Heretical Innovation...Now How Cool Is That!

Last week I got to see innovation in action.

I got invited to learn about how some of my new friends and clients are making some money selling their friends on signing up with a new gas company.

I know what you are thinking… none of that makes much sense.

There is an exercise that I take clients through during brainstorming and ideation sessions called “Dogma and Heresy.” It is an exercise that I passionately refer to as “Dog Poop and Hair Spray.”

As part of this exercise I have clients list out the Dogma strategy of the competition and the category. Dogma being the stuff that many of the clients are saying and doing over and over and over again.

For example, how many natural gas ads have you seen that feature that flickering flame and talk about natural gas as the clean energy source?

Next in the exercise, I have clients come up with ideas and strategies that their boss would label as heresy… a challenge of conventional truth.

Some of the client groups I have facilitated have difficulty doing this. Many participants are either afraid that their co-workers will think they are stupid; others go so far as to think they may even get fired if the ideas are too way out there.

This gas company I learned about is actually expanding from Texas to the state of Georgia.

Now the Dogma of this category is one where you probably figure it is mandatory to get on television with brand awareness ads so that people remember your name when they go to select their gas utility company.

How many people that you know can name their energy provider and at least one or two of their other options of choice?

Perhaps part of that is a left over from the public ownership days where most of the organizations were really not that accountable for advertising return because not many of the gas providers had much of a competitive marketplace.

With deregulation, times have changed… but the thinking set of most marketers remains the same.

And let me state right here that this scenario I am sharing today is not unique just to utility companies. It is true across most consumer product categories among many of what I term as the “MBA Leadership Breed.”

So what is this Texas gas provider doing to enter the marketplace and compete?

How are they spreading word about their brand and getting competitive gas customers to switch?

They are getting friends to call friends – ten of them to be exact – and asking them to switch and in doing so, making some cash along the way.

And if some of their friends find it interesting enough to go and convert over ten more of their friends, they make even more cash.

Some call it a pyramid scheme other call it “Tier Marketing”.

Others see it as just a new way to make some extra bucks. Some folks get so wrapped up in it that they believe they can cash in quickly like playing the lottery with a little more luck!

This type of making money is not much of a match with me, but I must admit I am damn impressed by the innovation of a utility company using it to gain market presence and market share.

This utility company has even branded their product around the sell-in method. The company is branded as Stream Energy and their sales team is branded as Ignite.

You may not get too excited pyramid selling.., and that’s okay because its not the tactic that matters, it is the heresy of even considering it that does.

If an energy company can use a heretical approach… just think what it can do for a CPG brand… a restaurant brand… a healthcare brand… a travel/tourism brand…

I know that this goes against what gas companies deliver, but is this cool or what!