In a previous post I looked at how innovation can Restart the Product Life Cycle. As suggested there, most of us are familiar with the standard product life cycle graph. A product increases in popularity, levels out, and then declines. But have you thought about how brand can influence and help shape the product lifecycle?

In fact, a brand can dramatically influence the shape of your product’s life cycle. This includes both your company’s brand and your products brands. For the purpose of this article I will be discussing branding in general. To see how brand changes the shape of a product life cycle we need to first take a closer look at four stages of a brand’s life cycle.

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Well you have launched a new company… or a new product. You made your big splash and made some money. But, your competitors are already mimicking your big idea. And you are frustrated that you cannot find another innovation that will appeal to your market share. What are you supposed to do now? Simply put, you need to look at things from another perspective; you need supporting innovations.

If your mission is to sell great shoes and you focus all your time and money developing the perfect shoe, then you will fall short! Consider the things that your company values and look to innovate in those areas as a way of supporting your overall products. If your company values customer service, look to innovate in customer service.

Supportive innovations accomplish three key things for your main product:

1. Draw in new customers
2. Generate repeat customers
3. Lengthen the product life cycle
4. Increase product effectiveness
5. Broaden the audience of your product

Supporting innovations are a simple but powerful concept. Too often we get bogged down with our “bread and butter” innovations and neglect the areas that make such innovations possible and effective.

A quick word of caution, do not spread yourself too thin with supporting innovations which distract from your overall purpose.

Innovation is no longer about the big one-off idea. Innovation is about strategy. New ideas are important, but too often businesses neglect their innovation strategy. Developing an innovation strategy is essential to the long term growth and sustainability of any organization.

At CE Studios I developed an Innovation Strategy Chart. The purpose of this model is to develop a strategy of innovation which creates future experiences.

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Return on investment (ROI) is a term you can seemingly never escape. Almost always ROI refers to financial return on financial investment. Without doubt ROI is a key indicator of the value of any investment. However, there are some cases where an investment can have intangible returns.

How do you measure the return of buying a meal for someone who has gone without? One could look at such a scenario and discover that for every six meals you buy for the hungry one of those people is able to get back on their feet and feed someone else in return. Whatever the actual return of this investment there will always remain an intangible value to feeding the hungry.

Let’s look at a business oriented scenario.

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I have in the past and continue to work closely with many nonprofit organizations. Over the years I have come to realize that nonprofit organizations face unique and difficult challenges when it comes to innovation. The innovation challenges faced by nonprofits can be traced to two root sources: a lack of capital and strong traditions.

Lack of Capital

Cash flow is always a problem for nonprofit organizations. How can they divert funds to innovative projects when their basic needs are not met? Nonprofit organizations become accustomed to living “donation to donation.” As a result, when some capital is raised, most non-profits put it aside for a rainy day.

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While I am sure I will write more on creating a culture of innovation in the future, today I would like to pass on to you the number one way to achieve a culture of innovation.

Everyone wants to have a culture of innovation; or at least everyone says they want a culture of innovation. Be warned that innovative organizations can be a very disruptive place, and as a leader, you will need effective change management strategies.

Here it is, the number one way to encourage an innovative culture, is to implement innovative ideas. Do not hear me wrong, this is not a codependent statement; I am not saying that in order to have a culture of innovation you need to be innovative. What I am saying is that when people in your organization suggest an innovative idea and you drop it, you have just discouraged them and everyone else from even suggesting another innovative idea. You must learn to push forward innovative ideas, to see where the trail goes. Not all ideas will make it to the finish line, but in order to have a culture of innovation you must start by actually implementing ideas.

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You are in all likelihood familiar with the standard product life cycle graph. A product increases in popularity, levels out, and then declines. This graph is helpful for countless reasons, but don’t accept the decline stage as the end. Plan ahead with innovation to renew the product life cycle and restart the upward trend.

Here are five ways to intervene with innovation and renew the product life cycle:
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Emerging trends are the most important factor in determining if an innovation will be enormously successful or just moderately successful.

When I talk about emerging trends, I do not mean fads. A fad comes and goes in about one or two years. Moreover, fads are accompanied by a lot of buzz right from the beginning.

Emerging trends on the other hand bubble up slowly until the culture itself shifts. It is only during the cultural shift that the media buzz occurs. If you come in at the point of the shift you are late. You will still find success, but the most successful innovations occur before the cultural shift.

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