How To Create New Ideas
Lateral marketing is not a science, but it can help
What ideas do you call “creative?” Commonly we use this term in business to describe unconventional solutions and products.
For instance, the Uber app was an offbeat solution to an old problem — how to call a cab fast and without hassle.
It may seem that such creative ideas pop up on their own or come to originally thinking people’s minds only. But some tools can help boost creativity, and lateral thinking is one of them.
Lateral thinking
Lateral thinking is a manner of solving problems using an indirect and creative approach via reasoning that is not immediately obvious. The term was introduced in 1967 by Maltese psychologist Edward de Bono in his book The Use of Lateral Thinking.
The idea behind lateral thinking looks simple. To find a new solution to a problem, we need to look at both — a problem and a solution — from a different angle.
For instance, by 1979, people could listen to music mainly at home or in a car. But on the 21st of June that year, Sony introduced its first portable cassette player — Walkman TPS-L2. Since that day, people have been able to enjoy music on the go. The player quickly became popular, paving the road for many portable devices, including iPod.
It was an excellent example of looking at a familiar situation — listening to music — from another perspective. Can we develop a skill of such thinking? Edward de Bono believed that we could.
He worked out and described some techniques that could make us start thinking differently in his book. Nevertheless, many conventional scientists criticized his work. In the book Creativity: Beyond the Myth of Genius, Robert W. Weisberg insisted that no scientific evidence exists that the greatest inventors in human history used lateral thinking or similar tools.
But people loved the idea of lateral thinking anyway. Philip Kotler, a famous marketing guru, published a book Lateral Marketing based on de Bono’s statements in 2003.
Kotler believed that, being armed with this knowledge, we can put creative thinking on a stream. And from my professional experience, I can tell you that it works.
Lateral marketing
Kotler applied de Bono’s ideas to his famous market definition:
A market = a need or utility; target consumers; a place; a time; a situation; an experience
He believed that we could develop a new product idea or business model by changing some aspects of our market.
Let’s look at one flower market segment. Of course, people buy cut flowers for various reasons, but we’ll focus here only on men buying flowers for women, for romantic purposes — as an example.
Need or utility — to impress a woman;
Target consumers — lonely men who want to have a romantic relationship with women;
A place — a flower store or website;
Time — at any time of day, but mainly in the second part;
A situation — a romantic meeting;
Experience — anticipation, romantic feelings, etc.
One of the tools Kotler recommends is inversion. Let’s try to change one or several aspects defining this market segment — a need, a target consumer, a place, a time, a situation, or an experience.
For instance, could men buy flowers to impress other men? Or could they buy bouquets to upset women? Are there situations in which it couldn’t look strange?
Could men want to buy flowers in the middle of the night or early in the morning? Or in such unusual places as kindergartens or museums?
Who else could want to impress women with bouquets except for men? Could they be kids, for instance?
What are situations in which the same men could buy bunches of flowers, except when they want to demonstrate their interest in romantic relationships with women? How could we change the experience they get by buying them?
You can apply this approach to your market if you want to generate some new ideas.
Conclusion
Inversion is not the only tool de Bono and Kotler recommend, but, from my experience, the most efficient one.
Brainstorm your ideas with your team regularly, and a disruptive idea will come sooner or later.
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