You don't Innovate - You just Variegate!

Thinking about my post Daimler: Celebrating 1000 Years of Incremental Innovation, I thought I should generalize a little bit, to struck you all. You cannot lean back any more by saying, okay it is just cars, sorry.

A marketing innovation is no innovation. A marketing innovation is a one-trick-pony. It betrays customers in the long run. They will walk away from you.

What you call innovation just works in unperfect markets, oligopolies, quasi-monopolies - which you lobbied as competitive to politicians, who do not know better.

The next yoghurt is no innovation. It is a taste flanker. Innovation carries true value for the customer - and exceeds existing ones of course. A faster car is no innovation. A 3-inch longer car is no innovation.

Innovation creates markets. Innovation converges markets. Innovation transcends markets.

Innovation is no wet dream, no idea for idea's sake. Innovation isn't rebate or better placement or shelf space.

Innovation changes the culture of the corporation. Innovation changes the brand positioning, extends the brand core, focusses it to the max, opens it for new customers at the same time.

Innovation reinvents the brand, the culture, the corporation.
Do you still think you innovate?