• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, April 9, 2008

I meet lots of smart people every week -- all of whom have developed great companies with unique services or innovative products. I evaluate these products and try to help these entrepreneurs develop marketing strategies that can enable them to grow and become successful. However, there are times when I hear an idea and I'm forced to evaluate whether it solves a real problem or not. Sometimes I find that it doesn't.

In order for an idea to be a success, it needs to meet three criteria. It has to be defensible, it has to meet the promises of expectations against it, and it has to provide a solution for a challenge facing the target audience.

It's that last criterion which I find to be the most important. There are lots of examples of great companies that created unique and impactful ideas. Not all of them are always defensible, but they succeed in spite of the competition. The biggest issue is whether the idea provides a true solution for a real consumer challenge! Too many times I see companies who've "built a better mousetrap," so to speak, but the target audience doesn't really need it or want it, or it's not one of their fundamental "top 10" issues.

Google and YouTube are examples of these criteria. Both are innovative and unique in their own right. Neither was truly defensible (maybe to a point, but there are lots of search companies and lots of video-sharing sites), even though their technology is still more advanced than much of the competition. They didn't even have first-mover advantage (Google was easily the fifth or sixth search engine to be developed and was behind rivals Alta Vista and Infoseek for quite some time). What was true is that both satisfied a true consumer challenge in a unique and innovative way. For years you could share photos online, but there was no way to share videos until along came YouTube. Searching and finding information on the Web was slow, not always effective and loaded down with all sorts of marketing messages and clutter until Google came along with a new algorithm and a bare bones interface, speeding up this process and making it more efficient. I know there are many more elements to consider when evaluating their success, but both of these companies were evaluated under my three criteria; they were defensible (to a point), they met expectations (exceeded to some extent) and they provided a real solution to a recognized challenge.

Too many companies are trying to create solutions for marketers' needs or to improve upon some other company's methodology, but they need to start with the mind of the consumer and see if their target audience recognizes the need in the first place! When you're creating a concept you should do sufficient research to ensure that your target recognizes there's a real need for your solution.

For example, I may be interested in hearing about a new video-sharing site or a new-photo sharing site, but if that company advertises to me, I will likely not respond because it's not a top-10 issue for me. Ever hear the old cliché, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"? That's the basic issue I'm talking about. I don't need a new search engine. I don't need a new Internet browser. I don't need to access the Internet from my refrigerator. I don't need a better mousetrap, when the old ones work just fine!

You may not see the reason to be reading this article today since it doesn't apply to a media plan or a creative strategy. But when you are developing ideas for your clients, you are tasked to come up with concepts that drive their business forward -- and the best way to do that is to identify true challenges in the marketplace and apply creative solutions. Don't start with a solution from a marketer's point of view. Instead, start from the consumer's point of view -- and you are destined for more success than if you do it the other way.