Go Smile - AM and PM toothpaste set

Premium toothpaste with essential oils to wake you in the morning and soothe you at night.

Image source: http://www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P53001

Sainsbury's Advertising on Milk Cartons

Spotted 13/7/11.

Virtual Tesco on Korean underground platforms

Tesco (known locally as Home Plus) boosted online sales by constructing a virtual store on a train platform. It looks like photos of the aisles in a store, and you shop by scanning QR codes on products.

Update: Ocado are going to be trying a similar 'shopping wall' idea in London.

Sources & more info:

• http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/south-korean-supermarket-chain-opens-virtual-grocery-stores-in-subways/
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGaVFRzTTP4&feature=share
• Ocado shopping wall

Yo! Sushi

- Was a sensation when they first brought conveyor belt sushi to the UK in 1997.
- Gave many people their first taste of sushi.
- Made it easier for people to choose food they were often a bit anxious about eating (raw!) by letting them just pick up what looked good.
- Even today how often are you in a restaurant when you see someone else has ordered something that looks better that what you get?

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YO!_Sushi

TripAdvisor

For most people booking a hotel is a pretty anxious experience – it can make or break a holiday. TripAdvisor makes it easier for you to make the right choice.

As at May 2011:
45 million reviews.
50m monthly uniques.

Currently in the process of being spun off by Expedia Inc.

Source:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/about_us.html

Hampton Inn Clock-Radio

Hampton Inn have 1,800 hotels in US, Mexico, Latin America and Europe.

Hilton's Hampton Inn hotels launched their 'Make it Hampton' research project in 2004 aimed at creating a more standout customer experience for their core mid-market business travellers. As a result they came up with many small improvements to the overall experience. They found that some of the key anxieties were:

• Getting shower water all over the bathroom floor.
  
• Not being able to set the alarm clock confidently, and hence not getting a good night's sleep knowing they'd be woken up. In turn this led to more requests for labour-intensive wake-up calls.

In response they sorted out a leak-proof shower curtain with a curved rod, and went in search for an easier to use clock-radio. But they didn't find one, so instead had to invent their own (in partnership with Hotel Technologies). Not only did they create the foolproof alarm, but they also added buttons for different genres of music and news, which are preset to the relevant local stations. The alarm is a 'single day alarm' you can't be woken by the alarm from the previous guest.

In total Make it Hampton resulted in 120 upgrades, including a free hot breakfast (with a to-go option), and free high-speed Internet in every room.

The latest version of the radios have now been rolled out across other Hilton brands. Operationally, the clocks arrive with the time and date set by the manufacturer. Local staff just have to adjust for time zone. Daylight savings time is changed with a simple switch on the back.

These innovations put them in a good position as the recession hit, and corporate started abandoning full-service hotels for mid-level brands. Hampton are now the leader in mid-level hotels (Entrepreneur.com, Jan 2011).

Sources:
http://www.travellady.com/Issues/August05/1800AlarmClock.htm
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/55648817/Innovative-Clock-Radios-for-the-Hotel-Industry
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/217712

Lloyds TSB Save the Change account - Nudge in action

Lloyds TSB have an account called Save the Change that rounds up each debit card to the nearest pound and deposits it in a savings account.

Copied from a US account? In any case, nudge economics in actions.

http://www.lloydstsb.com/savings/save_the_change.asp

According to Datamonitor it was a hit (but you have to pay £5k to see the figures):

http://www.datamonitor.com/store/Product/toc.aspx?productId=BFFS0723

460,000 had opened an account according to a Lloyds publication in late 2010:

http://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/media/pdfs/Financial_Inclusion_Report.pdf

Google's 9 Points of Innovation

1. Innovation, not instant perfection. Launch new products and ideas early and often, rather than trying to perfect those ideas behind closed doors before releasing them to the public. Then, customer feedback and popularity prove which projects are most successful.
2. Share everything you can. Small teams that communicate openly have proved the best results for Google. They believe in transparency in the workplace so that everyone knows what everyone else is working on. They have a computer program where employees can look up names and see what others are working on, so if they have an idea to contribute they know who to talk to.
3. You’re brilliant, we’re hiring. When Google interviews employees, Lecinski said they set the bar very high. They focus more on hiring generalists rather than specialists, as they have found generalists are more valuable and can contribute ideas to different parts of the company.
4. Allow employees to pursue their dreams. Lecinski said Google allows its employees’ time in a 70/20/10 model. Seventy percent of the time they work on Google’s search and ad flagships; they develop new programs like Images, Desktop and Finance 20 percent of the time; and 10 percent of the time employees are allowed to pursue their own high risk/high reward projects. Lecinski said Google Earth is a result of one of those projects.
5. Ideas come from everywhere. Sometimes Google turns to the public for new ideas. The Google mastheads, which are customized for holidays and events, are taken from non-employee submissions. One of the mastheads was designed by a 12-year-old girl.
6. Don’t politic – use data. With all the ideas floating around Google, the best way to determine which may work is to use supportive data. As Lecinski said, “Data beats opinion.”
7. Creativity loves restraint. Again, Google has to have some way to keep all of the employee-generated ideas streamlined towards the company’s goals. “Let people explore, but set clear boundaries for that exploration,” Lecinski said.
8. Get users and usage – the money will follow. This goes back to one of Lecinski’s larger points, “respect for end users,” but is a principle to follow in any form of business. He says to focus on creating things that are innovative and useful for people, not something you can sell.
9. Don’t kill projects, morph them. Google doesn’t waste ideas. Instead, they try to change and transform them into something the company finds useful.

Source: Jim Lecinski, managing director for Google, speaking at Digital Signage Expo 2007. Article from: http://www.digitalscreenmedia.org/the-perspective/view/10355/google-s-nine-points-of-innovation

Where ideas come from

Ideas come from:

• New patterns/trends
  
• Mix 'n mash - taking 2 ideas and colliding them
• Related worlds
• Overshot customers - C Christiansen's ideas on customers who are being overdelivered

Adapted from Margaret Gold's presentation at the mHealth unconference.

Mappiness - the happiness app

Interesting LSE project to use an iPhone app to track where and when people are happy.

http://www.mappiness.org.uk/