Yesterday, Thrive PR brought together the master marketing minds behind Lego, Tinder, and Stihl to discuss their approach to innovation, and how these great brands stay “decades ahead” of the competition.
Head of marketing at LEGO Australia, Angie Tutt, director of communications for Australia at Tinder, Kirsty Dunn, and marketing director for Stihl Australia, Joanne Katsos, joined forces for a discussion hosted by CEO of Thrive, Leilani Abelsm, which was streamed interstate to the Thrive offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane offices.
Here are three key innovative learnings that we took away from the evening masterclass:
1. Test and learn and be comfortable with failing
Dunn said: “Sometimes you have to take a risk and. You can have all of this data, all of this strategy, but until it actually launches, you don’t know. You have to trust your hunch.”
But searching for the collective “yes!” from a company to green light launching new ideas requires an environment that is instilled not only with innovation and iteration, but permission to fail and learn from mistakes.
It was obvious this was a core operational value of all three brands, and no doubt an instrument of their ongoing success.
Tutt related with lessons from a recent project: “It was something different, and a lot of research went into it, but it didn’t go very well.”
“We had a lot of learnings from it… But it gave us just a little bit more recognition to say we are an innovative brand.”
2. Steal with pride
Keep an eye on the competition and from what your global teams are doing, and don’t be afraid to adopt standout innovations, as long as you make it your own, Dunn added.
“I get emails all the time from the product team about tests and marketing campaigns that are going on around the world in different markets.
“And we’re not afraid to ‘steal with pride,’ which is one of my mottos,” said Dunn.
“We always try to put an Aussie slant on it, trying to localise it, and sometimes make it better,” she continued.
3. Keep coming back to the “why?”
Knowing the brand values that drive your test and learning strategy means that even the inevitable failures can always be justified, and qualify as true learning.
For example, Katsos explains that at Stihl, the innovation practices of their 500-person strong R&D team in Germany and around the world is in service of “delivering a product to the end consumer beyond where they’re currently thinking to empower them to tackle the task that they need to do.”
Reflecting on how LEGO was close to bankruptcy around 20 years ago, Tutt explained what saved the beloved company to be able to celebrate their 90 years of innovation, was a return to values.
The brand pulled back the dial after realising their portfolio of products and innovation efforts had veered too far away from their brand mission to grow and develop children, big and small, through creative game play.
Tutt counselled: “Remember why you exist, remember the values that you have, stick to those and then innovate.”
