Innovator’s dilemmas: vaporware vs. innovation?
“After being in the mobile phone market for more than a decade, now we would like to divert our attention on innovation. In the near future, one can expect some innovative mobile phones from Samsung (…) “We would like to incorporate the word innovation in our brand value.”
Youngcho Chi, Senior VP, Strategic Planning Team, Samsung Electronics as quoted by Business Standard.
“It’s important to understand how innovation can effect the perceived value of your brand. Done right, innovations can keep your brand fresh and relevant to those people who already know and understand it. Innovation can also open your brand to new market opportunities.”
Mike Bawden’s post “A Little Innovation Goes A Long Way” on Brand Central Station.
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When a company shifts gears to use innovation to build brand value the first set of questions that come to mind happen to be about the specific things that are going to change. In the high-tech market, establishing the innovative quality of a given brand requires an unequivocal commitment to new product and market development leading to serial innovations (unless the company already had innovative products and just didn’t do a good job at marketing them.)
Often times, the word “innovation” is being purposely misused as part of vaporware. That eventually translates into unfulfilled promises and lack of brand credibility. Nonetheless, the fact is that vaporware continues to be leveraged as a short term tactic aimed to either prevent or delay customer decisions on competing products and vendors.
The above issue should not be confused with the kind of thought leadership driven by well intentioned visionaries and market creation efforts involving next generation technologies. In any case, most would agree that an innovation qualifies as such when the concept has been productized and user adoption validates it, thus effectively building brand value.
| J. de Francisco |  |
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| Chicago, IL. 26 June 08 |  |
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