7 Min Abs – when product innovation goes no where!

In a challenging and changing Retail environment, it seems more and more common that we go with the small bets on product innovation. The safe path of least resistence is well worn and it throttles our living rooms and chokes our retailers shelves daily.

With more and more me too, particularly in the land of copy-cat private label, the sameness is nearly boring us to death.

There is nothing quite like a new product that screams “we thought about your problem, and look what we came up with”, but then again there is almost nothing like this of late.

Some might argue that manufacturers and brand owners are incentivated to play it safe in this highly volatile and fast changing retail climate, whilst many (including myself) say that this is the very time to dig deep and throw the kitchen sink at truly innovative and worthwhile solutions that get bought, talked about and recommended. This is the time to build points of relevance & market leverage.

Every time I think of this situation I am drawn in by a classic reminder that my colleague @phil_bonanno likes to use to describe the phenomenon. When Phil sees mundane product innovation, you’ll hear him yell out across the office: “you beauty, 7 Minute Abs”

I love this example, from the movie, “Something about Mary”, and whilst it’s meant to be funny, its a great reminder to us all in consumer goods marketing, to ask the question; Are we making a difference, or are we making 7 Minute Abs?