Proctor & Gamble Finds Non Consumption

Not only does P&G look for and find non consumption, it exploits it to make a dollar. This is innovation in its purest form. Real innovation.

The Crest Tooth Whitening Strips were not introduced to compete with expensive cosmetic dentists, but non consumers. Non consumers being the people who would never have bothered to go to one of these dentists in the first place. Not because they don't care about their teeth, but because cosmetic dentists are expensive and a hassle to get to. (You've got to pay the dentist fees AND suffer the cost of taking time off from work.)

Sure the strips are not as good a the dentist's whitening lasers (and P&G are well aware of this), but they are much better than what these non consumers were using before, which was nothing.

Clayton Christensen claims that there is non consumption everywhere. You just need a process to find it and exploit it. This process starts with scanning, the first stage in any innovation process.