This is part three of a six-part series. Earlier this year, just as the COVID pandemic was hitting the United States, we spoke with business leaders across industries, asking them to share their goals and challenges for their organizations as well as for themselves. Amid the surge of change since our conversations, these challenges have come front and center for any brand in the throes of disruption. Download the entire series in one PDF here.
Necessity is the mother of invention, so the proverb goes. And plenty has been said already about how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace of innovation and digitally transformed businesses through sheer necessity. Impossible Burger fast-tracked a new direct-to-consumer (DTC) platform. The restaurant industry pivoted entire business models. In general, the pace of change has been head-spinning. Indeed, our own WPP CEO Mark Read has remarked that “we have witnessed a decade’s innovation in a few short weeks.”
When speaking to a cohort of cross-industry marketing leaders prepandemic, we heard them consistently refer to opportunities they were seeing to galvanize a culture that incentivized and rewarded innovation. Trying new things is often an uncertain and uncomfortable game, particularly when the Street demands short-term returns on proven models. One leader put the challenge beautifully and simply, saying, to emphasize the importance of exploring new opportunities: “We need a ‘white space’ quota.”
It’s clear that these leaders were looking to stay one step ahead, running companies that were not waiting for necessity to force their hand. As recent events have unfolded, we believe they are well-placed to navigate the upset. They spoke of the watch-outs, whether within their own organizations or from past experiences, and we discussed how companies spend too much time looking inward, rather than outward. Too much time delivering what customers want today, not what they’ll need tomorrow. Too much time focused on margins on their current business, not the profit-drivers of the future.
This hamster wheel can be paralyzing. If madness is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome, sanity might be found following the advice of one of our participants, who looked for partners — both internal and external — that could truly push people out of their comfort zones. “We value partners that deliver new types of thinking that leads us to new outcomes — not just a presentation deck.”
“New thinking” can take many forms, of course. Sometimes innovation is used as a synonym for digital transformation, which is at the heart of many businesses’ growth strategies today. But our interviewees saw innovation as much broader than that, invoking its necessity in all kinds of critical endeavors, whether product development, customer acquisition and experience design, or taking the entire organization in a new direction. Whatever your business’s most pressing need, our conversations helped us identify three habits that can help infuse a culture of innovation throughout your organization.
Make the pursuit of innovation a business mandate, not a hobby
Innovation, as we said, needs to be institutionalized. Formalize and protect the moonshot-esque initiatives, ensuring that they have adequate resources and C-suite engagement. It’s this type of rigor that will drive enterprisewide change that has business impact. In contrast, organizational structures that refer to “core,” “adjacent,” and “far out” create bias that kills disruptive thinking through a kind of nominative determinism. And the lingua franca of “skunkworks” and “innovation labs” can create a dangerous perception that whatever happens there is less than business-critical. When belts tighten, as they inevitably will, one guess as to which budgets disappear. But if we formalize innovation and invite the C-suite in, do we lose freedom and creativity? Not if leaders understand their roles in upholding innovation.
Innovate outside the box by broadening your aperture
As one of our interviewees said so poetically, “Recognizing the need to change isn’t synonymous with casting judgment on the past.” Oftentimes there can be an unwillingness for leadership to challenge sacred cows that slow the pace of change. Shake off the limitations. What category are you really competing in? Casper is not a mattress producer, it’s a sleep lifestyle brand. Halo Top doesn’t sell ice cream, it’s a purveyor of delicious healthy treats. How would this expanded worldview change how your team thinks about its purpose? What partners would you need, and where would you need to focus?
Imagine a world in which your brand doesn’t exist
What happened? Why did it die? What existential threat is likely in the future — regulatory control, an unseen change in consumer behavior, or even a whole new competitive threat? One participant captured it smartly: “My future competition doesn’t exist today.” Doomsday scenario planning may seem a bit on the nose right now, but allowing ourselves to think of our present as the past helps us abandon short-term, incremental thoughts to truly embrace what a brand can become.
Finally, your brand may, like many, be looking deeply inward at its equity, diversity, and inclusion policies. Do not forget what these measures can mean for your ability to innovate. Diverse teams more closely reflect your current customers — and your prospective customers, too. Inclusion creates a space in which more voices can share their needs and perspectives. And new perspectives inevitably generate new ideas.
At Ogilvy we’re proud to work with some of the world’s most admired brands, helping them seize today and lead the world into tomorrow. Need help making innovation a purposeful practice? We’re here to help.
James Hidden, Managing Director, Ogilvy California
