Do Successful Brands Hide Innovation?

I pulled this quote from a recent Economist article about open innovation:

"Even in developed markets, the acceleration of innovation is making patents less relevant. What is more, say brand experts at P&G (which claims not even to count patents any longer), the dizzying pace of change today confuses consumers with a baffling array of choices. Such firms are increasingly turning to trusted brands to simplify things for their customers. Andrew Herbert, head of Microsoft's research centre in Cambridge, England, puts it this way: “Our brand hides a tremendous amount of innovation.”

I chuckled when I read the Microsoft quote since we spent so much time at our recent summit talking about the perils of feature creep. And no one perpetuates feature creep better than Microsoft (except maybe mobile phone providers.) But I think Herbert's quote is quite provocative. Is a key factor of innovation success simplicity? Offering the customer less? Cherry-picking? Do in fact the most successful companies hide a tremendous amount of innovation?

Posted November 6, 2007 02:13 PM by Chris Flanagan | Permalink