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What is ‘real’ Innovation?

I feel I need to write a post about something which has been bothering me for a while. It is about the (mis)use of the word innovation.

Many people talk about innovation and innovative new products. What I struggle to deal with is: most of what people label as innovative is really just an improvement on an existing product. What many organisations and media commentators think is so innovative is really just ‘features and benefits’.

Simon Sinek (author of Start With Why) claims that:

“Real innovation changes the course of industries – if not society.”

Examples include: the microwave, the fax machine, locomotion, the light bulb, iTunes, the internet, flight.

Do you agree?

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Simon Sinek is the author of Start With Why. Listen to an interview with him on the Marketing Over Coffee podcast (iTunes link), in the episode titled Special Interview with Simon Sinek, author of “Start with Why”. You can also view his keynote in this TED talk.

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Coca-Cola gets a GRIP on marketing

Recently in Australia, the Coca-Cola Company has launched its new ‘Contour Grip bottle’ which has already been rolled out across the world. Looking beyond Coca-Cola’s useless claim of being more environmentally friendly by reducing the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in their bottles by 5% compared to the previous design[1] (5% is hardly a commitment to sustainability), I do think that Coca-Cola is onto something here.

There are two reasons why this is a great innovation:

1. The new contour design of the bottle gives the impression that the new bottle contains more liquid.

Sure, consumers are not idiots and realise that it’s still a 600mL bottle as it always has been. However, one of the reasons Coca-Cola gained such a massive market share many years ago was from the visual illusion their contour bottle provided in their original design, released back in 1916[2].

2. I realised that when I used to hold a bottle of Coke, I used to hold it around the neck and/or label. By creating a section to ‘grip’, it essentially forces customers to grip the bottle in that section, and leave the label (i.e. brand advertising) freely unobstructed to the view of onlookers.

I don’t know whether these were two ideas Coca-Cola considered when developing the new design, but well done nonetheless.

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References:
[1] The Coca-Cola Company. (4 September, 2007). News Release: GET A GRIP ON THE NEW COCA-COLA CONTOUR BOTTLE. Retrieved 21 March, 2010, from The Coca-Cola Company: Press Centre: Press Releases: http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/presscenter/nr_20070904_ccna_grip_bottles.html
[2] The Coca-Cola Company. (26 March, 2008). Get a Grip. Retrieved 21 March, 2010, from Coca-Cola Conversations: http://www.coca-colaconversations.com/my_weblog/2008/03/get-a-grip-1.html