"Innovation" is Dead. Herald The Birth of "Transformation" as The Key Concept for 2009.

“Innovation” died in 2008, killed off by overuse, misuse, narrowness, incrementalism and failure to evolve. It was done in by CEOs, consultants, marketeers, advertisers and business journalists who degraded and devalued the idea by conflating it with change, technology, design, globalization, trendiness, and anything “new.” It was done it by an obsession with measurement, metrics and math and a demand for predictability in an unpredictable world. The concept was also done in, strangely enough, by a male-dominated economic leadership that rejected the extraordinary progress in “uncertainty planning and strategy” being done at key schools of design that could have given new life to “innovation. To them, “design” is something their wives do with curtains, not a methodology or philosophy to deal with life in constant beta—life in 2009.

Nussbaum On Design

Gatorade Changes Up Its Game

New iterations of Gatorade Thirst Quencher, the flagship Gatorade brand, will sport a large letter G next to the brand's iconic bolt. "For Gatorade, G represents the heart, hustle and soul of athleticism and will become a badge of pride for anyone who sweats," according to a company press release.

BrandWeek

Clay St. Project lets P&G think outside the pyramid

A big Clay Street success story was P&G's Herbal Essences brand. After it was acquired from Clairol in 2001, sales plummeted and the brand was floundering so badly that retailers were threatening to no longer stock it. A Clay Street project was convened to find a way to resuscitate the brand and improve sales. The team agreed to target a hypothetical consumer who was in her late teens to early 20s and active, fun-loving and drawn to the brand's appeal to those interested in natural ingredients.

Cincinnati Enquirer

Sales Down? Time To Dial Down The SKUs

There's a widespread consumer frustration out there, with many shoppers feeling there are too many choices, presented in a way that's needlessly complicated.

So in apparel, they want stores to be curators. You don't go to a museum to see every landscape ever painted--you want to see things from the 18th-century pastoral school. They want that kind of editing. They want retailers to stock brands that show they understand a certain lifestyle, especially now, coming off five years of hard-core brand identification. Take Juicy Couture. Fans know it's come a long way beyond that pink sweatsuit with "Juicy" on the bottom. They think, 'this brand knows I dress up sometimes, and that sometimes I want new sunglasses.'

MediaPost

FedEx Whites-Out the Kinko's Name

Some longtime customers are lamenting the imminent demise of the Kinko's sign, which FedEx will start removing from stores next year. Andy Sernovitz, an author and marketing consultant in Chicago, says he got more frustrated reader responses to a blog item he wrote about the name change than to any other. "It's not just a place you shop," he explains. "A Kinko's moment culminated in something big. It's the night before the term paper, and you've got to get to the frat party. It's your wedding invitation, your résumé, a big presentation."

Business Week

Students At Parsons and The University of Cincinnati Are Innovating And Generating Economic Growth.

It’s easy to get pessimistic in this holiday season as major institutions in our lives, especially the financial institutions, break our trust. But we shouldn’t despair. I recently visited two senior design/innovation classes in Cincinnati and New York where the students were so wonderfully brilliant that my own personal gloom was lifted and replaced by hope.

NussbaumOnDesign

Feelin' Muji

Anonymity is an odd thing for a brand to strive for, but not if you are a "no brand" brand. The goal of Yasui's team is to define Muji by design: to create and refine products toward ultimate simplicity and functionality. Muji is characterized by neutral tones and a bare-bones chic infused into everything from food to beds to bicycles--even a house. Muji ("no mark" in Japanese) screams minimalism to anyone who has entered one of its 433 locations in 16 countries.

