The Role of Idea-Centric Creativity - Decision Analyst, Inc.

Using Consumers to Fuel Your New Product GenerationPipeline: The Role of Idea-Centric CreativityBy Leyla Namiranian and Gwen IshmaelThe Case for New Product InnovationWe live in a world in which the ability of an organization to surviveis defined by its capacity to innovate. Companies must bringsuccessful new products to market almost constantly. In fact, thespeed at which innovation takes place today is faster than ever,a trend that may have started in the high-tech industry, but isnow a fact of business life for all industries.The average consumer packaged goodscompany now introduces 70 to 80 newproducts per year; Procter & Gamble offers46 different types of Tide in the U.S. 1 Andshorter product lifecycles and an increasinglycompetitive environment are globaltrends, not limited to the United States.The speed at which innovationtakes place today is faster thanCompetitive environments and shorterproduct lifecycles also mean that, first, ato the United States.company needs to have the various versionsand extensions of its current productsready to release quickly. Second, in order to maintain competitiveadvantage, a company must also have its next-generation products—thenext “new thing” that customers will want to buy in ayear or two or three—in the pipeline while its current successfulproducts are still selling well.ever. The average consumer packagedgoods company now introduces70 to 80 new products per year.Shorter product lifecycles and anincreasingly competitive environmentare global trends, not limitedCompanies must also be able to spot opportunities for, and thenbe able to develop, truly disruptive innovations—the breakthroughproducts that may reshape their entire market and productcategory. To miss these opportunities would mean losing categoryleadership position. For example, skincare consumers areaccustomed to seeing new creams continuously introduced, eachof which promises a definite improvement in the fight againstaging skin by virtue of the addition of a new ingredient. But consumersare not accustomed to the emergence of a new productthat will actually replace conventional skincare routines. However,the march of progress demands that such breakthrough productsbe developed, and the company that successfully developsthem will have a competitive edge.It Takes a Lot of Ideas to Create a SuccessfulNew ProductSo how does a company keep on top of this punishing innovationagenda? First, it is vitally importantto keep the new product pipeline filledwith potential new product ideas to develop,because many, many new productideas either do not see the light of releaseday or are not successful. How fulldoes the pipeline need to be? A Dun &Bradstreet study revealed that for eachsuccessful new product introduced, acompany needs between 50 and 60 othernew product ideas in the pipeline 2 . Or,one in every 60 or so new product ideas acompany generates will go on to becomea successful new product.So clearly the first step in succeeding at today’s innovation agendais to get lots of new product ideas into the pipeline. Havinglots of ideas here, in what some refer to as the “fuzzy front end”of new product development—where it is appropriate to generateand expand on ideas before converging on the best prospects andcontinuing through the development process—can make thedifference between success and failure at innovation.However, generating new product ideas is no easy thing to do.First, generating ideas is not a linear process, which means theusual, logical problem-solving approaches don’t always work wellwhen it comes to generating ideas. And companies can get sidetrackedby the sheer pressure—to find the “perfect” idea, to findthe “big” idea, and to move quickly. Finally, companies may findit difficult to get past their own unwillingness to take a risk on anew product idea.Strategic Research • Analytics • Modeling • OptimizationCopyright © 2003 Decision Analyst. All rights reserved.1.817.640.6166 or 1.800. ANALYSIS • www.decisionanalyst.com

