from niche to mainstream

New product launch strategy Mix novelty and familiarity to move from niche to mainstream

By Diego Zunino, Stine Grodal and Fernando F. Suarez

: Javier Tascón illustrations

Help your new product to “cross the chasm” and reach the “zone of adoption” with these practical tips.

For years IBM has used its advertising muscle to promote Watson, its AI software that it promised would usher in a radical new era of “cognitive computing.” But mainstream customers remain puzzled: What’s “cognitive computing”? And other than famously beating humans at playing Jeopardy!, what does Watson actually do? And how is it any different from other AI products on the market?

IBM’s Watson problem is not unique. Many companies fail to reach mainstream markets because they fail to manage a fundamental conundrum: How to make a new product appear both novel and familiar at the same time? Play up the novel features and consumers may reject the product for being too unusual; focus on the familiar and consumers may not see any reason to switch from their preexisting favorite. This is especially tricky when introducing genuinely disruptive products. While there will always be a niche of early adopters who will enthusiastically embrace anything new, making the leap to achieving wide-scale interest and adoption from the more conservative mainstream market is a much tougher sell. Overcoming this hurdle is what Geoffrey Moore referred to as “crossing the chasm” in the title of his 1991 book.

We have explored this issue in our own research of dozens of industries, studying the category labels that firms and entrepreneurs use when introducing new products in emerging market spaces, including the smartphone industry between 2000 and 2010. Our analyses show that maximum market adoption happens when labels strike a delicate balance between being familiar but not too familiar, novel but not too novel.

To improve your own firm’s chances of “crossing the chasm,” we recommend some specific strategies to overcome the sense-making challenge that can thwart customers’ adoption of a firm’s new products. It starts by realizing that novelty and familiarity are not opposite ends of a spectrum. It is possible to convey both – but you need to get the mix right. Emphasizing one at the expense of the other frequently results in lost opportunities. In your product design and communication strategies, you need to be mindful of both. Exhibit 1 summarizes the main challenges and tensions, which we explain in this next section.

Too much novelty

Novelty evokes surprise or curiosity, which is a precondition for trying out and later adopting a product. You could say that every new product that wants to be successful has to be novel. However, too much novelty can kill curiosity and create what we call “the cost of dissonance.” Consumers become confused as to what the product actually is, which makes them reluctant to try it.

Exhibit 1. Striking the right balance between novelty and familiarity

NOVELTY

FAMILIARITY PRODUCT DESIGN STRATEGY

Mix technology or aesthetic elements not typically seen together. The more disparate the elements, the more novel the product design.

Make the product similar to preexisting products, in appearance, user interface or both. The more the design breaks with the look-and-feel and user interface of preexisting products, the more unfamiliar the product becomes to customers.

COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

Combine words not commonly seen together. The more disparate the words, the more novel the product is perceived.

Use words that evoke preexisting products or concepts that customers know. The more the communication strategy breaks with the words used to describe preexisting products, the more unfamiliar the product becomes to customers.

product design strategy. An example of a product that was introduced with too much novelty was Google Glass. The product combined two things that had never been put together before: a tiny computer stuck onto a pair of glasses. The odd design combination led many to question its usefulness and to highlight its problems, such as obstructing one’s field of vision, the exact opposite of glasses’ main function of helping one to see better.

Likewise, the novel design of the Segway, with two wheels arranged next to each other instead of being like a bike or scooter, has been attributed to its downfall. As urban mobility takes the next step toward e-bikes and e-scooters, there’s much less of a learning curve for consumers than there is with having to learn how to balance on a Segway.

communication strategy. The problem of too much novelty is compounded when, in addition to mixing disparate components in the design, the communication strategy describes the new product with words that rarely appear together.

Segway launched as “a self-balancing human transporter.” That’s a mouthful: Our research shows that longer labels tend to be less effective. But besides being long, what’s a “transporter”? How is it “self-balancing”? “For humans” as opposed to what? Segway also used descriptors like “mysterious.” Its benefits certainly remained a mystery for most consumers, because Segway ceased production in 2020, having never moved past its niche market.

