Often category is defined or expressed in terms of objects.
Examples:
SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle), Truck, etc.
Air-Conditioner, Refrigerator, etc.
FMCG, in that you have all sorts of things like Potato Chips, Ketchup, Biscuits, Shampoo, etc.
These are fine. Nothing wrong in defining categories this way.
When it comes to significant innovations, Marketing men have to take decisions related to category definitions and coin new category names even. And that’s fair.
But here’s the thing.
Any object (or thing) derives and delivers its value through the movements it extracts from or induces a customer or buyer or user to go through.
{Read that again in case the sentence feels complicated. I’ll try to express in simpler words when I get those words.}
Any object (or thing) derives and delivers its value through the movements it extracts from or induces a customer (or buyer or user) to go through.
So the challenge for a significant innovation (and therefore a new category) is new movements. In other words, one can ask, what are the new movements that this innovation requires from its customers or users? Or, which old movements will have to be stopped and new movements will have to be learned for this innovation?
If there are significant new movements or changes in old movements, that is the challenge for a new category. And that is also the marketing challenge. NEW MOVEMENTS or CHANGE IN MOVEMENTS.
Buyers resist adopting new movements. Body resists new movements. New movements = Change. Change isn’t always easily acceptable.
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