Category — THE HUB

Develop offerings so innovative that competitors are irrelevant. By David Aaker. The only way to grow, with rare exceptions, is to develop offerings so innovative that they create customer “must-haves” that define new subcategories for which competitors are not relevant. The goal is to win not by having a brand preferred over competitors but because competitors were not considered. You strive not to be the best but the only.

Creating a marketplace with weak or nonexistent competition has a huge potential payoff. It is Economics 101, the ticket to real growth in sales and profits. Consider the Chrysler minivan introduced in 1982 as the Plymouth Voyager and Dodge Caravan, which sold 200,000 during its first year, 12.5 million since then and enjoyed 16 years with no viable competitors. It literally carried Chrysler for nearly two decades … read >>

I finally got around to posting a Hub Magazine page on Facebook, including a “Cool News of the Day” feed. If you’re on Facebook, I’m hoping you’ll stop by (link) and click that all-important “like” button. Thanks! ~ Tim

Old-school definitions of hacking are slipping away. By John Gerzema. Lost in the hype of the next, latest, greatest release of virtually any tablet wannabe is the fact that Microsoft has continued to build on its quite attractive figure of eleven million Kinects in market and growing. The product’s remarkable user experience is responsible, in part, for its success.

The future of sports is in the hands of fans, not team owners. By Rick Burton. The death of Steve Jobs and the subsequent publication of his biography by Walter Isaacson quickly moved the discussion of general innovation into the forefront of numerous water-cooler and cocktail party conversations. Where, we seem to have started asking, would we be without the invention of iPods, iPhones, iTouches and iPads?

From there, someone invariably talks about how entire industries such as music, literature and film have been transformed in the ways that suddenly allowed the masses to custom-order the exact product they wanted for use any time or anywhere … read >>

Technology re-defines the traditional path-to-purchase. By Mitch Blum and Jeff Williams. The current era of consumer empowerment is a wonderful thing — if you’re a consumer. From a marketer’s standpoint, things have gotten exponentially more complex and challenging. Time-shifting, customization, social integration, personalization and real-time customer service are all examples of how consumers are demanding more from brands while simultaneously expecting to pay less.

Principles and practices for better branding. By Ayo Seligman and Kay Whitchurch. We hear it every day: Everything is changing. Social media, globalization and climate change are just a few of the powerful — and complex — forces at work in our lives. Not only are people more connected, with constant access to a world of opinion mixed with fact, but they’re also feeling less confident, lacking control over everything from home to work to politics.

Nearly every business category is more crowded, too. The grocery aisle was once the most salient example of brand proliferation. Now consumer electronics, fashion, entertainment, travel, and even finance boast a dizzying array of product and service brands … read >>

One brand’s innovation is another’s price-of-entry. By Spencer L. Hapoineu. Have you noticed that when you take Steve Jobs out of the equation there isn’t all that much innovation going on? Or is it just that our definition of innovation is the problem, and we’re seeing innovation disguised as other things? For example, would you say that creating a truly great hamburger is an innovation? Isn’t it all in the definition of “truly great?”

About 20 years ago, a chef named Henry Meer and a butcher’s son named Pat LaFrieda decided to create what they thought would be a truly great hamburger. Chef Meer was opening his now-successful City Hall restaurant in Lower Manhattan, and Mr. LaFrieda was taking over his father’s struggling meat supply business. Together, they combined short-rib, chuck, and brisket in a secret mixture that delivers a truly great hamburger every time. Now, this helped establish Mr. Meer’s restaurant while also reviving the LaFrieda’s meat business … read >>

Remembering Steve Jobs and the NeXT big thing. By John Uppgren. Along with about 200 other NeXT, Inc., alumni, I traveled to Redwood City, California, in late October to celebrate Steve Jobs’ life. NeXT was the company Steve founded after his exile from Apple in 1985. Although most histories mention his time at NeXT, it was far more important than many people realize. While the company struggled to reinvent computing from the ground up, its contributions to the industry were unparalleled at the time.

The product ideas first commercialized at NeXT ultimately led to iTunes, HTML, seamless networking, single-board computers, integrated sound, multi-media mail and the use of objects in the development of software, just to name a few. NeXT also proved that UNIX based systems, which until that time were reserved for a technical audience, were also viable for consumers … read >>

Truly breakthrough ideas are both easier and harder to come by. A roundtable discussion featuring Deborah Conrad of Intel, Tony Post of Vibram USA, Ralph Santana of Samsung, Robert Walcott of Kellogg Innovation Network and Beth Ann Kaminkow of TracyLocke.

How should innovators think about consumers? Deborah Conrad: Innovation is about presenting information in a way that’s easy for consumers. Several years ago, marketers had a push mentality, where we were shouting from the highest building and hoping that consumers would sort it all out themselves.

Digital and social media now give us the ability to offer different solutions to consumers when and where they need them. So, it’s about using that innovative platform and not just relying on things like television ads. There’s a real intersection between the consumer searching for solutions and our opportunity to get them excited about what we have to offer … read >>

The shopping list establishes preferences and influences behavior. By Sara Manke. Get on the shopping list.” It’s an imperative for nearly every shopper-marketing program we tackle because the brands that get on the list are the ones that get in the cart. The creation of a list represents an opportunity to influence the choice of where to shop and what to buy at a critical turning point in the shopping cycle. Getting on that list means making the cut. So, how do brands earn the right to be listworthy? How can brands take advantage of that critical moment of influence?

We recently designed and executed a study to understand how shopping lists are created and how to get on them. We first recruited a qualitative sample of shoppers to conduct blogs for a week to monitor their listmaking and list-using habits. We then followed up with a quantitative study to determine how prevalent and penetrated these thoughts, behaviors and patterns really are at the retailer-specific level for 20-plus top customers … read >>