This morning I was looking at Creative Thinking and how one could be innovative. I came across this quote by Lisa Goldenberg. She says, "People who refer to out-of-the-box, see the box. People who don't know the box even exists are the innovative thinkers." It made me think because we often refer to thinking creatively as thinking out-of-the-box and she was implying that when we refer to out-of-the-box thinking, we are actually seeing the box. People who don't see the box are the ones who are really the innovative thinkers.
When Roberto Goizueta took over as CEO of Coca Cola in the 1980s, there was intense competition with Pepsi. Pepsi was really eating into their growth and all his executives were focused on increasing market share by 0.1% at a time. Goizueta decided to stop competing against Pepsi and instead compete against the situation of 0.1% growth. He asked his executives this question: "What is the average fluid intake of an American per day?" the answer was – 14 ounces. Then he asked the question: "What was Coke's share of that?" The answer – 2 ounces. Roberto said that Coke needed a larger share of that market. So he told his executives, "The competition isn't Pepsi. The competition is to try and get the remaining 12 ounces that is part of the American fluid intake per day. That's where we need to go. Forget Pepsi! We need to go after the remaining 12 ounces which is the fruit juice, the tea and coffee, milk and water." They changed their marketing strategy and began to put up vending machines at every street corner. Sales took a quantum leap after that. Pepsi has never really caught up since.
When you look at a situation like that, when you think about what Goizueta was able to do, you really see innovative thinking – thinking creatively, not looking at how you can take away from the competition but trying to look around and say, "Let's forget the competition. Let's see from where else we can get a market base." It's trying not to fish from the same pond but to find other ponds that you can fish from. I thought – that's what creativity and innovation needs to be about. It needs to be making new areas that will help in bringing in the kind of work in the businesses and companies that we work for. Innovation and strategy are the things that need to be honed with out-of-the-box thinking; not to see the box but to see out of the box.
I was reading this article by Daniel Birnbaum. He is the CEO for SodaStream, which is a machine able to make carbonated drinks. So instead of buying different carbonated drinks, you can actually make it in your own home. They wanted to go the big way and decided to take an ad in the Super Bowl. Thousands and thousands of people watch the Super Bowl and advertising there would have far-reaching effects. They had a top advertising agency come up with an advertising campaign that showed two trucks, one a Coke truck and one a Pepsi truck arrive together. Then two of their employees come out and begin to stack it with bottles of Coke and Pepsi and then try to rush into the department store. Suddenly all the bottles begin to fizz and disappear and you see the store manager standing there with this new device that makes carbonated drinks. They tried to get it to air on CBS, which wouldn't allow it saying that it was provocative. They later found that Coke and Pepsi were major contributors to CBS who didn't want to antagonize them.
I thought about where advertising had come, because what they did when their ad was banned, they talked about it. They took it to the Internet and it went viral with over 5 million views. An ad that didn't get viewed actually began to get talked about and got them the publicity that they wanted. It's interesting that when the editors of Harvard Business Review contacted CBS spokesperson for a comment, it was this: "The strategy of achieving free publicity by creating controversies is tried and true. It was so before this alleged example and it will be after as well."
What Birnbaum was doing here was creating controversy to bring in his advertising campaign, to bring his product to the fore, to make SodaStream something that people had heard about and thought about as a viable alternative to the aerated drinks available. Again, innovative thinking, creative thinking! What's the best way that we can get our product out?
Closer home I was reading about Mr. Tikam Singh, a 70-year-old businessman. After his retirement, he joined an insurance company and hired some boys to go around selling insurance packages. They couldn't sell anything and when he asked his boys, they said that this particular community was not prone to buying any insurance. But he wouldn't buy that excuse. So he went out and began to talk to everybody and found that when his boys went and talked to the people in this community, they would say, "When you die, you will get this amount of money, or if your cattle died…." Nobody wanted to think negatively or think about his or her death. So he wondered how he could change that. He hired a retired paratrooper from the army, and asked him to paratroop down every 15 minutes into the community fair. Each time he parachuted down, he had a sign that said 'Bhima' on it. It came to be seen as 'Bhima' is safety and security – because here was this man jumping off but he had a parachute to bring him down. Immediately the perception of the people changed from one of death to one of safety and liking the part that there was innovation in selling insurance packages to them.
As I thought of that this morning, I wondered where we all were in terms of the work that we do. Sometimes we can get into a rut and it can be just business as usual. We just go through the motions, what has been done over and over again and don't really think how we can do what we are doing a little more effectively. Today I feel that I need to challenge myself as well; look at what I am doing and see if I have got into a rut. Do I need to look at what I am doing and think a little more creatively? Is there something that I am doing today that I can think of and do differently that can allow me to be more effective? Let me pass that out to you as a challenge this morning. Let us look at all that we are doing today and maybe just be challenged by Roberto Goizueta who was able to say, "Let's not look at Pepsi as the competition. Let's look at the market and see how we can improve that." Or let's look at Birnbaum and say, "How can we think innovatively about bringing our product to center stage?" or even a person like Mr. Tikam Singh – to be able to sell an insurance policy with a creative edge.
Complacency creeps upon us and every now and then we need to stop and say – let's not make it business as usual. Let's try and do something differently. My hope and prayer is that today will be that kind of a day for you – to think creatively and innovatively.
Let me pray with you. Almighty God. Bless everyone on this call. Bless us with Your creativity. You are a Creator God. Help us to see what we are doing and ask the question – have we got into a rut? Do we need to think creatively and innovatively? And if we do, would You help us, Lord Jesus, to think like that, so that we can do things in better ways and be more effective. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
• Roberto Goizueta, ncr.mae.ufl.edu/funstuff/Teamwork.ppt
• Daniel Birnbaum, "SodaStream's CEO on Turning a Banned Super Bowl Ad into Marketing Gold." http://hbr.org/2014/01/sodastreams-ceo-on-turning-a-banned-super-bowl-ad-into-marketing-gold/ar/pr
• Tikam Singh, www.iimahd.ernet.in/users/.../Business%20Creativitity%20revised.doc
• Lisa Goldenberg, "Out=of-the-box" quote, http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/out-of-the-box
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