Evidence shows that leading brands use disruptive innovations to deliver growth. P&G aim for 30% of their innovations to be disruptive and 70% brand extensions (Lafley, 2008) in markets where years of incremental development have led to a convergence of functionality and cost structure amongst established competitors.

CDP’s innovation approach helps its clients seek out the underlying changes in customer expectations, enabling technologies and supply chain economics that provide the opportunities to create unique and disruptive ‘Product Systems’. Success depends on meeting customer needs in new and exciting ways thus attracting new customers, increasing the frequency of use and maximising basket spend.

Go to the full article from Mike Cane

The Emotion concept

The ‘GAIA Emotion’ mobile concept is a device that comes to life – It is an extension of our bodies and our presence, and is built around us and everyone that is linked to us. ‘Gaia’ recognises and responds to ‘known’ devices within close proximity, and exchanges relevant information with them. It identifies and reacts to a best friend’s call or text message, a brother’s new picture upload or status update, a girlfriend’s presence close by, or our own behaviours, feelings and experiences – interpreting them into emotional responses through light, sound and vibrations.

The Gaia concept device is organic in form, perfectly weighted and shaped to fit in the palm of the hand. It recognises the owners touch and comes to life by displaying an array of thin glow lines that rap themselves around his/her hand and figure tips. The interface is built around everyone that is connected to us and is presented in an infinite virtual ‘Wall’, which allows effortless scrolling and zooming in and out using multi-touch screen technology. Pictures fade according to the relevant strength of relationships with friends and family on the wall (i.e. pictures will begin to fade if a certain friend has not been in touch for a long period of time). Statuses, pictures, news feeds about the ‘Wall’ are updated automatically and translated by the device through light and vibration.

The Bespoke concept

The ‘GAIA Bespoke’ concept is about creating a more personal, engaging experience that starts as soon as customers walk into the store. Bespoke allows people to tailor the design of their phone by choosing materials and custom embossing and prints that make it unique and personal. Smartphones already allow you to choose your own applications; the next step is to expand this choice to the handset itself.

Bespoke offers customers an unprecedented choice of materials that until now have only been available in ultra-high-end devices. Materials such as leather and suede actually improve with age, rather than glossy plastics, so as the phone takes the bumps and knocks on everyday life, it gains character in much the same way as a worn pair of jeans or a vintage guitar.

Whether buying online or in-store, you would use a simple, intuitive web or touch-screen interface to customise a standard phone chassis in the way that best suits you. When satisfied, the design would be instantly sent for rapid manufacture and delivered to your door a few days later.

Ultimately, a Bespoke phone is individual, expressive and says more about its owner than current handsets can.

Cambridge Design Partnership announce that ICI AkzoNobel’s Dulux PaintPod has been a major success for the Dulux brand.  According to ICI AkzoNobel, sales within the cost sensitive DIY sector have increased, despite a downturn in consumer spending throughout 2008.

Alex Dharmawan, Innovation Manager, ICI AkzoNobel said “The Dulux PaintPod was launched into the UK market in May 2008 and the unit [PaintPod] alone has already generated an incremental £5m+ in retail sales value for the DIY category.  The compelling consumer benefits of PaintPod have encouraged both new consumers to enter the market and existing DIY’ers to trade up, generating PaintPod emulsion [paint] retail sales of £4m+.  Key retailers have been equally excited and supportive of the innovation, with B&Q using PaintPod as a central footfall driver within their communications plan during key trading periods.”

Mike Cane, Director and Founder of Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) said: “We are naturally delighted for ICI AkzoNobel that their Dulux PaintPod has been such a success. Generating nearly £10 million in sales in the UK market since launch earlier this year is a real achievement.  We look forward to hearing of further successes as the product is launched in other markets.

CDP worked closely with the ICI marketing team at all stages of the design, development and production of the Dulux PaintPod.  With research focus groups, ethnographic observation and repeated concept testing with customers, we incorporated the feedback, insights and results into the final result.  We created several patented innovations and pioneered a unique self-cleaning system.  The unit design built up a clear Dulux brand in a first durable product of its kind for the brand.

The strong demand from consumers demonstrates that a quality brand such as Dulux, itself the result of countless years of innovation by ICI, can become the basis for further product innovation.  However, developments in paint technology alone can only go so far to meet customer’s needs and ICI AkzoNobel have recognised that creating systems that combine innovate durables with consumables enables new ways to deliver additional value to customers. This approach allowed us to conceive of PaintPod and a range of add-on products designed to make it faster, easier and cleaner to decorate your home.”

The innovation behind the PaintPod has been recently recognised by the UK’s public.  T3, the Gadget Magazine has just published its list of the “Greatest Gadgets of 2008” taken from a survey of 54,000 of its readers, with the PaintPod being a runner-up in their “Innovation of the Year” as well as runner up in “Home Gadget of the Year”.

Commenting on the strong sales, Mike Cane also said:

“The high sales volumes of the PaintPod have been achieved in a very short period of time, because consumers trust the Dulux brand. They were therefore quick to accept this new technology, even though their spending in other areas has plummeted in 2008. This is a very compelling example of how a valuable consumer brand can become the foundation for further innovation, which itself then enhances the value of the brand and drives sales of core products – even during times of economic uncertainty.”

Mr Cane declined to give specific details on the return on investment that ICI AkzoNobel anticipate making from their outlay in this innovation programme, but did say that it would be “very significant and over a very short period of time.”

Dulux and PaintPod are trademarks of ICI AkzoNobel.

New products and services are the lifeblood of any business. The difficulties which innovation apparently presents to most management teams must therefore be life-threatening. But the situation isn’t as dire as painted. If it were, an organisation like Cambridge Design Partnership couldn’t exist. CDP does nothing but produce innovative products and processes for its clients – and on its own account. And ‘it’s very rare for CDP to fail’, says Mike Cane, the founding partner.

In fact, out of 40 projects in a year, he can’t recall a failure. That’s because CDP treats setbacks as part of a learning process. Having learnt the lesson, you go back to the project and make a fresh start. You don’t stop until the target has been achieved – matching or exceeding client expectations. The more you do, the more you learn, and 10 years of mounting experience have made CDP ‘very confident’ in the processes which now earn £2 million of revenues – double the previous year’s.

Cane has two partners, very much of like mind. Mike Beadman is an electronic engineer, while Matt Schumann is a mechanical engineer, like Cane. The latter started the business 10 years ago after a widely varied experience. It included a spell with a much-praised UK multi-national: ‘a letdown’, he says bluntly. In contrast, taking himself to the Royal College of Art to study industrial design provided a lasting stimulus. The College thrives on creative imagination: engineering, as taught to Cane in Cambridge, was concerned with analysis and mathematics. Cane’s big idea in starting CDP was to bring the two together, to use creativity in engineering design, but with a leaning towards the artistic side.

Read the full article (pdf).