Creative Matters: Finding New Markets For Your Tech Brand
Going global with a Blue Ocean mindset
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Let’s face it. It’s a bloody shark tank out there. Tech brands engage in a fierce battle for consumer attention today. Markets are over saturated, and competition is brutal. Any product with a weak brand charisma is essentially a commodity. And commodities only sell over price. It’s a downward spiral that nobody wins.
What if you could jump out of the shark tank and consistently develop new business where there is little to no competition? Intriguing, isn’t it? In this article let me explain a few steps to developing new ideas that help lead a business out of the competitive waters and into a new space where the competition is mostly irrelevant. It’s known as the Blue Ocean Strategy.
Introduction to the Blue Ocean idea
Blue Ocean Strategy is a book published in 2005 and written by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, Professors at INSEAD. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves spanning more than a hundred years and thirty industries, Kim and Mauborgne argue that companies can succeed not by battling competitors (shark tank =bloody fights), but rather by creating blue oceans of uncontested market space. They are stating that these strategic moves increase the brand value, while unlocking new markets and rendering the competition irrelevant.
How do we get there? Kim and Mauborgne teach that the pathway to successful innovation lies in creating a unique combination of one to four things to the attributes of your brand, in short:
The Four Steps:
Step 1: Raise An Attribute
Innovation still is a key driver for successful brands. The disrupt/connect model is always based on innovative products or services. Only today innovation very much happens in nuances. I want to say, that life changing technological revolutions won’t happen much anymore with all the advances of the past 50 years. (But I may be wrong. At some point people probably said the same about horse carriages and type writers). Raising an attribute is still what differentiates same products. Innovation, added features, improved functionality, efficiency.. it’s what drives progress — and opens new markets.
A classic example by now is Apple’s success. It is very much based on the fact that each of their products with its added value has always disrupted an established market. The iMac opened up computer technology to consumers, which prior to was the exclusive domain ruled by IBM’s business machines. The iPod offered a music download service as a new feature and an instant gratification. No more buying CDs and ripping. That service, iTunes eventually became so successful, it killed the traditional music distribution system. Now, the latest example, the iWatch (after a rocky start) is bound to shake up again the way we look at information, from fitness, health to appointments — and who knows what else will come out of this raise.
Step 2: Reduce An Attribute
In some cases, especially with regards to disruptive situations, reducing the performance level of a particular attribute or functionality with a less is more approach can be the right strategy. Again, Apple serves as a good example here. Steve Jobs was known for being a dictator when it came to usability and functionality of their products. The simplicity of the iPhone’s home button he insisted on was a huge challenge for the developers, but it helped to catapult the device into the best selling league. Reduction and a simplistic user interface is was what made it so desirable.
Steve Jobs was know for saying: “It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions.” Consequently, Apple’s first marketing campaign proclaimed in 1977, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
If you think about the idea of reduction in light of Disruptive Innovation you start to see an interesting corollary. In Disruptive Innovation a product reaches a point where it is over serving the majority of its intended users. If you can identify the specific features or benefits that are over served, using Blue Ocean strategy principles you will find out which feature or redundancy to reduce and what the overall product/benefit profile should look like.
Step 3: Eliminate An Attribute
Sometimes the best thing to do with an existing idea is eliminate components and think through what could emerge. Apple famously has a history of moving technologies on their descendant out of their way to make room for the new. The iMac was introduced in 1998 as the first all-in-one Macintosh to have a USB port but no floppy disc drive. Subsequently, all Macs have included USB though never again would the company design another Mac with an awkwardly unreliable floppy drive. A shock for consumers. But eventually people got used it. Then, on June 15, 2010, Apple dropped a built-in optical drive from all versions of the Mac mini to introduce other perks in place of it, like a Thunderbolt port. Another fire storm in the media.
Now, do we miss the CD drives today? I doubt. Video Killed The Radio Star again, here the Internet and fast download speeds made optical drives obsolete. It’s just one logical step after another to keep products fresh and up to date — or even ahead of the curve. Always question the status quo.
The most important thing about the idea of eliminate is to think through it with a clean slate perspective. In other words, don’t get caught in the trap of thinking that you must leverage your existing resources with every new idea. The reason this is a trap for established brands is because new startups don’t have those constraints and often can come up with vastly better ideas that ignore existing business models or resources.
Step 4: Create An Attribute
Another tool in the Blue Ocean strategy framework is the idea of creating a new value driver for the brand in question. When Airbnb introduced their room sharing service, they offered a new way to stay in a foreign city, as an alternative to the sterility and anonymity of hotels. By allowing private home owners to share their homes, it added a very personal experience to it, by connecting the traveler with a local guy not only through shared interests but also with someone who is familiar with the location and its offerings. It made visiting a new city almost like visiting an old friend.
Applying any or a combination of those steps will help boost a brand. It pays to analyze your idea carefully.
Examples of Blue Ocean strategy
One popular example of Blue Ocean strategy is Cirque du Soleil. By introducing a completely new format to the traditional circus model of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, Cirque du Soleil achieved revenues in a short period of time what it took the old-schoolers more than a century to attain.
“Cirque did not make its money by competing within the confines of the existing industry or by stealing customers from Ringling and the others, instead, it created uncontested market space that made the competition irrelevant. It pulled in a whole new group of customers who were traditionally non-customers of the industry — adults and corporate clients who had turned to theater, opera or ballet and were, therefore, prepared to pay several times more than the price of a conventional circus ticket for an unprecedented entertainment experience.” (Kim and Mauborgne for Harvard Business Review Magazine)
Southwest Airlines is another example of a successful blue ocean strategy at work. Southwest targeted a customer base who typically preferred driving to air travel due to the lower cost. Instead of competing with other airlines, Southwest positioned itself as an alternative to driving and offered rock-bottom fares, comfortable check-in times and (legendary) friendly flight attendants.
With Blue Ocean strategy, entrepreneurs are able to systematically think through ways to add value to their brand versus the competition. Obviously with each idea generated, more analysis would be necessary to validate whether those specific ideas are valuable to customers, but the Blue Ocean strategy provides a quick and approach to new ideas, innovation — and it opens doors to new markets.
One more thing. When you’re out there on that ocean: Be a pirate, not a sailor.
Marc Posch, Creative Director, Principal. Swiss born, German raised, LA based.
Marc Posch Design, Inc, Los Angeles. Brand Consulting and Design. A team of creatives, thinkers and developers. We are known for helping emerging tech and manufacturing companies to disrupt, stand out and grow. With our experience, deep industry expertise and all the collaborators to make it happen, we inspire success.
To find out more about what we can do for your business call 213.341.1642. For more visit marcposchdesign.com. Thank you.
