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Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season. Lent involves a time to increase time devoted to prayer and reflection while avoiding the typical distractions of daily life. In what has become an annual Ash Wednesday tradition, I re-share the creativity prayer below written for a creative inspiration presentation several years ago.

Anytime you are mired in the creative doldrums, find time to seek out perhaps a new source of creative inspiration and a more peaceful creativity than you’ve been experiencing.

My hope is that this prayer can be a source of creative inspiration to  will help you discover a peaceful creativity for yourself and all those you encounter!

Lord,

Thank you for creation itself and the incredible gifts and talents you so generously entrust to me. May I appreciate and develop these talents, always recognizing that they come from you and remain yours.

Guide me in using them for the benefit of everyone that I touch, so that they may be more aware of your creative presence and develop the creativity entrusted to them for the good of others.

Help me also to use your talents to bring a creative spark and new possibilities to your world, living out my call to be an integral part of your creative force. Amen.

Copyright 2008, Mike Brown

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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As I’ve mentioned, an increasing number of Brainzooming workshops I do use a presentation strategy where audience members select specific topics we cover live. This allows audience members to customize the presentation to topics they find most relevant. Based on reactions to this presentation strategy, people appreciate this relatively rare opportunity to design a speaker’s presentation to maximize the value for their own needs.

One downside to the presentation strategy is preparing so much content that doesn’t get shared.

For example, during the recent PR Consultants Group workshop on new product launch challenges, the group didn’t select an intriguing strategic thinking exercise to identify or enhance the product benefit statements supporting a new product or service. The strategic thinking exercise (called “That’s What You Say”) is a variation of the “What’s It Like” exercise and another we use to identify less-obvious potential competitive threats for brands.

How the “That’s What You Say” Strategic Thinking Exercise Works

For the new product or service you’re addressing, identify as many potential product benefits as possible. If a product is being re-launched, include both product benefits you’ve highlighted previously plus others that have been ignored, for whatever reason.

After you’ve exhausted the full list of potential benefits, generalize each of the product benefits, as necessary, to more broadly describe them. Then, for each benefit, identify various non-competitive products, brands, and companies making comparable brand benefit appeals – whether they are being made to your target audience or not.

After developing this expanded list of brands, look at how they tackle communicating comparable brand benefits in ways that are new or more distinct than those currently used in your market.

An Example of “That’s What You Say” in the Toothpaste Market

Suppose you’re launching a new product in the toothpaste market. Competitive brands talk about delivering a variety of product benefits, including:

• Whiter teeth
• Brighter teeth
• Fewer Cavities
• Pain Relief

Most of these brand benefits are toothpaste-focused, so they need some generalization to effectively use them in this strategic thinking exercise.

The list below shows these typical toothpaste product benefits generalized (bolded words) to be more broadly applicable. Additionally, for each benefit in the list, there are one or more other brand categories making comparable product benefit claims.

• Whiter – Laundry Detergent
• Brighter – Light Bulbs, Laundry Detergent
• Lower Treatment / Repair Costs – Preventive Medicine, Auto Preventive Maintenance
• Pain Relief – Aspirin, Ibuprofen, Ointments

Armed with this list of seven other product categories, marketers can look for new strategic inspiration outside their brand category and consider how they could adapt how other brands are addressing comparably positioned product benefits. - Mike Brown

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The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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There’s no better time than this week to revisit where you are in your career strategy and determine where you are on track and where you aren’t.

Here are five pieces of career strategy thinking to consider:

1. The more focused you can be with your career strategy, the easier it is to network and sell what you do. While it’s noble to resist labels, resisting labels can also cripple you.
2. Make sure you have ways to remind yourself of your goals – both obvious ways and surprising ways that will keep  your career strategy goals in front of you when they are the furthest thing from your mind.
3. Persistence can get you far in your career, even if your talents aren’t that strong. Unless you up your talents though, you won’t be in a position to beat persistence plus strong talent. Be persistent about honing your skills and consistently over-investing your time and mental energy on what will allow you to become what you most want to be.
4. Many people choose to take the maximum amount of time to come up with the minimum number of ideas. Be different and take a minimum amount of time (using creative thinking tools) to come up with the maximum number of ideas.
5. There are some people who will contact you and need to network and talk because it’s urgent and important. You talk and there’s never anything that happens afterward. Fall for it twice, but not three times. And never introduce them to anyone in your close circle. - Mike Brown

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If you’re struggling to create or sustain innovation and growth, The Brainzooming Group can be the strategic catalyst you need. We will apply our  strategic thinking, brainstorming, and implementation tools to help you create greater innovation success. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call  816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you figure out how to work around innovation and implementation challenges.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Brands can struggle getting beyond communicating the features they provide – which are often identical to their competitors’ features. This limitation means they never create compelling demonstrations of the benefits and brand value they can deliver.

In contrast, while developing my presentation on “New Product Launch Failures” for the PR Consultants Group conference recently, I rediscovered this FedEx advertisement from the late 1990s in a previous presentation. While we used the FedEx advertisement internally to communicate the importance of performance for our transportation company, the ad is also a fantastic example of a B2B brand making its brand value very clear AND very personal.

