Getting home insurance is a serious faff, especially when providers ask you about intricate details you’ve never thought about. But the website GoCompare makes the process more consumer friendly by using visual cues. After all, it’s much easier to recognise your lock from an image than a description.
Innovation
Stamp a best before date on them. Sales of Tontine pillows tripled as a result of this simple tweak.
The American diner changed its name to “IHOb” to promote its new range of burgers. A simple tweak to its brand codes, but a powerful way of driving awareness and sales (which increased 4x).
Ikea is almost as famous for its food as its furniture, so in 2024 the retailer capitalised on this; opening a standalone restaurant in London, serving affordable meals as well as its iconic meatballs.
When Steve Jobs introduced the first iPod to the world, he didn’t say: “the iPod. A 5GB MP3 player”. He said, “the iPod. 1,000 songs in your pocket.”
Lego (temporarily) turned their Battersea Power Station store into a florist – a brilliant way of bringing the brand to life.
Lego’s Fortnite partnership has reached 83 million people (largely adults) and helped the toymaker achieve double digit growth this year: a perfect illustration of the power of creativity in commercial success.
How do you demonstrate the thinness of a MacBook? You could say it’s only 1.8cm thick. Or, if you’re Steve Jobs, you pull it out a manila envelope.
Travis Scott’s partnership meal with McDonald’s was so popular that it caused supply chain issues.
The McRib made its debut at McDonald’s in 1981, and while it initially attracted some attention, it wasn’t enough to keep it as a permanent fixture on the menu. But when the sandwich was taken away, many customers expressed disappointment and a desire for its return. This prompted McDonald’s to periodically bring the McRib back, but always for a limited time, over the next few decades. The sandwich’s temporary nature sparked a devoted following, so much so that a McRib locator was created to help fans find it.
The bank initially required customers to join a three week waiting list, creating the sense that the product was special. It then gave customers a golden ticket – but only one – to pass to friends so they could skip the waiting list and get immediate access. According to founder Tom Blomfield, “it just worked incredibly well – about 40% of our sign-ups in 2017 came from golden tickets and it cost us nothing.”
The brand has a simple rule: add ‘by monkeys’ to any sentence to stop yourself from creating writing that feels passive.
Nespresso entered the coffee-to-go market in 2024, opening its first café near Liverpool Street station – as the busiest train station in England, it’s not a bad place to attract new customers.
The Netflix autoplay feature led to “by far the biggest increase in the hours watched KPI of any feature we ever tested,” according to the engineer who created it. Different timings were tested – 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds – but 10 seconds turned out to be the sweet spot. Just enough time to catch your breath, but not too long to lose interest.
In 1985, thousands of blind taste tests showed that consumers preferred a new, sweeter formulation of Coca Cola. The company took this at face value, replacing the original Coca Cola with a new drink using the sweeter recipe. But the ensuing backlash to New Coke shows the limitations of objective thinking. Insiders forgot that, in the real world, people don’t consume drinks blindfolded. The data ignored the strength of the original Coca Cola brand.