wants and needs of consumers in order to improve lives in real and meaningful ways.\u00a0 Yet, innovation can be broken up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-package-design"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/iStock_000010874645XSmall1.jpg",400,300,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/iStock_000010874645XSmall1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/iStock_000010874645XSmall1-300x225.jpg",300,225,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/iStock_000010874645XSmall1.jpg",400,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/iStock_000010874645XSmall1.jpg",400,300,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/iStock_000010874645XSmall1.jpg",400,300,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/iStock_000010874645XSmall1.jpg",400,300,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/author\/admin\/"},"uagb_comment_info":421,"uagb_excerpt":"Brands are perpetually innovating to keep up with the wants and needs of consumers in order to improve lives in real and meaningful ways.\u00a0 Yet, innovation can be broken up...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":946,"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions\/946"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}