Turning Your Brand Value into Real Terms

Rather than name a competitor and point out features where FedEx is better or discuss defects in the competitor’s features, the FedEx advertisement took a different approach. The FedEx advertisement paints a stark, memorable contrast between the implications of choosing a less reliable and (an implied) less costly option than FedEx. The advertisement conveys a deep, damning view of the personal implications (in a B2B brand situation) when a shipping company fails to deliver the necessary and expected brand benefits a business seeks when shipping its goods. The prospect of saving a few dollars by not selecting FedEx and thus risking any or all of the thirty bad things that could happen (as listed in the advertisement) doesn’t seem like an attractive trade-off at all.

Price Isn’t the Only Item in the Brand Value Equation

We faced this talking to a potential client who countered our proposal by saying the organization had a local university professor prepare its previous strategic plan. The university professor didn’t charge anything, so the organization’s leadership believes it shouldn’t cost very much to develop a strategic plan.

Of course, this was quickly followed by admitting the plan didn’t work in moving the organization forward. I pointed out price isn’t the only factor in the value equation, and, as this organization experienced, even “free” can be a bad value since they wound up “paying” in lost opportunity and strategic disarray.

What Benefits and Brand Value Would Be Lost if Your Brand Weren’t Around?

If your brand is struggling with justifying a higher price than a competitor, use this FedEx advertisement as inspiration for a strategic thinking exercise.

Can you identify thirty bad things that could personally happen to the decision maker (and organization) that chooses your cheaper competitor? If so, you are well on your way to more effectively being able to communicate your brand value story. - Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming email updates.

The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Brand marketing and branding philosophy certainly isn’t a new topic to the Brainzooming blog, but branding and Philosophy? Well, that’s a new combination around these parts. Here’s return guest blogger and B2B marketing expert Randall Rozin with an intriguing take on how Jean Paul Sartre and existentialism could be as important as Ries and Trout (affiliate link) to your brand marketing philosophy!

Brand Marketing and Existentialism by Randall Rozin

I was having a discussion with a colleague about the creation of a new brand and how one should go about defining the ‘brand’s essence.’  This discussion got me thinking about the philosophical principle of existentialism, and how it can apply to both individuals and brand marketing.

Existential Questions and Brand Marketing

Philosopher Jean Paul Sartre’s premise that ‘existence precedes essence’ hits the mark in that we are as we exist, not as we or others would label us.

As for new brand creation and brand marketing, brands exist first before their true essence can be realized. In other words, it is the choices organizations make and the daily actions they take to bring life to their brand promise that makes for an authentic experience. Consistent action in support of brand promises results in an essence that is reflected back from the market that is consistent with the essence to which the brand marketer aspired. The existential journey is one in which we as individuals and collectively as organizations discover our true self and our reason for being and the ongoing work it takes to act authentically to have our essence reflect our intent.

For brand marketing and the brands we create, we have to ask ourselves continually:

• Why do we exist?
• Why are we here?
• What greater purpose do we serve?

For our customers, we must constantly ensure that their experiences are positively impacted as a direct result of their interactions with our company and with our brands.  While obvious, we sometimes lose sight that customers are why we exist and they must be the starting point of our thinking. We must always remain genuine in our presentation of solutions to their challenging problems.

Applications for B2B Brand Marketing

1. As you create new brands, reposition others, or integrate acquired brands into your portfolio start by defining your brand’s reason for being.  What purpose does it serve for your company and,  more importantly, why does it exist for your customers?
2. What promise is your brand making in the market?  Is your company fully prepared to act and deliver against your brand promise every day?
3. What are the key touch points between your brand and your customer’s experiences with it?   Have you built up the proper ecosystem to support your brand promise throughout your organization – from supply chain and manufacturing to marketing and customer service?
4. What measurement systems have you put in place to hold yourself accountable for the promises you are making?
5. Set aside time to periodically check your brand’s strategic ‘reason for being’ to ensure you are continuing on the right road and acting authentically in support of your brand promise.

If we think of existentialism as a movement which holds that the starting point of understanding must be the authentic experiences of the individual, then it is a natural extension to move from individuals to groups of customers and apply existentialism to corporations and to brands. Good luck on your journey of discovery to find your brand’s “reason for being.” – Randall Rozin

      (Affiliate Link) 

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you generate fantastic creative thinking and ideas! For an organizational innovation success boost, contact The Brainzooming Group to help your team be more successful by rapidly expanding strategic options and creating innovative plans to efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can deliver these benefits for you.

Guest Author

The Brainzooming blog has a wonderful group of guest authors who regularly contribute their perspectives on strategy, creativity, and innovation. You can view guest author posts by clicking on the link below.

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Following up Woody Bendle’s innovation rant on  “best practices,” try this alternative approach: instead of cataloging industry best practices in search of new, innovative ideas, look at how another organization with a comparable situation outside your industry would tackle what you’re trying to improve.

