Patience. Is it the missing ingredient in marketing innovative new products? 2005 Qtr 3
We want it all. Now. Instant access, instant response, instant gratification. And instant results.
Speed seems to be the essential component of business planning and implementation. And with this focus on making things happen, it’s possible to confuse activity with accomplishment. So does patience have a role to play in marketing and branding? We think so. Does this mean things have to slow down? Not at all.
Patience is not the opposite of speed. Patience is giving well–thought–out plans the time and investment they need to grow and return the investment. Patience means being realistic about results. For example, in their groundbreaking research into how long it takes new product innovations to reach “sales take–off,” Rajshree Agarwal and Barry Bayus studied innovations as varied as clothes dryers, jet engines, ballpoint pens, VCRs and heat pumps to determine how long it took from the introduction (or commercialization) of a new product innovation until its sales take–off. The average was 14 years.
It takes a long time to launch innovative products. Distribution channels are often slow to pick up on new products. And end users — whether consumers, professionals, or businesses looking for technology solutions — are often waiting to make sure a new product is tried and proven before purchasing.
Many examples to illustrate the point can be found in the building products industry: engineered wood trusses, composite millwork, fiber cement siding and structured wiring are just a few of the many innovations that took years to gain broad acceptance and market share.
Of course, product enhancements and brand extensions often follow a much more aggressive adoption curve. And even here, the concept of “patience” plays a role. It is often necessary to invest the time and effort to educate buyers about the benefits of a product enhancement, even to the point of helping them develop the cost justification analysis for senior management. A good example of this is Eaton Corporation, that developed a new hydraulic “Snap–To–Connect” (STC) hose for high–pressure hydraulic systems.
These STC connectors saved manufacturers of large earthmoving equipment time in both assembly and field maintenance, but even after customer engineers were convinced of the performance and benefits, Eaton had to work with their customers to document the actual time and money savings possible.
In fact, a little patience at the beginning often means better results, even in the short term.
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