Table 1Age Range Idea-Centric Creativity Index18-24 11425-34 10935-44 10645-54 9355-64 7765 or older 53Also, gender is a poor predictor of idea-centric creativity. Menand women appear to be roughly equal, although each sex doesbetter in product categories where their interests and relevant experiencesare concentrated. Similarly, ethnicity is a poor predictorof exceptional creativity. Education does tend to positively correlatewith exceptional creativity, but the degree of correlation isnot strong. That is, the college-educated tend to score higher thanhigh school graduates, but the difference is not great. Many consumerswith high school or less education tend to be very creative.Other types of creativity (artistic, musical, literary, theatrical)are not very predictive of “idea-centric” creativity. No matterhow we manipulated the regression techniques, the other typesof creativity (musical, literary, artistic, alone or in combination)never showed up as significant variables in predicting idea-centriccreativity.These new-product creatives look like everyone else, dress likeeveryone else, and talk like everyone else. But they are unique inone special way: Ask them to come up with new product ideas,and they (on average) are more than 10 times as productive as theaverage person. They are also intrinsically motivated to offer newideas, as opposed to being motivated by extrinsic factors such asfinancial reward. Coming up with new product ideas is fun forthem, and it’s something they enjoy spending time doing.Imaginators®—An Online Panel of Idea-CentricCreativesAs a result of our initial testing, we have built a consumer panelcalled Imaginators®, comprising more than 2,000 idea-centriccreatives in the U.S. and Europe who can help generate newproduct ideas. Imaginators® panelists represent the top 4% of thepopulation in terms of idea-centric creative ability. In addition,Imaginators® members receive ongoing training to enhance theirnatural creative skills, and their performance on projects is continuouslyassessed to ensure that for any given project, we are onlyusing the top performers.How do we use these top-performing creatives? First, most of ourprojects take place in an online environment. While demographicsare not important in terms of determining levels of creativity,they do take on some importance when it comes to generatingnew product ideas. Consumer creativity pioneer Foy Conwayput it best: “Creativity anchored in real-life experiences andreal consumer needs produces more ideas—and more relevantideas.” 6 Dr. Teresa Amabile’s model of the creativity processincludes “domain-relevant knowledge” of the subject at hand asjust an important a part of the creativity process as creative skills. 7In terms of new product ideation, domain relevant knowledgetranslates into product-category usage experience. Our 2,000+member Imaginators® panel is designed so that we can select projectparticipants based on factors such as product category usageor demographics. By making the ideation session online and notin a specific geographic location, we have a larger number andvariety of panelists available for projects.A Creative Process Results in Lots of CreativeIdeasAnother important component of the creative process is the environmentin which creativity takes place. Among the importantfactors are stimulation, a process-oriented approach, and a senseof community. 8 Building on this research, we have created anonline environment that encourages creativity. We use provencreativity techniques that we have adapted to online use. Ourtrained Innovation Services facilitators guide the creative processto maximize the number and quality of ideas generated. The endresult is hundreds of innovative new product ideas that are rootedin consumer needs and wants.Once the online session is over, the Innovation Services teamspends days filtering and focusing on these hundreds of ideas andidea fragments, which can also be used to complement any internalideation efforts. After the development phase, generally 10 to20 of the resulting ideas will have been developed into full-blownnew product concepts, ready for marketing research testing.Through these sessions some major new brands, such as PurinaOne®, disposable Polaroids, and many others have come to life.Using Consumers To Fuel Your New Product Generation Pipeline

Just one ideation project with Imaginators® consumer panelistscan result in 20 new product ideas in development. This processcan surely help fill a company’s new product ideas pipeline. Andfilling that pipeline with ideas that can be honed through developmentinto new products that have as great a chance at successas possible is the way to stay on top of today’s innovation agenda.That innovation agenda demands that companies generateenough new product ideas to develop successful new next-generationproducts, as well as enough ideas to give the company a reasonablechance of being the one to come up with truly disruptiveinnovations—the breakthrough products that may reshape theirentire market and product category. Decision Analyst’s InnovationServices and Imaginators® bring the benefits of consumerdriven,idea-centric creativity to today’s innovation agenda.Notes1.2.3.4.Forrester Research (2002), “Demand Forecasting DoneRight.”Dun & Bradstreet (1998), London. . Amabile, Teresa M.,CreativityIn Context (1996), Westview Press, p. 38.A pioneer researcher in the field of creative studies, Dr. E.Paul Torrance developed the “Torrance Test for CreativeThinking,” which is still often used to identify individual creativepotential. Torrance was also instrumental in developingmethods of creativity skills training. Specific Torrance sourcesinclude Torrance, E.P., (1974), “Torrance Tests Of CreativeThinking: Norms And Technical Manual,” Scholastic TestingServices, and Torrance, E.P. and Presbury, J. (1984), “Criteria5.6.7.8.Of Success Of 242 Recent Experimental Studies Of Creativity,”Creative Child Quarterly, 30, pp. 15-19.Parnes, S.J., and Noller, R.B. (1972), “Applied Creativity: TheCreative Studies Project-Part 11,” Journal Of Creative Behavior,vol. 6, p. 164-186.Foy Conway, quoted from a 2002 working session with DecisionAnalyst.Amabile, p. 113.Amabile, p. 231-232.AuthorsGwen Ishmael, Senior Vice President and leader of the DecisionAnalyst Insights & Innovation Group, has led productdevelopment activities since 1992. Most notably, Ms. Ishmael isone of the founders of uswestdex.com, one of the Internet’s firstand most successful online yellow pages and local e-commercedirectories. She also conceived and developed groundbreakingWeb-based promotional vehicles, two of which are patent pending,and has been described as a “pioneer in the field of Internetmarketing.” Ms. Ishmael possesses more than 17 years of marketingexperience across a variety of industries, from softwareto publishing to consumer products. She holds an MBA fromthe prestigious Daniel’s College of Business at the University ofDenver, and is the recipient of numerous professional awards recognizingher marketing and leadership achievements.Presented to the ESOMAR World Congress 2003, Prague,Czech Republic, September 16 2003About the AuthorGwen Ishmael is a Senior Vice President of Insights & Innovation at Decision Analyst. The author may be reached byemail at Gishmae@decisionanalyst.com or by phone at 1-800-262-5974 or 1-817-640-6166.Decision Analyst is a leading international marketing research and analytical consulting firm. The company specializesin advertising testing, strategy research, new product ideation, new product research, and advanced modeling formarketing-decision optimization.Strategic Research • Analytics • Modeling • Optimization604 Avenue H East • Arlington, TX 76011-3100, USA1.817.640.6166 or 1.800. ANALYSIS • www.decisionanalyst.comCopyright © 2003 Decision Analyst. All rights reserved.