The Next Big Idea is the Little Idea

April 9, 2009 4:09 PM

By Guy Sealey, Creative Director/Digital Strategy, The Halo Group

Each with unique circumstances, there are many reasons why a brand doesn’t evolve to take advantage of new market opportunities. It may be that the brand lacks clarity of vision or is just unwilling to defy category convention. It may well be it is looking hard for the “Next Big Idea” and missing the one right in front of it. Brands need to know why they are missing opportunities and analyzing them is a good thing. But, seeking out the easiest opportunities may be more useful.

In the old days — circa 1994 and before — brand communication with the world consisted of brands telling consumers who they were, what they stood for, and how the consumer should use their product or service. Consumers were more or less left to decide if they believed the brand issuing the edict or not, and that was the end of the dialogue. Brands told consumers what to think. It was a one-way street of communication.

That all changed with mobile phones and the internet. Suddenly, a second lane, one that challenged the one-way street of brand communication, was opened up. This second lane is the lane in which consumers control the brand through discussions between themselves in the interactive space. It is also a lane in which consumers tell brands directly what they are thinking.

This lane represents the biggest opportunity for brands: LISTENING and WATCHING what is being said about them, and then REACTING directly to the online chatter. The internet represents one huge feedback loop for the brand that is paying attention. No longer does a brand have to solicit surveys from consumers. On a daily basis, a brand can follow what consumers want and expect from it and then not only modify its messaging, but also change its behavior accordingly. It can make incremental improvements to either its service or product offerings based on what customers actually want.

Look at the online shoe seller Zappos, for example, and how it expanded on what it sells. The redesign of their user interface in 2008, and the expanded categories (like small electronics and cookware) are based on the company’s mind-set of finding out what the customer wants and then figuring out the best way to deliver that. CEO Tony Hsieh has said that Zappos has branched out based on what its customers would like to see from them. “If they say, ‘I wish you would sell this because I just had a horrible experience somewhere else,’ we’ll look into it.”*

In another example, Apple, notorious for not using public mediums to get feedback about its products, has recently done just that. The company conducted online surveys about Apple TV among that product’s users, partly to understand what can be changed about it, but mostly to better understand how to build more consumer interest in the device. Apple’s next big breakthrough for Apple TV may come from user feedback, either in the form of product updates or in terms of the user group understanding.

A brand can also quietly and smartly enter its customers’ dialogue in tweets and blog postings from Facebook to Ning. This is where the next big idea lies, indeed, the big idea, which is really the incremental changes that a brand makes in response to what its customers really want.

(see Apple article: http://www.edibleapple.com/apple-conducts-survey-about-apple-tv-asks-users-for-input/

*Margaret Kane for CNET newsblog April 18th, 2008 http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9921188-7.html

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