Innovation For The Sake of Innovation

This week Glad Wrap have finally admitted they made a major blunder by moving the blade that cuts the wrap from the bottom of the box to inside the lid. Nationwide outrage from Glad Wrap users has given the company no choice but to ditch the change and go back to the original blade placement, costing the company many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

There are a couple of good learnings from this. Innovation for the sake of innovation just doesn’t work. It has to be a genuine improvement that makes the consumer’s life better before you start to innovate a product like this. Glad Wrap claim that they did extensive research prior to making the change, but research can tell you what you want to hear unless you are truly opening it up, listening and hearing, looking and seeing.
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So if you’re going to innovate make sure that your customers or clients really want it, will appreciate it and if you do research, it’s important to sit among your target audience and listen to what they say as opposed to just outsourcing as research will tell you whatever you want to hear. This is a great case study for young marketers, brand builders, entrepreneurs or CEO’s that allow marketers to run off with innovations that clearly aren’t in the best interests of your customers, clients or your business.