Southwest Airlines tried something new when it decided to create an airline based on a new low cost model and employees who were cheerful and funny. Amazon.com took risks when it created an all online mega store. eBay was also an entirely new concept. Industry insiders laughed at GEICO when it began advertising so heavily with a gecko spokesperson. Uber thought out-of-the box when it created its new model for paid vehicular transportation. Wegmans has a history of constantly trying new things and integrating them if they work and abandoning them if they don't. Tesla started a new car company based on the concept of an all electric luxury car. And they decided not to sell through dealerships. CarMax created an entirely new model for selling used cars. Abercrombie & Fitch repositioned itself from a staid century-old upscale sporting goods store to a hip clothing store targeted at the teenage market.
Not all risks pay off. Saturn was a different kind of car company and a different kind of car but when it got integrated back into GM mainstream, it began to fail. Song Airlines, a Delta Airlines startup, was designed as a lifestyle brand targeting stylish hip professional women and focused on creating a new culture in flying. It started at the worst possible time for airlines, post 9/11.
My point with each of these brands is that wildly successful brands (and some that fail) usually step out of the box, break the industry mold and take risks. As a brand, you cannot win by doing what everyone else in your product categories is doing.
I can't tell you how many clients have said to me, "But if we do that, we would be taking huge risks. No one else in the industry has ever done that before." I have also heard the following: "We just don't know how to do that." "That is not our area of expertise." "But then we would be entering a new product category." "Our shareholders would not allow that." "That is just too risky. What if we fail?" Gambling establishments are quick to point out that "you can't win if you don't play." The same holds true for brands. If you are unwilling to take any risks, it is almost certain that you will not stand out as a brand. In fact, every single brand that was successful over the history of commerce took a significant number of risks to achieve their success. That is just how it works.
If you are unwilling to take at least calculated risks, your brand will never achieve the highly successful differentiation you would seek for it.
Disruption: inducing radical and sudden change; a radical change in an industry, business strategy, etc., especially involving the introduction or a new product or service that creates a new market.
The Internet was perhaps the most disruptive development. Timesharing was a disruptive concept in many industries. Low-cost airlines (Southwest Airlines, JetBlue, etc.) disrupted legacy carriers (United Airlines, American Airlines, etc.). ATMs made it much easier for consumers to bank 24/7. Amazon.com disrupted Borders and other brick and mortar bookstores. Some would claim that Amazon.com is beginning to disrupt Wal-Mart. eBay and Craigslist have disrupted traditional classified ads. Netflix disrupted Blockbuster. Digital photography (invented at Kodak) disrupted Kodak's film-based photography. SmartPhone cameras have changed the way people take pictures. Electronic greeting cards are disrupting traditional greeting cards. CarMax was intended to disrupt traditional used car dealers. Uber is disrupting traditional taxi service. Airbnb is disrupting the hospitality market. SmartPhones have made traditional phones obsolete. They are also making major inroads in the the markets for other computing devices.
Match.com, eHarmony.com and other dating websites have changed the way we find romantic partners. Online universities are intended to disrupt traditional colleges and universities. All-electric cars (such as Tesla) will eventually disrupt gasoline powered cars. And more powerful batteries/energy storage will elevate electricity as an energy source. Artificially intelligent medical diagnosis software is projected to radically change the role of the internal medicine doctor. Big data is radically changing the way marketing is executed. Facebook is changing the degree to which customer targeting can occur.
Nanotechnology makes devices and components significantly cheaper, faster and more functional. 3D printing will be disruptive to many industries. Photonics is radically changing the traditional semiconductor world. Cloud services are changing the way we back up computers. Crowd sourcing is changing the way people raise money for projects. The Square and similar devices have made it much easier and less expensive for anyone to accept credit cards as a form of payment. Alta Devices is making it easier to embed thin, flexible solar panels into any device or material.
Is your brand defined in a way that it can transcend and incorporate disruptive technologies? Or is it so linked to an approach or technology that could be obsolete that it will die with the old approach or technology? Further, are people in your organization willing to make their current approaches or technologies obsolete with the latest disruptive technology or are they fighting the disruptive technology all the way to maximize profits until the business and brand crashes and burns. This is something worth thinking about.