Too much familiarity

Familiarity makes it easier for customers to make sense of a new product because it gives them clues about the product’s purpose and uses. Every new product, to be successful, has to be somewhat familiar. However, while some familiarity is beneficial, too much familiarity can create what we call “the cost of obviousness.” Customers ignore the new product because they fail to see important differences from the preexisting products they already know.

product design strategy. Consider the early designs for electronic cigarettes. The mouthpiece was orange and the rest of the stick was white to resemble a real cigarette; an LED light on the end glowed to look like a burning cigarette tip. Compare that to the design of vape pens now. It seems customers prefer a unique design that’s distinct from a traditional-looking cigarette.

Anchor the design to the familiar past without being a mere copycat. At the same time, don’t let the novel elements go too far

communication strategy. The short-lived phenomenon of netbook computers illustrates the problem of too much familiarity in the communication strategy. Netbook producers stressed their familiarity to notebook computers, with Asus describing its Eee PC as “a notebook with a difference,” that difference being it was more compact. This led to netbooks being dismissed as nothing more than smaller, cheaper notebooks.

Creating the right mix

So, what makes a new product more likely to be adopted by the mainstream market? Exhibit 2 summarizes our findings. You want to aim for the central “zone of adoption” – that sweet spot between familiar but not too familiar, novel but not too novel. Although a difficult balance to strike, many companies manage to crack the code by following a few basic rules when designing their products and planning their communication to launch them.

product design strategy. Apple’s iPod is a good example, combining a digital screen with a mechanical wheel that resembled an analog device people were familiar with: the rotary dial phone.

LED light-bulb producers do something similar, imitating the design features of preexisting lighting technologies. Using design elements to evoke familiarity in a novel product is a winning formula that can be traced all the way back to the invention of the electric light itself. In their 2001 research article on the subject, Andrew Hargadon and Yellowlees Douglas explain how Thomas Edison purposefully exploited existing gas-lighting technology in the design of electric lighting, even down to emulating the central distribution of the energy through hidden pipes and the use of meters to charge per usage, to gain acceptance and eventually displace established institutions.

The key here is to anchor the design to the familiar past without being a mere copycat. At the same time, the novel elements shouldn’t go too far. It’s a case of recombining fairly familiar elements to create a novel expression.

communication strategy. Today, what is technically known as “additive manufacturing” is now universally referred to as “3D printing.” This effectively combines two familiar words that would seldom be used together: “printing,” widely understood in terms of colored dyes on flat sheets of paper, along with the equally understood concept of “3D.”

This example captures how you should communicate using words that consumers may know without too much effort. At the same time, you can convey novelty by recombining familiar words in an intriguing yet non-confusing fashion.

Defensive strategies

These lessons are not just applicable to innovative firms introducing new-to-the-world products. Incumbent firms can also use these concepts as defensive strategies against disruptors to their industries. Recognizing that innovators will try to create links in consumers’ minds with preexisting, familiar products in order to gain market legitimacy, incumbents can attempt to stymie such efforts by focusing on their differences, and thereby defend their terrain.

The meat industry, for example, is currently being challenged by a whole new array of lab-grown,

If products are too novel, past the tipping point, like the Segway, mainstream consumers will have a hard time understanding them. You want to introduce more familiarity: pay attention here not to pass the tipping point or you’ll end up like the netbook computer, so much like notebooks that no one could tell the difference. To be in the zone of adoption, aim for the right combination of familiar yet different, novel yet understandable – the way the 3D printer managed to get the balance right.

Low

FAMILIARITY

High

Low Zone of adoption

3D Printer

NOVELTY

Netbook

Segway

High

source : Authors’ own elaboration

plant-based, non-animal meat substitutes. There are ongoing lawsuits in the United States as some state regulators have sided with the meat industry in barring these new food makers from using labels such as “beef,” “meat,” “sausage” and “burger” on their products if they don’t come from slaughtered animals. Incumbents can use their considerable market power to erect important barriers for startups, eliminating familiar keywords from their labeling that would help their novel products find a market. After all, a “lab-grown disk” doesn’t sound anywhere near as appetizing as something called a “burger.”

