Innovation that means more

Innovation isn’t easy. It’s uncertain, challenges the status quo. It's uncomfortable to many. It can lead to growth for the brand and the bottom line, or it can hold a brand back. It can result in a product or service that becomes an integral part of our lives, or it can lead to something that needs to be innovated again tomorrow. 

Creativity thinks up new things, innovation brings them to life

Most innovations fail. Some seem to succeed but have a short shelf life or can’t scale up. It’s not through lack of creativity, it’s because ideas are just the starting point.

To successfully deliver a new idea, you need to holistically craft products or services that adapt to change.

That means looking at what cultural forces will be in the future, considering the behaviour change opportunities and barriers, designing the customer experience in the context of uncertainty and prior expectations, identifying the influence of context, and building the marketing funnel.

For good ideas to thrive, they must encompass the change in behaviour, perceptions and expectations they will create.

How does TRA apply the art of knowing people to innovation?

Change is good. It’s exciting. It offers potential for something better.

Change is painful, it creates uncertainty, increases cognitive loads and challenges the memories we have of prior experiences. Familiarity feels safe, so we’re drawn to it. The problem is that, because of our relationship with change, we can’t predict our own future behaviour. So, people end up overestimating the likelihood of taking up a new product or service.

People underestimate the cost of change. Many of us like to think we’re adventurous, that we’re willing to try new things. We also desire to please. So, if we think an innovative product seems like a good idea, why wouldn’t we say we’d buy it? The reality however, often contradicts this.

TRA understand the human impact of innovation. It’s built it into how we support clients to deliver innovation with a greater chance of being adopted.

Idea generation, concept filtering and viability testing all need human-centric structural frameworks.

Inspiration doesn’t just come from blue sky thinking, it comes from much more structured frameworks. Exploration of the emerging cultural signals and outlier, fringe movements. Done well, this creative phase is expansive and fertile.

When we have ideas to evaluate, our 3D model focuses on the universal human response to any stimulus: what people feel, what people think and how people act.
A black and white diagram featuring a tetrahedron with labeled vertices ‘Desire,’ ‘Drive,’ ‘Difference,’ and an arrow pointing outward labeled ‘Success potential.’

Desire

Do people feel drawn towards the idea at an intuitive, system one level? Do they have positive, negative or neutral feelings?

Difference

Do they think this is something different – what’s it like? What do people think sets the idea apart? What advantage might that bring?

Drive

Are people motivated to act? Do they want to investigate further, observe what others are doing, try for themselves?
For ideas to pass the next step, the viability test, guiding principles are relevant context and adapting to change – with the right approach, we can measure both. TRA identifies the viability of innovation taking the human factors and the marketing requirements into account.

Meet our lead

Daniel Talbot
As Strategic Qualitative Director at TRA, Daniel draws on his diverse background in research, human-centered design, and strategy to bring human truths to the forefront. With a belief in the ability for insights to solve any problem, he has helped brands across Aotearoa and the globe connect more meaningfully with their audiences and grow in the right direction.
Contact Daniel →
Clients we have successful
partnerships with in this area.

AG

bp

Forsyth Barr Investment Services

REA Group Ltd

Air New Zealand

Treasury Wine Estates

Smartly

Asahi

ASB

Insights

There’s no point keeping our smarts locked away. Our content hub ‘Insights’ shares the ideas, frameworks and tools that we utilise in our work.

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