WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO MARKETING

WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO MARKETING 

 

One of the common criticisms of marketing is that marketers spend too much time trying to foist new products on a public that may not really need another widget. Marketers will reply that they are only trying to satisfy needs, a central tenet of marketing. Yet if marketing is soundly-based on research, why do so many new products fail?

The answer lies in the complexity of the human species and the fact that sometimes we don't know what will satisfy, please or entertain us until we see it. Indeed, novelty in a product or in an advertisement can be the source of appeal as much as changing wants and needs.

That's why innovation measures are a key part of the AMI's Australian Marketing Metrics project. At both an organisational and an individual level, innovation metrics will address factors such as active support for innovation, the encouragement of an appetite for learning and "freedom to fail".

A good marketer will closely monitor consumer behaviour, but will also think laterally from time to time, to bring an idea out of left field. Good marketing and innovation go hand in hand.

Roger James FAMI CPM, national president,
Australian Marketing Institute

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