Meet Innovation's New Partner: A Strong Brand

I've often wondered why I put posts on this blog about brands despite the fact that there are dozens of brand blogs out there. What's more, I don't even care that much about Starbucks, Apple and other celebrity brands. I'm far more interested in looking at brands like Horlicks, a bedtime drink that helps you sleep or Taiwan's Foxconn, Apple's Taiwan-based design and manufacturing partner in China. One, a consumer brand, and the other, an under-the-radar business-to-business brand, are much more interesting to follow if brands are your thing. 

So why the posts on brands on a blog on innovation? One of the problems with innovation is that its outcomes often make the world more complex for us. A counterweight to this state of affairs is one of the many, yet overlooked, functions of a brand: its ability to simplify. A brand acts as a mental shortcut -- the path of least resistance in an increasingly bewildering world. So when we spend our day feeling obliged to innovate at work, we can grab our favorite branded product on the way home without having to burn up any more mental energy than is absolutely necessary. We have at once complexity and a caveman-derived desire for simplicity.

Firms have three extremely difficult things to get right if they are to succeed in this environment:

1. Staff who have the heart to innovate.

2. Strong brands . . .

3. whose country of origins are attractive, or wield the iron-cored feather duster of soft power.

The battle of innovation, brands and the moral high ground is about to begin.