common?

They are all products that are used differently than originally intended.

Just because people use your product or service differently than you had planned doesn’t mean you should

fight it. It also doesn’t mean you should change completely what you do. Below are some examples of how

people have used products for non-intended uses.

Products people use differently, encouraging change

White ink becomes White Out.

First, people wanted to be able to print text on darker colored paper, so white ink was invented. Then people began using that white ink to fix their mistakes. Seems pretty logical to turn that into a product of its own and charge 100x more for it.

Another product re-purposing possibility:

For decades, militaries around the world have used condoms to wrap around the end of a barrel to keep water and sand out of soldiers’ weapons. I am sure if it hasn’t happened already, condom manufacturers could develop a condom line just for militaries and weapons that would involve little modification. In fact, they could probably make them more gun friendly and charge more for the same technology, manufacturing, materials and wrapping (in a handy camo color of course).

Products shouldn’t change just because people use them differently

A waffle iron making shoe soles.

Remember the story about the founders of Nike using a waffle iron to make the soles for their new track shoes? Just because people used it for a different purpose doesn’t mean you should go out of your way to risk changing the product’s original use. But if those waffle makers wanted to lisense or sell their technology for others to use, that would be an additional revenue line. But what do waffle makers and chefs know about track shoes and rubber?

What are the takeaways?

There are three big takeaways from unitended use products.

1. If people are using your product for something completely different and it is in a niche you are not familiar with, do what you can to monetize it by licensing or selling your technology to other companies.
2. If people are using your product in ways other than you intended, but the market is too small, let it be.
3. If people are using your product for different purposes (like the condoms) and there is a broader market: repackage, rebrand and charge much more for it.

Picture cred:
*http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00913/redone_913590a.jpg (condom)
*http://www.radarnois.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/1972_wafflenc.jpg (waffle iron)
*http://www.recessionwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/whiteout.jpg (white out)

This is the twenty-fifth day of a 30-day trial. Follow the link to Marketing Ideas En Masse to find out more.

Since I am on the theme of sports from the last post about Dick Beardsley’s Running Store Fargo I was shown an article talking about Nike targeting female athletes. Thanks to Apyrl from the Women Like Sports blog it appears that Nike is starting a new marketing campaign to encourage and promote women’s athletics. Here is an excerpt:

The Nike Gamechangers: Change the Game for Women in Sport competition encourages people from around the world to showcase their game by outlining their exciting ideas for women in sport on their website.

“Nike understands the transformative power of sport and we know there are social innovators around the world doing amazing work in this area,” states Nike “Let Me Play” Global Director, Maria Bobenreith. “Through the Nike Game Changers competition we are providing an online platform to form a community of game changers and showcase their ideas and innovations around empowering women through sport.”

The idea is to find new and innovative ideas and use the power of social interaction and promotion to determine the top ideas for creating more opportunities for women in sports. By way of blogging, voting, commenting and group participation, ideas can move up or down in popularity. The most popular ideas will be voted on by a panel of judges resulting in the top ten winning $5,000.

Even if you do not offer a proposal of your own, we invite you to join the dialogue. Your experience and insights are invaluable to the emerging field of sport for social change.

Join the online Changemakers community to make suggestions and recommend resources that will help refine and strengthen the strategies presented by competition entrants. Tell us what you’re thinking, how you see the field, where its challenges and opportunities lie.

I would love to see a tribe of people build up around this idea and only time will tell how successful the idea turns out to be. I think that there are many positives stacked on the side of success such as group interaction, worthy cause, enagaging people with a similar interest, connecting people and a place for central and quick communication. I have no doubt that this will produce some sort of results in promotion of women’s sports and female athletes. Have you heard of this competition before? What are your thoughts?