We call this Brainzooming strategic thinking exercise, “What’s It Like?”

Strategy Planning with What’s It Like?

I was speaking to someone who worked at a hospital during a graduate school class where I was presenting. She bemoaned a recent strategy planning session at her hospital. She said it was clear the doctors didn’t want to be there, the staff was bored, and the strategy planning session ended with no new future-looking ideas surfacing.

To give her a sense of how the “What’s It Like” strategic thinking exercise might have completely changed the dynamics of the hospital’s strategy planning session, I asked her to describe the hospital situation. We generalized the five characteristics she named, describing the hospital as focused on:

• Fixing things
• Taking care of customers
• Employing people
• Providing opportunities for learning
• Making money

Reviewing the list for a comparable organization, we decided all five of the characteristics matched The Home Depot.

With the new perspective The Home Depot supplied, we started brainstorming. Ideas began flowing, including the idea of the hospital offering do-it-yourself surgery. While she scoffed at the idea, I pointed out people twenty years earlier would have said no patient would ever perform medical tests. Now, however, think about how many personal medical tests line the shelves at drugstores. Quite frankly, I can see some version of do-it-yourself surgery (assisted with robotics) becoming common within twenty years, even though it was so future-looking as to be laughable within the past few years.

New, Innovative Ideas from Outside Your Industry

What’s It Like is as simple a strategic thinking exercise to use as the hospital vs. The Home Depot brainstorming example demonstrates:

• Pick your business opportunity or challenge
• List a variety of characteristics of your business opportunity or challenge, potentially generalizing the characteristics
• Select an organization facing a comparable situation
• Brainstorm how the other organization, given its different view of your organization’s situation, would approach things

With What’s It Like, you get away from the idea of industry best practices, and allow yourself to think of completely new, innovative ideas for your organization no one in your industry is practicing! - Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming email updates.

The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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I love a good rant, and today, we have a great innovation rant from our friend Woody Bendle. What’s got Woody ranting today? Best Practices. Note to self . . . don’t mention Best Practices around Woody. Here’s why:

An Innovation Rant about Best Practices by Woody Bendle

I don’t want to get off on an innovation rant here, but I was in an office the other day waiting for an appointment, picked up an industry trade publication, and started flipping through it. This was an industry trade publication COMPLETELY different from anything I would normally look at, but something caught my attention. Then I just got fired up. There was a piece talking about benchmarking and industry best practices. There it was . . . BEST   PRACTICES!

I HATE the expression “Best Practices!”

Well, maybe I really don’t hate the expression, but rather what this phrase represents (or doesn’t) for innovation in many businesses today.

No, on second thought, I really do hate it!

How many times in your career have you heard, “What we need to do is some category benchmarking and our goal is to adopt industry best practices.” Blah-blah-blah… snore-ing!

Ultimately, what “best practices” really means is this: “Let’s try to be more like the guys who are currently kicking our butts, and maybe they won’t be kicking our butts anymore!”

That’s pretty inspiring huh?!

The problem with adopting someone else’s “best practices” is by the time you’ve adopted their practices and processes, you’re still behind!  You can bet they’ve already developed a whole new set of best practices, and you’re going to have to catch up all over again!  That’s why they’ve been the best!

And another thing!

Best is SINGULAR. Best is without peer! Best is best. You can’t have two bests! I checked the dictionary; Merriam-Webster will back me up on this one.

If you’re just trying to employ the current industry best practices from your own market, what you are maybe doing is adopting potentially better practices than the ones you’ve been using. That sort of sounds like process improvement to me! Can you say Six-Sigma?  Which is fine! I’m a huge fan of Lean and Continuous improvement!  But, this isn’t adopting industry best practices! Remember? There’s only one best! (see above)

I guess the thing that bothers me most about adopting or employing “best practices” is that it just feels really lazy. I mean come on! You’ve got to be better than that! Right?!  Don’t your employees deserve better? Don’t your shareholders deserve better? And you can’t tell me that your customers don’t deserve better!

How about we CREATE our OWN Best Practices?! Our own unparalleled best practices! Practices that are soooo BEST that we’re the ones kicking butt!

Don’t jump the shark! Leapfrog your competition! Jump so far beyond your category’s current production possibilities frontier that you land in another galaxy!

So, come on . . . Embrace innovation!

Let’s do something no one has ever done before!

Let’s create practices and processes that no one has ever thought of before!

Let’s use our minds!

Let’s use our imaginations!

Let’s use our ingenuity!

Let’s get on with innovation and kick some butt! - Woody Bendle

       (Affiliate Link)

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you generate fantastic creative thinking and ideas! For an organizational innovation success boost, contact The Brainzooming Group to help your team be more successful by rapidly expanding strategic options and creating innovative plans to efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can deliver these benefits for you.

Guest Author

The Brainzooming blog has a wonderful group of guest authors who regularly contribute their perspectives on strategy, creativity, and innovation. You can view guest author posts by clicking on the link below.

More Posts

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