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1. The Fat Snake
and the Dumbbell

2. The Fat Snake
and the Dumbbell
This semantic separation of
‘better’ from ‘new’ is critically
important in any form of
new product development.
The former is a path to self-
sustaining excellence and
brand reputation. The latter is a
method of occasionally refreshing
your product line-up, without
necessarily establishing strong
brand equities and longevity.
One has a mid -to long- term
direction; one hasn’t, necessarily.
Confidential. © Seymour Powell Limited, 2010. All rights reserved.

3. Innovation. ‘network’ or whatever you call it) and out comes
a great new product.
One of those words that you are sure you know
the meaning of, right until you sit down and think If that were true, then you’d be coming up with
about it. Is it a noun or a verb? Is it a finished brilliant new products all the time.
‘thing’ or something you’re going to do?
Either way, you know you need a bunch of But it isn’t. And you’re not.
whatever it is, otherwise your boss wouldn’t
have been telling you how you need a lot more So, back to innovation. The word itself comes
of it for at least five years now… And you’re from the Latin ‘nova’, which means new - literally
pretty sure you need some innovation in order the act of creating the new. But ‘new’ is a highly
to get it. But what the hell is it? subjective concept. In my experience, very few
ideas are truly new. The truly new is corrosive
I’ve counted more books on airport bookstands and disruptive. Ideas may be new to the
about innovation recently than even those on person, category or industry receiving them and
macroeconomics and global financial suicide. that’s fine, but you’re not actually looking for the
I’ve sat through countless conferences on it and totally new here, usually. And if you were, you’d
I’ve come to a dreadful conclusion: most of never get your new product or service off the
what I hear and read about it seems to be ground in the first place. Why? Because, if
regurgitated hogwash, propagated by people you’re like most businesses, those consumers
who have realised that making a list of ‘10 you put into a focus group as part of your
critical innovation success factors’, and touring pipeline of development won’t recognise your
it on the lecture circuit, is a much easier way of ‘new’, so you’ll get poor scores and your boss
making money than actually innovating. will tell you not to do it. And the ‘new’ is untried
and therefore very ‘risky’ (aha, another one of
Eventually, I realised what’s going on here. those words your boss hates), so that’ll stop it
Each of these books, or prophets or medicine- in its tracks too.
show hucksters is generally making the same
simple error: that the process of coming up with In fact, it’s very likely that your entire business is
a brilliant, unexpected and relevant new idea – structured specifically to do what it was doing
and then actually putting it into production – can yesterday, but with a little twist, so you can keep
actually be codified, made into an equation; that investment to a minimum whilst getting the most
it can be reduced to a single, linear process, out of what you do already, and calling it new.
where you chuck anything or anyone into the Be honest. Why would you do anything new if
product development funnel (or ‘pipeline’ or you could sell the same stuff year in, year out at
Confidential. © Seymour Powell Limited, 2010. All rights reserved.

4. a great profit? Maybe the only reason you’re or something that adds another bullet on the
looking for new is that your ‘old’ has stopped packaging, as in: ‘Hey look, it does this and
working, or you think it’s in danger of doing so. this’. The communication tail was wagging the
Or because a competitor is eating your lunch. product dog.
Anyway, new on its own isn’t that useful really,
because new rapidly becomes old. And if new What Tefal got, however, was a feature and a
is all you got, you have to do another new very benefit: the world’s first cordless kettle. Yes, the
quickly just to stay up there. one you have at home. A quarter of a century
on, over 80 per cent of electric kettles sold in
‘Better’ is much more useful. Europe use that idea. The reason for this is that
a cordless kettle is better than one with the
cable stuck up its kazoo.
But sometimes, better takes time to sink in.
Only when used were the benefits of a cordless
Completely new doesn’t happen kettle fully revealed. Yet the need for it was
very often in big companies already written into human behaviour. You only
had to watch people pulling the lead out of the
– especially manufacturing back of a conventional kettle, instead of
companies – because they switching it off at the mains, to realise that we
are not set up for it. And the were all breaking the rules. We were doing what
we do as adaptive organisms – working around
‘incremental new’ seldom problems. And this behaviour has the habit of
contains a vision of where the covering up glaring inadequacies in the system.
incremental changes are leading, This semantic separation of ‘better’ from ‘new’
so things tend to stay the same. is critically important in any form of new product
development. The former is a path to self-
sustaining excellence and brand reputation.
Twenty-six years ago, Tefal asked The latter is a method of occasionally refreshing
Seymourpowell to come up with a new kettle your product line-up without necessarily
that had a feature in the design. Not a benefit: establishing strong brand equities and longevity.
a feature. The whole marketing mechanism One has a mid -to long- term direction; one
suddenly jumped into sharp relief for me. hasn’t, necessarily. But this is where things start
A feature is something that you can talk about to get a little difficult. Demonstrating ‘new’ to a
Confidential. © Seymour Powell Limited, 2010. All rights reserved.

