Innovation is new behavior
Innovations are new behaviors based on new or old technology. That's my point of view in a nutshell.
An effect of that view is that an innovation that's concidered established in one market, become new when it's launched in a market where it never have been offered before. That means the challange of establishing a product on a new market always will be as though as the first time minus the advantage of the knowledge and attitude that has been spread about the innovation from previous markets.
Last week I ran into two examples with quite different conditions:
- The Itunes Music Store opened in Scandinavia - The media publicity and buzz in the blogospere was tremendous, both weeks before with speculations, during the opening and after. As far as I understand the sales have been a success so far.
- A small scale initiative of bike-pooling was obviously launched in Göteborg, Sweden. By using your cell to call a specific number you get the lock combination and can use a bike as you want, only promise to put it back where you took it.
The first example is of course preceded by the success of iTMS in the US, UK and Germany. People have known it for quite a while and as the Ipod has an enormous market share people are already using Itunes. That is, the advantage of being an international brand with a lot interest from the media has conciderably lowered the behavior treshold.
The second example is copied from Amsterdam in the Netherlands. A city which a lot of Göteborg people are identifying with. However, they haven't tried all the advantages of the city. In this case you have to work very hard with the behavior with little information that can help people kill their uncertainty.
But no matter what. Good luck to both of the great initiatives!
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