The perfect brew. The perfect serve. The perfect product? What’s your definition of the perfect product? Your answer probably covers one of these 2: a product perfect for the users or for the company. But what does this mean? What are the exact prerequisites that define a perfect product? Intangible innovation is the current and new focus of many companies to create special moments with your perfect product.
Higher customer appreciation
From the innovation methodology point-of-view, the perfect product definition might be the following. A product that has a long-term competitive advantage, is difficult to outperform in its user appreciation, and provides a scalable portfolio or road mapped feature set.
For years now, we’ve probably all noticed the further personalization and premiumization of serving and customizing products. They’re more and more focusing on a higher customer appreciation through specific special moments, whether it’s for brewing coffee, thee, or drafting a beer.
What are the innovation principles behind it and can it be applied to doing laundry, washing the dishes, baking bread, … essentially to every product? When answering this question we need to uncover the strategy behind it and see how this trend is evolving. Only then can we aim at creating an even better experience.
Perceived intangible values
The reason why companies increasingly focus on personalization is because it creates better experiences and special, memorable and desirable moments. Both are an intangible way to attract a customer towards buying and using your products (again). This is typically used to create an above-satisfactory or delightful experience (KANO model), and is used when the market is mature, and new additional features aren’t usually valued by end users.
More and more companies discovered intangible innovation and are playing on perceived intangible values such as exclusivity and people’s emotional needs. You might have already heard of the Social Value Pyramid from Harvard Business Review, which illustrates different levels of value here as well. You can use these to create an intangible value creation strategy, beyond premiumization and personalization.