Don’t Just Innovate. Challenge Everyday Notions of Value.

Douglas Holt

<article-ideainbrief class="article-ideainbrief">
 <h4 class="ideainbrief-title">Idea in Brief</h4>
 <div class="ideainbrief-contents">
  <h5>The Context</h5>
  <p>Most companies take a “better mousetraps” approach to innovation, improving a product’s functionality—with only average results.</p>
  <h5>A Different Approach</h5>
  <p>A few take a cultural innovation approach instead, first identifying a weakness in the existing category and then reinventing the category’s ideology and symbolism.</p>
  <h5>The Results</h5>
  <p>The Ford Explorer, for example, replaced the boring “mom mobile” minivan as America’s favorite family car with a promise of excitement, adventure, and glamour—even though the SUV wasn’t a technically superior vehicle.</p>
 </div>
</article-ideainbrief><p>Building the next billion-dollar innovation is an irresistible goal. To&nbsp;get a leg up, many companies now emulate the innovation model perfected in the tech sector. Procter &amp; Gamble, for example, pursues what it calls <em>constructive disruption.</em> The company has designed its innovation process like a start-up’s, with a venture lab that pulls in tech entrepreneurs and a lean probe-and-learn prototyping process.</p>

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<p>Companies struggle with innovation because they put all their chips on one innovation paradigm&#8212;what Holt calls <em>better mousetraps.</em> This is innovation as conceived by engineers and economists&#8212;a race to create the killer value proposition. It wins on functionality, convenience, reliability, price, or user experience.</p>
<p>Fortunately, building better mousetraps is not the only way to innovate. In consumer markets, innovation often proceeds according to a logic Holt calls <em>cultural innovation.</em> Better-mousetraps innovation is organized by quantitative ambitions: Outdo your competitors on existing notions of value. Cultural innovation operates according to qualitative ambitions: Change the understanding of what is considered valuable.</p>
<p>Holt&#8217;s research and consulting reveal the strategic principles that allow companies to pursue cultural innovation. In this article he explores those principles using the stories of how the Ford Explorer reinvented the family car and how Blue Buffalo reinvented the ideology of dog food.</p>

Cultural Innovation

Companies struggle with innovation because they put all their chips on one innovation paradigm—what Holt calls better mousetraps. This is innovation as conceived by engineers and economists—a race to create the killer value proposition. It wins on functionality, convenience, reliability, price, or user experience. Fortunately, building better mousetraps is not the only way to innovate. In consumer markets, innovation often proceeds according to a logic Holt calls cultural innovation. Better-mousetraps innovation is organized by quantitative ambitions: Outdo your competitors on existing notions of value. Cultural innovation operates according to qualitative ambitions: Change the understanding of what is considered valuable. Holt’s research and consulting reveal the strategic principles that allow companies to pursue cultural innovation. In this article he explores those principles using the stories of how the Ford Explorer reinvented the family car and how Blue Buffalo reinvented the ideology of dog food.

Cultural Innovation

Summary.

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