That said, incumbents can’t stop innovators from claiming familiarity to a preexisting product forever. In Europe, where similar battles have been waged over whether almond, rice and soy beverages can legitimately be called “milk” if they aren’t dairy, the EU Parliament voted in October 2020 that veggie burgers can legitimately be called “burgers,” striking a blow against incumbents’ monopoly over certain labels.

In another recent case, Unilever, the parent company of Hellmann’s Mayonnaise, tried to sue the makers of an eggless spread called Just Mayo for false advertising. This defensive strategy backfired: Consumers started a petition against Unilever for bullying sustainable food companies, and Unilever dropped its lawsuit.

Alternatively, incumbents can defend themselves from new rivals by focusing on the familiarity, showing that their apparent differences are really not so novel after all. This is what the taxi industry has successfully managed to do in some jurisdictions, getting Uber and Lyft reclassified as just other taxi companies rather than as distinct “ridesharing services.”

Learn from your past

Whatever you do to manage your own challenges, don’t forget that sometimes the answer to your design and communication strategies may lie in your past.

IBM’s balancing of the familiar with the novel helped people overcome their reluctance to try the new product

Returning to the Watson example, IBM could have learned from what it got it right when it introduced the computer to the market for the first time in the 1950s. IBM’s main competitor, Remington Rand, marketed its computer as a completely new product category, different from anything that came before, and certainly nothing like the typewriter for which it was famous. In contrast, IBM related its computer to preexisting tabulating machines, so customers approached it as something they were familiar with. IBM even followed the same naming conventions for tabulating machines to describe the computer in similar terms. The rest, as they say,

is history: IBM’s deft balancing of the familiar with the novel helped customers overcome their reluctance to try the new product, whereas Remington Rand’s emphasis on novelty left it a distant second behind IBM in the emerging computer market.

In times of deep uncertainty

You also need to keep an eye on the shifting market context. In times of sudden, unexpected changes or emergencies, as we have experienced during the coronavirus pandemic, the balance in the levels of familiarity and novelty may change, and you need to be prepared to pivot your strategies as opportunities arise.

For instance, most people are used to pressing elevator buttons. A touchless elevator control panel would seem too novel, even dissonant, for most users in normal times. But these are not normal times. With the public hyper aware of catching COVID-19 from touching potentially contaminated surfaces, the Indian firm TechMax Solution spotted an opportunity and quickly prototyped touchless control panels for elevators, so people can indicate a floor simply by pointing with their finger. In this climate, users are more willing to accept such novelty. The company is now receiving requests from around the world for touchless elevator buttons.

The key learning is that you don’t stop paying attention to how your product is being perceived. Markets are dynamic, and consumer tastes, preferences and understandings are constantly changing, especially as new products continue to launch onto the market, each trying to distinguish themselves under a mind-boggling array of different labels (in our study of the smartphone industry, we identified 380 different category labels to describe 308 devices). Remember, your job is to help customers and other stakeholders make sense of the new and unproven – so, design your products and communicate their features accordingly. Maximum adoption happens when you can find that right combination of familiarity and novelty, and you communicate it simultaneously to your stakeholders.

The authors

Diego Zunino is Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at SKEMA Business School, Université Côte d’Azur.

Stine Grodal is Associate Professor of Strategy and Innovation at Questrom School of Business, Boston University.

Fernando F. Suarez is the Jean C. Tempel Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at D’Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University.

read more: Zunino, D., F.F. Suarez and S. Grodal. “Familiarity, creativity and the adoption of category labels in technology industries.” Organization Science 30, no. 1 (2019).

Hsu, G. and S. Grodal. “The double-edged sword of oppositional category positioning: A study of the U.S. e-cigarette category (2007-2017).” Administrative Science Quarterly (2020).

Kahl, S.J. and S. Grodal. “Discursive strategies and radical technological change: Multilevel discourse analysis of the early computer (1947-1958).” Strategic Management Journal 37, no. 1 (2016).