At the heart of most strategic efforts in business, lies the desire to innovate on some level. This article explores the real meaning of innovation, why we do it and how it is achieved.

Innovation Misunderstood
Innovation is an elusive topic to some people. From time to time I see very smart stakeholders influencing decisions that support a misconstrued perception of innovation, most often to the detriment of the initiative at hand. A narrow view of innovation places too much weight on being different and “not boring”, without considering whether the idea is also creating value. In the interactive marketing industry, one common pitfall includes the creation of experimental website navigation systems at the expense of usability. We see it too often. Teams trying alternative ways of laying out controls, arrangement of zone patterns, designing interactions, and labeling of elements–all in an effort to introduce something fresh and not appear like the competitors’ websites.

The marketing and media landscape is changing at an exponential rate and marketers are working overtime to stay ahead so they can include all the latest tools and techniques to optimize their marketing mix. This has become increasingly complex with the advent of new media. Five years ago,the major challenge was to integrate basic interactive media with traditional media to create an optimal plan. Interestingly enough, some marketers today are shifting their entire budget to digital-based campaigns (Southern Comfort for example). However, traditional media still makes sense for many brands and the need to integrate it with interactive channels is stronger than ever. Now one of the bigger challenges perplexing marketers is how to integrate emerging media into the mix in a relevant way.

I have been in the business of developing websites for a long time now. When I look back over the last several years, it is clear to me that a fundamental shift has taken place. It wasn’t that long ago (within the last 5 years) that most businesses simply needed a web presence and weren’t yet focused on achieving results. In fact most companies, when asked about results, couldn’t even tell you what their monthly traffic numbers were. Within the last few years, marketers, en masse, have shifted their attention to securing results, following mandates from their bosses to show return on investment. Some that have succeeded have done so by taking an empathetic approach to understanding their customers in order to find meaningful ways to connect with them.

We’re observing some interesting trends in strategic marketing that have resulted from advancements in technology, knowledge gained from experience, learning from other disciplines of science, and of course the down economy.