The Number One Brand for the Homeless

If you want to see an example of innovative thinking, check out the viral video recently posted by Greg Karber, launching the #Fitchthehomeless campaign. The video is in response to the deliberate strategy that Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries has bragged about, which is to not make clothing for heavier women—so no plus sizes—and goes so far as to burn excess inventory rather than donate it to avoid the brand being seen on homeless people or those in need.

While clothing manufacturers have the right to produce whatever sizes they choose (for example, I haven't seen Calvin Klein introduce a plus-size line), in the case of Abercrombie, it’s the attitude of its CEO that ignited the backlash.

In a societal environment that’s becoming more inclusive and accepting, to revel in a judgmental swagger that says who’s cool and who’s not—and what physical attributes are attractive or not—is definitely not cool or attractive. And through the power of social media exposing the leadership behind brands, companies are being forced to reckon with the consequences of offensive personality and action, as in the case of Jeffries.

It’s one thing to decide to not produce clothing in larger sizes; it’s another to disparage the people that need them. It’s even more offensive to burn perfectly useful garments rather than donate them to people who can’t afford them for fear of the brand being seen on the less-than-cool.

In Karber’s video, he talks about making Abercrombie the number one brand for the homeless by challenging people to go to thrift stores and other outlets to buy used Abercrombie merchandise and then donate it to the homeless in their communities. While I think it’s a very innovative idea to essentially hijack the brand via social media, given the disrespectful and offensive behavior of Abercrombie’s CEO, making it number one in any category is giving them too much credit.

Marketers talk about transparency and authenticity as desirable characteristics of brands today. In the case of Abercrombie, transparency has exposed exactly what the brand is all about—and it’s very uncool.

Crossing the Line

When does innovation cross the line from inventive to irritating?

How about when a baby’s diaper sends a tweet to its parents that it needs changing?

For those of you who may have missed it, last week, Huggies Brazil announced that it has created an app that sends a tweet to parents when a Huggies moisture sensor attached to a diaper indicates that it needs changing.

After a volley of publicity, mostly negative, Huggies explained that the clip-on humidity sensor, which could indeed tell parents when junior was moist, was used in a promotional video will not be available for purchase, and the app was meant primarily to help parents track diaper consumption.

Whew, that’s a relief—no pun intended. At least for the time being, they’ve saved us from having to read social media postings from parents who seem to think it necessary to comment on every bodily function of their infant. You know who you are.

But the technology’s there and brings up a good question about the boundaries between innovation and irritation (leaving diaper rash irritation out of the argument for now). We’ve already got half the population bumping into us in the skyways of the Twin Cities, heads down reading and texting from their smartphones. Sure, none of us can imagine how we’d survive without our innovative smartphones, but next time you run into somebody who stopped in the middle of a crowded skyway to send a text message, or worse, slams into the back of your car because they were reading a tweet—it makes you wonder just when do we cross the line.

With Huggies pee-alert technology, as with any other innovation, the public will determine what gets adapted and adopted. But getting back to our heads-down, instant-information-oxygenation society, I’m concerned—maybe even a little peed off.

The Dilemma of Choice

A very well-read friend of mine recently commented that television was beginning to spoil reading for him. The reason being: the number of quality options, sans reality garbage, available on an expanding variety of channels.

While HBO seemed to dominate the quality programming on channels other than traditional networks, in the past five years, others have been catching up and competing for our attention and leisure time. And the broadcast category is just one example.

An example of the dilemma of choice.

Having broadcasters and content providers fighting for our attention and time is a good thing. Competition weeds out the average and bad, and the highly specialized find their niche even if it’s a small one. All the more reason for innovation.

With so many choices across industry categories today, remaining distinctive is arguably the top challenge for brand innovation. Remaining distinct, not just creating initial distinction, is paramount—because sooner than later someone else is going to come along and build the better mouse trap. Whether it’s the product or service itself, or how it’s packaged, made, priced, or delivered, the cycle of innovation has to remain constant in order for brands to remain relevant and distinctive.

If you need a reminder, just peruse the options you have on your television, tablet, or Nook.

Valuing Innovation

Something that received little attention recently is going to give innovation its due credit when it comes to literally valuing the contribution innovations make to the economy.

This summer, the government agency that determines gross domestic product numbers, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), is revising its method of calculation. For the first time ever, the BEA is going to count creative products—take, for example, a novel that is made into a feature film—as a fixed investment, essentially treating it the same way that a company’s investment in a new factory is regarded.

Why the change? Because creative products like films have a life beyond their initial box-office utility and continue to earn money long after they’re out of theaters, through copyrights on products.

The BEA’s revised number is expected to increase the size of our economy by approximately 3 percent. Considering that we have an economy somewhere in the neighborhood of $16 trillion—that’s a big contribution.

Try, Try Again

If we don’t succeed at first—given the impatience we’ve all developed as we multitask, and a 24/7 news cycle that creates a need-to-know-now mentality—it’s easier to give up than to try and try again. But sometimes we don’t have the luxury of moving on to the next thing, and that can be a good thing.

The recent battery misfortunes of Boeing’s new 787 Nightmareliners provide a good example of innovation being forced on an organization for the public good.

Before Boeing got the OK from the FAA to put the 787s back into service after being grounded, the company twice told the feds that they had the problem solved, yet the government agency sent the company back to the drawing board, saying that the problem was not adequately resolved.

Try, try, and on the third round, Boeing came up with the best solution—better than the previous two, which should be a relief to anybody contemplating a trip on the jumbo jet. Yet the company wouldn’t have necessarily come up with the best solution unless it kept trying. In this case, it was forced to keep trying.

How often are we settling for good enough instead of continuing to work toward the best? What are we sacrificing in the name of speed versus quality?

When you’re developing ideas, don’t allocate an hour or two to brainstorming. Your best ideas are going to come after you’ve already found what you think to be the best idea. Boeing’s initial engineering idea of using lighter lithium-ion batteries, which have better energy density, among other attributes, was a good one, but we all saw (much to the horror of Boeing shareholders) what happened to the idea. There was a better solution. And I’m not saying that Boeing didn’t jump through all the regulatory hoops to make sure that it’s plane passed every test, which it did.

As we’ve seen in many industries when accidents occur and standards are changed in response, there will be new requirements designed to safeguard the public—but shouldn’t we be trying to create the best, versus good enough, from the outset?

Cheaper is often very expensive.