What are your sources of inspiration for innovation?

Personally we use Feedly as a source aggregator and have around 2000 feeds that we have access to on that platform. There are a good combination of direct feeds, as well as Google Alert feeds that we scan daily.

From the usual Designboom, FastCompany and Strategy+business – to more outlandish titles like Zerohedge, LinkMachineGo & NiemanLab – we’ve got pretty much everything covered from a desk research point of view.

But what about other ways of generating inspiration that might lead to that next burst of innovative exploration.

In the new episode of our recently launched podcast, I chat to Susan Searle about her process of scanning and where she draws her insights from.

When it comes to innovation – there is no one-size-fits-all.

How you commercialise opportunities in big companies is quite different from how you would do the same thing at a start-up.

In a new podcast, I chat to veteran innovator Susan Searle about some techniques you can adopt if you are wanting to explore innovative solutions within the more formal structure of a bureaucracy.

Corona have introduced the Fit Pack – an ingenious innovation which eliminates the need for plastic beer packaging.

The Corona Fit Pack is the kind of innovation that we absolutely love. Low tech design that solves the problem of the original poor design, but which the industry now believes to be a given.

According to Federico Russi, CCO of Leo Burnett Mexico City, the “Fit Pack” was born when the agency considered a feasible, scalable solution for AB-InBev involving only the can.

“We designed a stackable system that screws up to 10 cans together, using only their own design, without the need for any additional material. The assembly system connects at the bottom and top of each can, so several of them can be screwed into each other and create stacks.

“It’s an innovation that can be scaled on a global level, solving the plastic problem,” said Russi.

The design of the Corona Fit Pack has been short listed for the Cannes Innovation Lions and was made open-source, meaning the entire industry can access and use the blueprints, said Clarissa Pantoja, brand director at Corona. via

Hopefully we’ll see many more beverage cans being offered in this way – saving the environment one-screw-at-a-time.

Nando’s is one of those South African brands that just gets it right. Over the years they have consistently succeeded in building a brand that resonates strongly with South Africans.

The irony is that they’ve done it with a very simple formula that many admire, but very few are able to replicate.

The formula that Nando’s has adopted, with great reward – is that they speak South African. It’s that simple.

Instead of trying to imitate great brands from other countries and presenting an image that isn’t quite congruent with who they really are – Nando’s are just proud to be a local brand. And that contentment with who they are is infectious.

Now churros, as far as I know – is a Spanish dessert that looks like a small donut dipped in cinnamon sugar and then smothered in melted chocolate. Let’s just say it’s not Banting friendly and not exactly a staple South African delicacy.

In their campaign to introduce South Africans to this new dessert, I spotted posters for it in Nando’s the other day, which reads: “Like a koeksister that went to private school’.

Which is so ‘Nando’s’- and only something that South Africans would truly understand. So it’s like something that we already know, but more refined.

Nando’s gets it right, because they’re not trying to be anything else other than authentically South African, which is why the brand feels so real and personal to South Africans.

These days brands are addicted to the immediacy of PPC advertising.

CEOs will proudly say dumb stuff like. “Why would I do any other kind of advertising if I can accurately track my spend and sales thanks to the accuracy of pay-per-click?” Which makes perfect sense in the mind of the ‘analyse-CEO’, but building a brand is far more nuanced than that.

Sadly, business has become addicted to measurability and ROI, to the total detriment of their brands.

You can’t build a compelling, sustainable brand on the back of PPC alone. Great brands are like magnetic characters in epic stories – they are unique, interesting, have a point-of-view…they stir emotion. Just like people are fascinated by the characters in Game of Thrones today, they used to be about Coke and Sony and Budweiser back in the day. And because way too many companies and brands these days are run by damn accountants, programmers and other individuals lacking in imagination – we just don’t invest in really great character building advertising anymore.

But thankfully there are still some CMOs around with the balls to fight for big budgets that shift the brand needle. Lacoste recently released this branded film, entitled Crocodile Inside – that makes the point clearly.

