Kraft wants your product ideas
Kraft Foods has initiated an “open innovation” program to solicit new product ideas from the public. Their innovation program site has the details, and a submittal form. You might earn up to $5000, or share in licensing royalties (have your patent lawyer handy). Here’s what they want:
Kraft is accepting ideas under this policy for new products, packaging, and business processes/systems only. We are most interested in ideas that are more that a concept, in
particular new products & packages that are ready to be brought to market (or can be brought to market quickly).
Well, there goes my idea for Anti-oxidant Mac and Cheese.
Kraft seems a wee bit desperate to grab something almost-ready-for-market so they can get it to the shelves ASAP. From their innovation submittal form:
- Provide a brief description of your idea or
technical innovations. Please be sure to tell
us its unique benefits and what may make
it valuable to Kraft. - What potential applications might the
submitted idea or technical innovations
have? - Is it covered by a patent (provide patent
number), or has a patent application been
filed? - Has the idea or technical innovation been
commercialized? Where and by whom?
Do you have any consumer research data
supporting the idea or innovations? If so,
please tell us about it.
Why is Kraft doing this?
On the surface, this seems like a Hail Mary innovation strategy. It certainly doesn’t give much credit to Kraft’s own R&D efforts, which (a related WSJ article–sub req) tells us, haven’t had a “hit” since DiGiorno pizza 10 years ago.
Product “finishing” and innovation arbitrage
Kraft might also be subtly repositioning itself as a “marketing and branding” company, in which ideas come in from all around the world and Kraft simply does the “finishing” to bring them to market. If so, they might be using this initiative to price-bargain professional “innovation sourcers” who develop innovations and package them to “distributors” such as Kraft. If Kraft can end-run the professional sourcers with a public program, it can avoid having them eat its innovation lunch, so to speak.
(Outside innovation teams present a very real strategic threat to Kraft and other “mass market” producers. They can source patentable products and then auction them ($$$) to the highest bidder. Call it innovation arbitrage.)
Open innovation and brand context
Open innovation can benefit Kraft, but only in the right brand context. A lot will depend on Kraft’s ability to break from the pitfalls of traditional brand practice. Open innovation at Kraft is doomed if Kraft follows the antiquated “branding” approach in which brands are little more than stylized sales stimulants. That approach is what got Kraft into trouble in the first place.
Today’s “targets” are tomorrow’s holes in the ground
Part of Kraft’s problem is that its top-down brand strategy has “targeted” customers instead of creating them. Now that customers have moved on, Kraft’s traditional “targets” are simply holes in the ground.
If your brand programs are focused on creating customers, collaborative innovation can be embedded in your business process. This is a more holistic–and more manageable–approach than blanket innovation appeals.
Thanks to Steve Portigal, who also provides a very worthwhile “open innovation” link to Frank Piller’s site. Frank provides a broader context for Kraft’s innovation initiative.