5. focus group is a relatively straightforward thing there isn’t something lurking in the future that
to do, but obtaining useful metrics on what changes the game. If you’re in the dishwasher-
someone will want two years from now tablet business right now, you are probably
(determining whether the new is relevant, which making reasonable money out of it in the
is the point of the research) is a different matter western world. But what if, as has happened in
altogether. As Steve Jobs, the mercurial doyen Japan, some smart-arse designs a machine
of Apple, once said: that uses ultrasound rather than surfactant to
clean the plates? Then you could be plumb out
‘It’s not the consumer’s job to know what they’re of luck, because you own only half the problem.
going to want, it’s my job.’
But most businesses are systemically resistant
This from the man who, single-handed, to change. Consider the shampoo example.
reinvented the retail music industry right under Forty years ago there was something called
the noses of those whose lunch it most certainly shampoo. Then someone said ‘This is cleaning
was. the hair, but it’s also stripping off the natural oils
that make the hair shine and look good…so let’s
The problem, for those trying to create ‘better’,
is that very few people are capable of projecting
their needs into an imagined, future world that is
slightly different from the present, and in which
their requirements may have shifted.
Great products, and services,
The other form of ‘better’ – the incremental are those that are desirable and
improvement of the existing – is usually easier to
deal with. A new shampoo that makes your hair relevant. Not just new. They
15 per cent more shiny than the last one is have an underlying ethos, which
easily understood and it scarcely rocks the
boat. And people will still have hair ten years
is usually about being better in
from now, so the problem is the same in the some way. The Dumbbell lets us
future as it is now, yes? So if we tackle the get to the better, by making sure
issue incrementally, we’ll still have a shampoo
business ten years from now, won’t we? Yes, we always know what is really
unless a competitor produces a way of cleaning needed and desired.
hair that doesn’t need a shampoo, or even
water, for that matter. Incremental only works if
Confidential. © Seymour Powell Limited, 2010. All rights reserved.

6. put them back again!’ And conditioner was something big: a thin line with a big bulge in the
born. After this, you could sell two things middle. Many companies crank up a new
instead of just one. Magic. But since then? programme with very little idea of where they
may be going with it. They trundle along, doing
Nada. the easy stuff (brief writing, stake holder
interviews, proposed network etc), then arrive at
The hair washing/conditioning process is ripe the hard bit: coming up with actual ideas and
for a complete reinvention, so why does it not researching them. This is the bulge in the
happen? Not because there isn’t a brilliant, snake. Here, each incremental step in the
sustainable, morally defensible, cash-generating process is chopped up, stuck on a board,
alternative concept available, but because the exposed to ‘consumers’, re-hashed, re-
Big Goo companies are set up specifically to exposed to consumers, beaten and banjaxed
make lots of what they already make. And they and then, finally, set off into the marketplace.
have Business Categories that want things to
stay nearly the same. And the big retailers have From that point on you lose interest and set off
shelf categories specifically set up to go on on the journey all over again (or rather, the
receiving things that are nearly the same... person who takes over your job does). That’s
the thin bit after the fat bit on the snake. But the
Completely new doesn’t happen very often in product is a mish-mash of confused messages
big companies – especially manufacturing and opinions, led by the very people you
companies – because they are not set up for it. thought you were appealing to. And notice that
And the ‘incremental new’ seldom contains a no knowledge passes into the system.. The
vision of where the incremental changes are business suffers from ‘corporate amnesia’ and
leading, so things tend to stay the same. Add to probably ends up repeating the mistake over
this the fact that the average marketeer is only in and over again.
their job for about 18 months before they jump
ship and you realise that there’s often no one Sound familiar?
with the will to make big changes anyway.
The alternative to this process is the Dumbbell
So how do the really clever people get – a thin line with a big bulge at each end. In this
over this? scenario, you begin by finding out as much as
By using the Dumbbell, not the Fat Snake. you possibly can about the habits, motives,
dreams and desires of your target market.
Imagine your typical new product development When you’ve got a really clear idea of exactly
process is shaped like a snake that’s swallowed what they are really looking for or need (the first
Confidential. © Seymour Powell Limited, 2010. All rights reserved.

7. dumbbell), you run fast and true to develop and But this time, the village is the world.
create the solution and you get it out there in If you’re not better, there is nowhere to hide.
the marketplace (the thin bit). Then you start But if you truly are better, people will get to hear
your real research again, with the actual product about it. The more you spend on getting the
in the hands of the purchaser. Only then can product or service better, the less you’ll have to
they really tell you what they like and don’t like spend on shouting about it, because somebody
about it. You do a lot of this and get a very clear else will do it for you – your consumer.
idea of what is needed next. Then you drop this
knowledge (the second ball) into the first ball on So let’s be better. The Latin for better is ‘melior’.
the dumbbell and start all over again, this time
with real, honest-to-goodness truth behind you. Innovation is dead.
Every time you repeat this, you enlarge the
observatory of knowledge you’ve been building. Long live amelioration.
This is exactly what the most quoted example of
successful innovation – Apple – does
continually. It may take Apple just 16 months to
put a new product into production, but it’s been
planned for years. Apple’s not adapting to
competitive changes in the market, but taking If you’re not better, there is
control of its own future, leaving competitors nowhere to hide. But if you
rocking in the jet-wash of its impudence. It’s
leading. And each step is better than the last, truly are better, people will get
because they know where they’re going. to hear about it. The more you
Great products, and services, are those that are
spend on getting the product or
desirable and relevant. Not just new. They have service better, the less you’ll have
an underlying ethos, which is usually about to spend on shouting about it,
being better in some way. The Dumbbell lets us
get to the better, by making sure we always
because somebody else will do it
know what is really needed and desired. for you – your consumer.
And 21st century marketing is about being
better. We are back to the Middle Ages in
communication terms: if the blacksmith in the
village is crap we all know immediately. To find out more please contact
design@seymourpowell.com
Confidential. © Seymour Powell Limited, 2010. All rights reserved.