Effective marketing as a condition for successful innovation management

An innovation is ultimately considered to be successful when it has been adopted by the consumers and the products are meeting the performance timelines set. Innovation is an important element in effective strategic management and its success must be emphasised for the overall competitiveness of the organisation. But innovations are often not successful with the majority of product launches resulting in catastrophic failures. A report by the research firm Nielsen, indicates that less than 1% of new products launched in the South-East Asian region are successful. This was in a study conducted in Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Out of the 12,920 product launches surveyed, only 10 were considered to have met the threshold for successful innovations.

The main reason cited for the poor performance of the innovations was failure to effectively market these new products. Marketing is very crucial in strategic management as the organisation must not only communicate the value it offers to the market but also entice the consumers to come forth and purchase these products. Most companies are observed to spend substantially in coming up with hyped and expensive product launch events but failing to sustain these campaigns through consistent marketing after these launches. Innovation is not simply about coming up with great products: it is also about ensuring that the value of these products is articulated accurately in the market. The consumer will not know about a product unless they are consistently communicated to. Marketing requires consistency and it is the effectiveness of the marketing exercises that eventually determines the success of the innovations.

Some of the successful innovators such as Rexona Invisible Dry in Indonesia have been very good with long term engagement with customers. This demonstrates the fact that innovation is first and foremost about the consumer. Insufficient engagement with consumers means that such consumers are unaware of the innovations when they are launched and when they are introduced into the market. The most effective approach to customer engagement is where the customers are involved in providing suggestions on the most appropriate innovations to introduce. This can be important in strategic innovation management as the consumers get to express their desires as well as helping the organisation to understand how these preferences can be met effectively. In addition to this, customer engagement generates interest and an emotional attachment. The customers are of course interested in seeing whether the organisation has understood them correctly and accurately translated their thoughts and contributions into the resultant product.

Customer engagement and marketing effectiveness therefore play an important role in making innovations successful. The customers need to feel that they are part of the process. They also need to be communicated to effectively. They need to be made to understand what the newly launched product provides and why they should consume it. Marketing also helps to shape expectations where it informs the customers on what they should expect to get when they buy the products. This helps to manage expectations and increase the level of satisfaction. This is because customer satisfaction is a function of expectation. If the expectations are higher than the new products can meet, they become dissatisfied and stop purchasing the product. But when they are satisfied, they not only keep purchasing but also grant it the positive word-of-mouth needed to get others to purchase it.