Production-wise, it is beautifully shot, has a stirring Edith Piaf soundtrack and is masterfully directed.

Personally though, the content of the ad is a little jarring for us.

Lacoste clearly believe that radical psychological dysfunction is an admirable personally trait that should be exploited for the purposes of selling their advertising, which I guess pushes an unhealthy image of love (that at 46 years of age we know to be unsustainable). But that small personal issue aside, the production on this is phenomenal.

These being young people in the ad, they were probably arguing about who used up the last of the free data on their home network.

The point being however, that it’s great to see a big brand understanding the need to invest in the nuanced-public-narrative of their story – and making sure that they spend the appropriate amount of money on telling that story.

Sadly in South Africa, we just don’t have CMOs at the caliber required to even have the ‘consciousness of narrative’ to understand how important this kind of brand positioning is – let alone the clout to go and engage in a budget scrap with the stingy accountant CEO that ‘doesn’t see the value’ (but then ironically, will still tell you what a great marketers Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are).

Building a strong brand has never been as important as it is today, and yet so few company leaders see the value in it. Without great brand building – you are fighting the game as a commodity. As a commodity, the market decides your value and you have very little control over the future direction of your business. Those that get it will prosper, those that ignore it, will die.

Our suggestion is that you immediately fire the idiots that argue against the spending of money on great brand building. Get rid of them straight away, because they are directly sabotaging your company’s future by not being able to see the value in building your story.

Nice work Lacoste.

Conscious consumption – the growing global trend of consumers being far more mindful of what they are buying from whom – is a consumer trend that we have been tracking for some time.

The trend is manifesting in people asking more questions, being more aware of the culture of the organisation that they are doing business with and voting with their wallets when that behaviour doesn’t align with their own.

Recent news that clothing retailer Topshop is closing all of its US outlets after the brand suffered struggling sales as well as some serious sexual misconduct allegations against their CEO, drove the point home.

Topshop has also be nominated as the retail brand most likely to fail overall in the near future, by a recent survey of retail experts. Poor sales and a toxic culture are just some of the reasons for the dismal forecast.

This stunning fall from grace just goes to show that no brand is immune to the reality that competition is tough, economies are stagnant and if companies don’t consistently deliver authentic value – those brands are effectively writing a failure memo for themselves.

To add to this – a new narrative revolving around the idea that economic growth itself should be avoided at all costs is going to put a new spin in things when it comes to conscious consumption.

Forget straws – your desire to buy anything in the future could be labeled as destroying the planet. De-growth could mean that business itself needs to question its very reason for existence and map a new strategy in these unusual times.

Conscious consumption means that people are more aware of the impact that their consumer behaviour has on themselves, others and the planet. This is far more than a passing fad, it’s the new normal and worryingly most organisation are woefully unprepared for the shift.

Gillette have a new brand campaign – this time featuring a young transgender man getting his first shaving lessons from his father.

This follows on from the previous Gillette campaign that a lot of men around the world interpreted to mean that Gillette were criticising ‘all men’ for being ‘men’, when in fact they were just highlighting that inappropriate behaviour from men, left unchecked, in actually…just inappropriate in 2019.

At the time of the airing of the first ad – there where threats of violence against Gillette and calls to boycott Gillette products. But evidence suggests that in fact sales of Gillette products after the original ad aired, tracked projected estimates.

There was no decrease in sales. Whatever boycotts of Gillette products took place – nobody really cared.

So the toothless threats failed. Which was largely predictable.

So what does this indicate? It illustrates that the old demographics that markets used to pander to – are no longer relevant. In the greater scheme of things, it is far more profitable to attract a new, diverse, culturally-enlightened demographic to your product suite than to continue to targeted the old, tired, dwindling group of privilege that at one stage used to be your customer.

So the message is clear – go all-in on the new and ignore the dying cries of the old. A great move by Gillette on all accounts.

Here’s a link to this morning’s CapeTalk567 podcast on this topic.