Time Magazine

Red Sox unveil new club logos and uniforms

The Red Sox will wear a new gray primary road uniform. These “retro roadies” will feature the word “BOSTON” in blue lettering across the chest and will include a “Hanging Sox” patch on the left sleeve. The new alternate road uniform will be a combination of gray pants and blue jersey with “BOSTON” in red lettering across the chest. Both the home and road alternate uniforms will now feature new alternate “Hanging Sox” logo hats. No changes have been made to the primary home uniform.

boston.com

1/2 Dozen Trends

1) NICHETRIBUTES
2) LUXYOURY
3) FEEDBACK 3.0
4) ECONCIERGE
5) MAPMANIA
6) HAPPY ENDING

trendwatching.com

P&G Tries Again with Pantene

The campaign is the latest attempt to jump-start the brand, which has repeatedly been singled out as a laggard in P&G's North American beauty business. Most recently, Pantene was blamed for making P&G miss the usual 5% annual beauty growth mark. In an earnings call with analysts this April, CEO A.G. Lafley attributed much of that decline to last spring's failed restaging of the brand. Called Parthenon, that campaign, also via Grey, New York, called for organizing the brand's many SKUs into 18 easily identifiable "benefit-themed" collections, including ones for healthy, colored and treated hair. Aimed at minimizing the confusion, the strategy ultimately failed.

BrandWeek

Architect David Rockwell: Broadway to Brand

David Rockwell, the award-winning architect and Broadway set designer who made his name creating minimalist interiors for sushi restaurant chain Nobu, has moved into an unlikely corporate role: brand consultant. Big companies such as JetBlue (JBLU), Coca-Cola (KO), Starwood Hotels (HOT), and Gap (GPS) are hiring his 240-person architecture firm, which consults on everything from store decor to software engineering, to help them come up with ways to broaden their customer appeal in retail and other high-profile environments.

Business Week

When a diaper isn't just a diaper

The purpose of Pampers, conceptualized through cross-department meetings and P&G's vaunted consumer research, is to be a partner with mothers in the physical, social and emotional development of their children.

High-falutin' stuff for a diaper.

Cincinnati Enquirer

Just did it

The Nike Sportswear store in Soho introduces its new Bespoke program today, allowing customers to choose up to 80 individual aspects of the Air Force 1. (In case you're wondering, it takes the old NikeID concept to the next level.) Sounds daunting,I know, but it was fascinating when I tested the process over the weekend.

men.style.com

A New Odd Couple: Google, P&G Swap Workers to Spur Innovation

Now, this odd couple thinks they have something to gain from one another -- so they've started swapping employees. So far, about two-dozen staffers from the two companies have spent weeks dipping into each other's staff training programs and sitting in on meetings where business plans get hammered out. The initiative has drawn little notice. Previously, neither company had granted this kind of access to outsiders.

Wall Street Journal

Book Club: Outliers: The Story of Success

Life is unfair, as even the bible acknowledges ("Unto every one that hath shall be given … "). We can't all hit a baseball like DiMaggio or sing like the Beatles. But how much do we understand about those who can? Not enough, says Malcolm Gladwell, in his new book, "Outliers: The Story of Success."

Newsweek

Rebuilding the Brand

The sun-drenched waterfront hotel in Miami is glitzy, with swaying palms out front and a glittering fountain in the lobby. But the mood inside Wednesday was dark, as the Republican governors Association gathered to try to rebuild a brand badly tarnished at the polls.

Newsweek

The Brand Bubble

Through extensive research using brand and financial data on thousands of brands, I and my colleagues at Young & Rubicam have found that the multiples that markets place on brand valuations far overstate actual consumer sentiment. This means that the value creation most brands are bringing to their companies, and ultimately to their shareholders, is greatly exaggerated. Put simply, most businesses and the financial markets think brands are worth more than the consumers who buy them.

changethis

Buying Binge Slams to Halt

Suddenly, our consumer society is doing a lot less consuming. The numbers are pretty incredible. Sales of new vehicles have dropped 32 percent in the third quarter. Consumer spending appears likely to fall next year for the first time since 1980 and perhaps by the largest amount since 1942.

New York Times

Sweet Surprise

Goodbye Seduction, Hello Coupons

As the economy rapidly deteriorates from flourishing to floundering, marketers are scrambling to remake their advertising so products seem affordable and sensible rather than indulgent and fabulous. For many big marketers, including automakers, retailers, consumer product companies and even financial services, a major shift in consumer psychology spells an end to the aspirational advertising that has dominated their campaigns for the last decade.

New York Times