When facilitating SHIT becomes INNOVATION

 

I know the title of the post sounds weird, but mind you the story is even weirder. I first came across this unique case study at Porus Munshi ‘s seminar on “ Busting the myths of innovation “ at the L & OD conference held at Essar House last month. The focus of the seminar revolved around Frugal innovations and one of the important lessons that has stuck on to me is:

“If you rely on customer feedback for innovation, you will only get suggestions to make a better product. However if you really want to innovate, observe your customers. What they do with your product, how they use it and that is when you will realize, what they really need! “

He elaborated this factor by describing a case study of a Toilet paper company called Renova and their peculiar innovation which made them one of the largest sellers of toilet paper in Brazil. I took to this case study for two important reasons:

         
 

•  First, because  it discussed one of the industries that hardly ever finds mention in B-school curriculum and 

 

• Second, to explain that it is not always advances in “technology” that can bring about real innovation. Most often than not it is necessity and curiosity that leads to an idea, and eventually it is that idea that leads to innovation.

The year was 2006. The Brazilian toilet paper industry was saturated with bigger and larger multinational companies like P & G, Kimberley-Clark, J&J and other national players. Renova a small family run company was starting to lose market share, which it majorly held for several years, to these colossal manufacturers. The management was going bonkers, how the hell can we increase our market share. The only logical solution seemed “asking people to poop more “!!

An impossible solution: \

 There had to be another way, a new solution to this problem.

The company decided to approach this problem by studying “potty” characteristics of Brazilian population and comparing them with other countries. Some interesting findings were as below:

•  In Brazil a toilet paper roll lasted for average 5 days

•  Brazilians on an average used  5.6 sheets per toilet  trip , about 40 toilet rolls (of 200 sheets each) per year

They compared these habits with other inhabitants of this world and came up with the following data comparison:

British used 110 rolls of toilet paper a year, followed by Americans who used 98 rolls and the Germans who used an average of 73 rolls per year.

An interesting fact was observed that German soldiers used a whopping 10 rolls a day or 3650 rolls per annum. Don’t make any second assumptions. No, the German soldiers did not have any suspicious potty activities. However they believed that the toilet paper was the best way to clean small-caliber weapons.

After looking at all the facts the company came to the conclusion that, the only way to increase the sale of toilet paper is by making Brazilians use “more toilet paper per visit”. This obviously was going to be a daunting task.

The company was so desperate and it was ready to go to any lengths to get its sales up. And they thought of something, that no company in any sector would ever think of doing. 

Install cameras in toilets to record Brazilian toilet habits. :O

A ridiculous solution. However the company could see no other way out .And went ahead with the installation. They found 1000 willing volunteers who were ready to be shot on camera when they “Did It”.

                                        

 

The first few weeks of the tape were straight shown the door. The activities of the volunteers were too conscious to be recorded as anything peculiar. However as months passed and volunteers became used to the cameras, analyst played and replayed the tapes to see if they record anything important.

And finally a few important clues emerged.

                            More than 90% of Brazilian population read while they shed

 

A detailed observation revealed majority of them liked to keep themselves updated by reading “Newspaper” as a part of the daily ritual. A more zoomed camera angle suggested that all of them read the “Comic Strips” on the last page of the newspaper. It seemed jokes facilitated other businesses than just laughing ;)

So what next? What can be done with this piece of information.

And then it dawned to the company .

The entire case rested on two things

1)      The only way to increase consumption was to increase the per visit usage of toilet paper.                        
 

2)      The fact was that a great majority of the Brazilian population read the daily cartoon strips on the pot.

 

Combining these two factors the company decided that all toilet paper rolls should be printed with the most popular cartoon strips after obtaining necessary copyrights. This way, the consumer will keep unrolling the toilet rolls to view the cartoons as he relieves himself; and will unroll even more as the cartoons continue to amuse and hold him spellbound. At the end of it all, the user will unwind much more paper than he usually does or actually needs for his requirement. And will end up using the entire length of unrolled tissue for his ablutions.

Thus was born " Comic Strip Toilet Paper "

 

And it worked. The company came out with toilet papers printed with cartoon strips and sales just zoomed past leaving all the competitors literally “behind”.

I feel examples like these pave the way to understanding how by mere observation of the customer’s habits one can deduce what kind of product they would want. Also the example shows how no matter how ridiculous an idea sounds (installing cameras in toilets!!) things that need to be done , just need to be done ;)

I believe that it is difficult for the customers to actually articulate what they exactly want. And it is the Company’s job to see and understand their customer’s real needs. Companies like Apple work on Steve Job’s principle “Customers don’t know what they want, until you show it to them “. The tremendous success of Ipod , Iphone and Ipad stands testimony to his belief.

And when I think about listening to customers for their needs, I am always reminded of a famous quote by  Henry Ford , the father of modern day automobiles . He said,

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

Sources :

INSEAD casestudy on Renova Toilet paper
What happens in Brazilian toilets : by Sunil Vaishnov
www.citeworld.com :Customer Driven Innovation Limits