A powerful technique for finding white space is to do what Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor suggest in their book the INNOVATOR’S SOLUTION: Look for a job people are already trying to get done, then help them do it. Jobs-based innovation, as opposed to product-based innovation, helps you get around the difficulty of testing a product that has yet to be commercialized.
A successful example of jobs-based innovation is the ten-dollar reading glasses you find in drugstores. The cheap-reader category was pure white space before someone noticed a job not getting done: People were going without extra pairs of glasses because they didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on prescription pairs. Are the cheap readers as good as prescription glasses? No—but it doesn’t matter. At 5% of the price of prescription glasses, the cheap readers do a good enough job. So good, in fact, that people buy pairs for every room in the house, and the category has become a half-billion-dollar industry.
A. G. Lafley, CEO of Procter & Gamble, has energized his company by putting a microscope on the need states of its consumers. Using ethnographic research in which researchers move in with consumers to observe their habits firsthand, they uncover need states like the one that led to their hugely successful Swiffer product. They noticed that the consumer had no easy way to spot-sweep dry spills without the hassle of a broom and dustpan—and found a solution that helped her get it done. “The simple principle in life,” said Lafley, “is to find out what she wants and give it to her. It’s worked in my marriage for 35 years and it works in laundry.” When you’re searching for a need state, don’t think so much about the unbuilt product as about the unserved tribe.
WHICH DID YOU SEE FIRST, THE DOLLAR SIGNS OR THE HEARTS?
Of course, brands get an extra boost when they’re powered by trends. Starbucks got a boost from the trend toward a more European lifestyle. The Apple iPod got a boost from the trend toward online music sharing. Charles Schwab got a boost from the trend toward more customized personal investing. Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s got a boost from the trend toward organic living. Tout Beau, Jean-Paul Gaultier’s line of male cosmetics, got a boost from the trend toward metrosexuality. And Axe Body Spray got a boost from an equal and opposite trend toward macho-sexuality.