Innovation of Alessi

Design Driven Innovation – Alessi An HBS case, powerpoint by Wesley Shu, Ph.D.

Why Alessi?

Michael Graves’ Model 9093

Sold in Costco 好事多 for NT$3,000+

Common Design Principles

Alessi Does not follow any of them.

Tech push: an improvement in performance and functionality dictates a modification in design

market pull: the design accommodates consumers' demand for new features .

Open Innovation – P&G , IBM, Intel, etc.

Alessi’s Design Principle

R&D operation: in which a community of architects, suppliers, critics, publishers, artists, designers, and others immerse themselves in a discourse about the role, identity, and meaning of a product well before they address its form.

I call it “Network Effect of Design”

IDEO: outsourced to design studio

Benefit

The products that result often represent a dramatic break from their predecessors

giving them longer commercial lives

creating high consumer expectations for the brand's future offerings.

Advantage of Lombardy

the number and quality of the links between components of the design system, such as schools, studios, and manufacturers

strong on imagination and motivation--qualities within reach of any group of businesses

Model 9093 – a kettle

Designed by Michael Graves

Knockoff by Target

Mystery: Alessi, based in Lombardy, Italy, continued to sell at prices 5 times higher

CSF of Alessi – management of innovation – an Engine of Innovation

Alessi’s Engine of Innovation

Process

Executives, not artists or artisans

Design-driven innovation

Broadened people’s expectations of what a kettle was and did, and the nature of the breakfast experience

Long before any thought is given to the form an item will eventually take, its role, identify, and meaning have been thoroughly explored.

reconceptualization of a traditional object

Other examples

Bookworm bookshelf by Kartell

Nokia – mobile phones became accessories, akin to key chains or wallets

Artemide’s Metamorfosi , led by a MD/psychiatrist

iMac

Do We Need Artists to Lead Design? NO

Graves: American architect

Alessi: Lawyer

Gismondi, Chairman of Artemide: aerospace engineer

Not all are Italian either

Why Architect

The repercussions of a shift in an object's design and meaning explain in part why the Lombardy group shows a special preference for architects

Architects are in the business of creating environments.

Also know that most buildings will outlive the tenancy of their present owners, which compels them to envision the way of life of future generations who will take up residence there.

Design-driven innovation – How?

Distant culture and social current alerted designers

Envisioning the way of life of future generations

Combination of aspects of the local and the global

Guns, Germs, and Steel

蒼茫大地，誰主浮沈？我們從歷史研究中期望發現的，是不受時空侷限的睿見；我們想要捉摸的是人類存在的本質。……戴蒙事實上強調的是：人類歷史發展的動力，來自不同個體、不同社群的互動。

Lombardy, what are NOT CSF

Italian

Artists

Schools

Manufacturers

Studios

Since everywhere has them

Three-phase process of design-driven innovation

Absorb

Interpret

Address

Absorb

Entrepreneurs, designers, etc., from different background to discuss trends, styles, materials, technology, etc.

Exhibitions

Design journals to debate future of design

Alberto Alessi then recognized a sharply new design language was needed - architects to develop the new vocabulary and grammar – Tea & Coffee Piazza Project

They focused on communicativeness & evocativeness, ignoring cost & functionality

Absorb

“ It is easy to make a list of the top ten designers of the past ten years. But I'm virtually certain that fewer than half of them will be among the top ten designers of the next ten years.”

Absorb

“ By then, their language won’t be novel anymore, or will be widely imitated. Also, their interest and vitality may fade. Sometimes, too, they are spoiled by success.”

Interpret

11 architects to design new kettles, focused on evocativeness and communicativeness

The prototypes were exhibited in museums

Limited editions were sold to museums

Books about the prototypes to extended design community

Exhibitions in high-end department stores

Invited comments

Graves modified, based on cost and functionality

Model 9093

Its broad base: facilitated rapid heating

its visible rivets: recalled a kind of vintage artisanship

its superimposed plastic handle in cool blue: was decorative as well as heat-resistant

its little bird: flew in the face of modernism's insistence on abstract form, earned it the highest rating in Alessi's history.

Compared with Model 9091

Sapper's model 9091 kettle emits two low, harmonizing whistles evoking ships passing in the night

Address

After 9093 launched, another round of exhibition

Because advertising is not the ideal explanatory medium, little of it was done.

Continuing to talk and write about the product

Own outlets to control the presentation and underline the traits

Heavy literature came with the products

After the Kettle

Affective impact of form – evoke childhood pleasures and sensations – security blanket

design objects for grownups that would directly appeal to their impulse to invest possessions with personal meaning.

After the Kettle

Stefano Giovannoni’s Nutcracker

After the Kettle

Alessandro Mendini’s Corkscrews: Anna G. & Beijing

After the Kettle

Worried that the ideas underlying the items generated by the Tea and Coffee Piazza had become too familiar after being copied by other companies, Alessi launched a new project called Tea and Coffee Towers in 2001. (The one before was called Tea and Coffee Piazza.)