brand driven innovation

“Innovation is to organisations what personal growth is to individuals: a natural drive and a response to a constantly changing world.
Personal growth is rewarding, fruitful and satisfying when it stems from the individual’s unique personality, when it is rooted firmly in its core. In much the same way, innovation should stem from the organisation’s unique core. We call this core the brandâ€?.


What is Brand Driven Innovation?

BDI is a vision on the domains of branding, innovation and design, connecting the three in a manner that creates value and meaning for organisations and consumers.
BDI is based on the understanding that:
1. the focus of branding should not be the creation and communication of the brand promise, but its fulfilment.
2. The true value of the brand lies in the interaction the users have with the brand’s touchpoints.
3. Both the organisation and the consumer are users of the brand.
4. The focus of innovation should be the building of meaningful relationships between products/services and their users.
5. these relationships can only be unique and authentic if they are driven by the organisation’s unique identity and vision on its stakeholders and its context.

Brand Driven Innovation is also a working method for fulfilling brand promise through innovation. The method sets out to build the right conditions, strategies and tactics to create meaningful brand interactions. These interactions become tangible through the creation of consistent design carriers.

Why Brand Driven Innovation?

The implementation of Brand Driven Innovation in your organisation has many benefits. These benefits can be mapped in four domains: that of the organisation, the consumer, the brand and the product.

Benefits for the organisation:
1. Innovation is like personal growth: it is rewarding, fruitful and satisfying when it stems from a unique personality, when it is rooted firmly in a core. We call this core the brand.
2. Brand equity increases when the organisation’s products and services fulfill the brand’s promise.
3. Budget allocated to product/service innovation has a larger positive effect on consumer behaviour than the same amount allocated to advertising or other marketing communication efforts.
4. Only internal innovation drivers (eg the brand) set the organisation apart form its competition. External drivers like market developments, trends new technology or user insights only become unique when filtered through the organisation’s vision.
5. Designers, engineers, researchers and developers will be more effective and satisfied when their work is based on a shared vision.
6. The brand focusses the organisation’s innovation efforts and facilitates choice. By creating a brand that is used throughout the company as an engine for growth, a fertile corporate culture is created.

Benefits for the consumer:
1. consumers derive more satisfaction from brands that connect to them through meaningful products/services than from brands that claim their stake through advertising.
2. consumers are looking for integrated experiences where brand, product and service form one inspiring whole.
3. brands that can be translated into meaningful products/services must be based on deep user insights.

Benefits for the brand:
1. A brand that keeps its promise deserves loyalty.
2. Building brands through advertising is taking the long road. Building brands through meaningful innovations is much more effective.
3. The brand’s true value lies in the interaction between the user of the brand and its touchpoints. Innovative products are the brand’s most vital touchpoint.
4. A brand becomes more valuable as a business asset if it is used as a driver for the organisation’s growth, rather than just a tool for communication.

Benefits for the product:
1. a product innovation that finds its source in a strong brand will be more authentic and rooted than one that is based on merely external drivers.
2. a product that has a brand’s story behind it will lead to stronger and more sustainable product-user relationships

How does Brand Driven Innovation work?

The brand driven innovation process will be unique for every organisation, but the main underlying structure remains the same. It consists of three stages:

Stage 1: Brand formatting.
• Content: making the brand suitable for innovation and design. Rooting the brand firmly and making it usable, both for internal (engineers, researchers, designers) and for external (consumers, retailers) users.
• Methodology: Decoding and reconstructing the brand by making use of participative and generative research techniques. Again both internal and external stakeholders are involved in this process.
• Deliverable: new brand format based on user interaction insights.

Stage 2: Innovation and design strategy.
• Content: Bringing the brand to life in innovation and design. Fulfilling the brand’s promise in a sustainable way.
• Methodology: creating strategic innovation roadmaps and scenarios. The brand in its new format is used as a filter for existing innovation drivers, and a source of inspiration for new innovation opportunities. Translatin interaction insights into behaviour.
• Deliverable: multi-year innovation and design strategy.

Stage 3: Innovation- and design management.
• Content: managing the transition of the innovation and design strategy into tangible and consistent design carriers covering all brand touchpoints, thus creating a relevant and valuable product/service experience for the consumer.
• Methodology: multidisciplinary design management and continuous benchmarking to the brand. Brand driven design. Designest as multidisciplinary think&do tank.
• Deliverable: Rollout of innovation and design strategy over all brand touchpoints.

Who can benefit from Brand Driven Innovation?

BDI was originally developed for organisations involved in the development and marketing of durable consumer goods. First results indicate however that organisations involved in services and fast moving consumer goods can equally benefit from it. Current research is also exploring the benefits of BDI in a business to business context.
In this light, BDI can be a valuable approach for any organisation that believes int the potential of branding, innovation and design, and that aspires to connect to its clients in a meaningful and inspiring way.

Sources: see literature references

Brand driven innovation is a Zilver brand driven innovation trademark.

© Zilver brand driven innovation tm 2007