Innovation Recipe Inspired from the 90s Music

If you grew up with 90s songs, there’s one thing I can say definitely - you still remember them from the starting music note. Isn’t it amazing that almost 30 years on and these songs and ad jingles live rent-free in our heads? If you understand why, you can crack many mysteries for why some products work, and some disappear.

Here’s a summary of what we’ll cover:

1. Emotional resonance is a huge factor for why products work.
2. How we can incorporate the learnings for our innovations.

At the end of this email are the action steps listed. Let’s dive in!

Creativity was given a chance to thrive

Back then and even today in India, most songs were heard through movies. There were a good range of singers and music directors who made things happen. Arguably, that talent pool is broader now due to the ease with which one can release songs and videos today.

Today it’s easy to see which songs work well with different audience.

You can slice-and-dice the data whichever way to determine the exact fit for your tunes. Back then? Not so easy.

Music had one, main purpose - to enhance the story.

In the 90s, my take is that both the music and lyrics had a strong gut-feel component to them. The music composers and the movie makers knew the story they wanted to tell. It was a time of detailed, creative thought process leading to the music. You could also look at the album and determine the situation in the movie. The connection to a story helps the second reason.

Emotional resonance

Songs back then resonated more. I know this is uncle-speak - my uncles said the same things about the songs they liked, and I am doing the same. But hear me out.

While we had music videos and TVs prevalent, the continuous streaming and access to visual content wasn’t there.

We all had walkmans, discmans, and later MP3 players. Your car was known by how loud you played the hit songs in the most crowded areas.

Audio especially songs were absorbed completely.

We connected with more songs at a much deeper level. In comparison, today we are distracted and some songs do connect but percentage wise, it’s a smaller number.

We can get into the music styles, lyrics, tempo etc but that can be natural evolution. The new generation will have its own preferences.

From a strategic perspective, you have an era of products - music in this case - that had two specific characteristics.

1. The products were given time to innovate and to explore the creative potential.
2. There is a strong emotional connect and a recall to those products.

How can we apply this learning

Let’s say you want your team to innovate on the latest technological introduction. Giving examples of the new may not resonate - they can’t connect with them, yet.

Instead give examples from things they did in the past, where there is a strong recall.

Asking them to optimize on that memory will work better. Use products that they have used. Urge them to spot problems in those, things that if improved will take the experience to the next level.

A couple of easy examples are recliner chairs in movie theatres or 4DX chairs. These were unthought of a few years ago and now it’s mainstream.

Once they have spotted the opportunity, this is the time to get the creative juices flowing.

Get wild ideas, hear out unrealistic ideas, convert a few of those into prototypes.

You’re giving creativity a chance to bloom. Once something appears working, get the others involved and see if it is worth developing further.

Try it and soon you will have offerings that customers will be happy to stick to.

If you liked this, share this with your colleagues. Creativity works better with a group :-)

Until next time.

Best regards,

Hemang.