Clayton Christensen spoke today at the World Innovation Forum. He used a milkshake analogy to stimulate discussion about new ways to innovate.
Milkshake purchases were up at a local fast food eatery. For breakfast. Not only were large amounts of milkshakes being purchased, but the milkshakes were extra large. A marketer wanted to understand why people were buying huge milkshakes in the morning, so he went up to each one and asked the following:
Why did you hire that milkshake? What job does it do for you? What service does it provide?
Once the milkshake-drinkers got over the odd way of phrasing the question, they provided a pretty common answer.
All of them had long commutes. The milkshake was viscous; it took a long time to suck such a huge milkshake through the straw. Plus, it tasted good. Huge, thick milkshakes provided the service of a welcome distraction during a long, boring commute. People were willing to pay for this service as opposed to buying a competitive service, such as a bagel (hard to spread cream cheese during the drive), a banana (takes 60 seconds to eat), or a snickers bar.
Clayton carried this analogy into “how to identify and fund innovative new products”. His advice boils down to this:
Don’t study the customer and where they are spending their money. Target the job they are trying to do when they are spending their money. When he analyzes a business plan these days, he doesn’t look for “target markets”, “customer segments”, or “revenue projections”.
He looks for a statement about what problem the customer is trying to solve.
This philosophy dovetails nicely with some of the thinking from CK Prahalad yesterday: the value is in the “experience” provided by a product, not solely the product itself.
More great food for thought from Clayton Christensen, who continually joked about the fact that innovators should no longer follow the guidance that his organization has traditionally been giving!
Steve
http://stevetodd.typepad.com
Twitter: @SteveTodd
