Innovation: Not building the wheel, just repurposing it

There’s a lot of talk about how people need to innovate. “Innovate or Die!” “Innovation is the only way for businesses to succeed.” And to an extent, this is true. But most people think of innovation as invention, which isn’t that far off. It’s defined as:

Innovation: 
1. The act of introducing something new.
2. Something newly introduced.

But innovation can be more than just an invention or a brand new thing. I think the greatest “innovations” come from repurposing things. Looking at how something is being used and find out how to repurpose it, that’s where you’ll find innovative ideas.

What? You want examples? Fine. Here:

1. Billboards: Billboards have always been the forgotten medium. People don’t think a whole lot about them. We see them a lot on our daily commutes. But they’ve always been just print. There’s been some use of billboards as vertical gardens and with 3D features but those have been way too expensive to become anything more than a singular market items.Where billboards have succeeded lately has been in creating digital billboards. Billboards that drop a holographic angel on your head and track airplanes as the fly by. These two ideas are awesome because they rethink how a traditional medium is used. They take something purely analog and add a digital component. They went where people didn’t even think to look. And even cooler, they took it and made it interactive. Taking a bold leap into the internet of things.
2. Print: Another area that is often thought of as purely analog. How can you add a digital component? It’s impossible right? Wrong. Motorola recently created a print ad that lights up, changing colors to help you decide which color suits you the best. Awesome idea. Great potential for earned/shared media. Great way to bridge the digital analog gap but unfortunately, this seems to be extremely cost prohibitive for something to do often. However, it’s innovation, and the best kind in my opinion because it repurposes and rethinks an common idea.
3. Doing the opposite: This kind of innovation doesn’t have the same kind of “WOW” factor as some other kinds. But I still think it’s worth mentioning. Sometimes you can be extremely innovative doing opposite of what’s expected. You know those ads that we all watch before our beloved cat videos on Youtube? (side note: I hate cat videos.) Well Burger King made some preroll ads that made fun of them. Ever listen to Spotify? Probably 1 in 4 of the ads on there make fun of Spotify ads. The latest ones I’ve heard are from Wendy’s offering a free month of premium. Bud Light’s latest teaser ads for the Super Bowl? Ads for an ad campaign? #inception Not quite as flashy in the innovation department, but it is still a repurposing in a way.I read this article, recently written by a guy I admire in advertising. In it he talks about preroll ads and the importance of making sure that they are actually engaging, especially for the first five seconds you’re forced to watch. But what’s important is his example. He talks about how Mazda had created an ad that was meant to be viewed fast forwarded, because that’s what people did in the days of VHS. This is awesome. Totally innovative. Repurposing an ad to be viewed differently.

So next time somebody says to be “innovative” don’t immediately think you have to create something brand spanking new. Innovation comes in many different forms. Think of a way you can repurpose things. Not necessarily a way no one has thought of, but a way that you can make work. Remember, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, you can just repurpose it.