Economize

Once an offering achieves widespread adoption, companies can spur further market penetration by appealing to the late majority with cost-cutting and commoditizing strategies. Since the late majority often finds itself trying out a new offering solely out of peer pressure, it may be necessary to create more economical solutions that reduce barriers to adoption. An economize strategy often suits a company in a mature category where the value of a technology is generally accepted.

IKEA has built its global brand on a strategy of designing to economize. The company’s furniture is stylish, attractive, and almost inevitably derivative of a classic design. Their Karlstad Swivel chair, for example, looks like a slimmed-down (some would say dumbed-down) version of Arne Jacobsen’s Egg Chair. But while Jacobsen’s original was designed as an artistic, crafted object and continues to sell for more than $3,000, the Karlstad was designed for manufacturability and retails for less than $500. At $500, there’s not much Egg left in the Karlstad. This is what IKEA excels at. Its designers study great, high-end furniture designs, shrewdly identify which features people value most, and then find ways to manufacture and deliver the new version for a fraction of the original’s cost. In the case of the Egg and the Karlstad, both chairs have high backs, a swivel base, and a comfortable foam frame. And while the Egg also has an innovative form and a wrap-around seat back, the Karlstad offers nothing else. While one can assume the quality of IKEA’s swivel stand may not match Jacobsen’s, it’s equally likely that the Karlstad feels just as good to sit in. And that’s the secret of designing to economize—not cutting corners arbitrarily, but analyzing successful high-end solutions in a market and figuring out which corners could be cut to create a true low-cost alternative.

Play

To drive adoption of a new technology beyond the mainstream, companies must find ways to appeal to laggards. This involves finding ways to create value that don’t depend on technical differentiation. Often, the inherent familiarity of a widely adopted product can give designers an opportunity to do something different. Indeed, many designers thrive on bringing inventive forms to established categories, and making the familiar unfamiliar. In recent years, Italian design has made a name for itself through such play strategies.

In the 1970s, the Swiss watch-making industry, world-renowned for its precision and quality, was in crisis. Leveraging low-cost quartz technology, Asian manufacturers had begun to match the Swiss in technical precision for a fraction of the price. Swiss market leader SMH responded by changing the game. The near ubiquity of wristwatches meant that consumers were ready for a little bit of play. The launch of the Swatch brand in 1983 was marked by artsy, cheeky, and irreverent watch designs. Swatch played with watches by positioning them as fashion accessories, not finely tuned timepieces. Over time, Swatch has continued to create new watch styles, soliciting well-known artists like Keith Haring to create whimsical designs that emphasize trend and fashion. An implicit message of the entire product line is that consumers should collect multiple watches to wear on different occasions. The strategy was so successful that SMH went on to rename itself the Swatch Group, and the company is now the world watch leader in both revenue and market share.

Refresh

Once a technology has reached near-universal adoption, it’s incumbent upon existing players and new entrants to reinvent the category. This can mean finding ways to refresh an obsolete technology, often by identifying a novel use for it.

By the early 1990s, digital compact discs effectively replaced vinyl albums as the dominant medium for recorded music. While most people were happy to have pop- and hiss-free CDs, a small but significant audience never stopped using records. Unlike the rest of us, hip-hop and electronic music DJs still use turntables. Since DJs use record players to mix, cut up, and loop existing music tracks into new songs, they have requirements that are very different from those of the mainstream consumers who used to purchase phonographs. Responding to this shift in the market, companies such as Technics have designed turntables to better handle reverse spins, audio fades, and variable speeds. Needles designed for DJs are both more durable and more precise than their mainstream predecessors. These professional models fundamentally work in the same way as every phonograph ever made, but they can handle far greater strain and make it easier for a DJ to be an artist in his or her own right. By identifying a novel use for an obsolete technology, a handful of companies have enjoyed considerable success catering to a refreshed category.

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