An idea can change your life!

"An idea can change your life" is a very true statement, it truly can change your life.

However, if the idea is executed well, the idea must change other lives as well. The world we live in is shrewd, here's a look at some cynical yet creative ideas, one from the past and one from the present.

Listerine

Background fact: Listerine was named for Joseph Lister, a British surgeon, and pioneer of antiseptic surgery.

Listerine was invented in the nineteenth century as a surgical antiseptic. Soon afterward, it was sold unsuccessfully as a floor cleaner and a cure for everything from chapped hands to gonorrhea. In the 1920's, however, the makers of Listerine hit pay dirt when they pitched it as a remedy for bad breath.

By the 1930’s Listerine was positioned as a cure for dandruff, even though it is not clear dandruff was something that had to be cured. (Wow!)

Story of customer insight: Ned Kennan!

Ned Kennan was employed by Listerine to learn about consumer demands. Before then, market research had just surveys that discovered people used mouth wash after eating food. He saw an opportunity in this to increase sales for Listerine.

He used focus groups to understand how people use the product after eating food. He discovered that people read the instructions very carefully before they use Listerine. After listening to the feedback, he asked caps of the bottle to be increased by a quarter. Well, after doing so, the number of people buying Listerine increased tremendously. (If the cap is too small, don't change the product, change its features!)

Flip Flops This case is very interesting, A guy named Sam Morrison made flip flops the most popular footwear of 2018. How?

He created a website, President Flip Flops. He used almost 40,000 tweets of President and manufactured 1000 pairs of flip-flops.

He started selling them on 5th September 2017 and despite $0 on marketing, he managed to have ALL of his flip flops sold out. The flip-flops went viral, the idea was creative, the product sold itself due to the coverage it got.

The “Electoral college” flip flops:

Ideas can be functional, creative, based on insights.....in other words, flexible! Next time you find yourself stumbling upon an idea, don't just keep the idea in your mind, see if it can be executed.

Source: 1. http://libraries.rbhs.rutgers.edu/rwjlbweb/posters/listerine.pdf

2. https://www.businessinsider.in/This-guy-made-physical-flip-flops-out-of-President-Trumps-contradictory-tweets-and-he-sold-out-his-entire-inventory-in-less-than-a-month/articleshow/67353554.cms