🟢 About desirability and innovation
I've been hearing the term desirability quite a lot lately.
Nothing new. The term largely comes from the design thinking methodology. Which is about product and service identification, features, and then connecting them to the market by building a feedback loop of empathy/design/delivery.
When it's possible
But in many cases, it doesn't work.
See, in many cases, the critical problems in the market are not yet perceived or are largely invisible to the potential customers concerned. Or the problem hasn't emerged yet completely in the market, making it quite tricky to define in terms of shape, form, speed, cycle, and... value. In both cases, it's very difficult for those customers to talk about it, to address it, and to create a positive feedback loop with practitioners of design thinking. They can't describe what they don't know yet.
But more importantly? Design thinking fails to address the elephant in the room: revenue generation. If you can't do proper value analysis, translate into ROI whenever possible (more on this later), and link to the value add and pricing, why even bother?
The proper "by the book" definition is as follows:
So, on paper, yes, desirability treats the "hard things to solve" and the "real problems," but in practice, we're far from it. And mostly because design thinking treats pricing as a secondary concern. The methodology is centred on understanding user needs and creating solutions that "feel" desirable. Pricing comes in later, usually as a constraint or afterthought rather than a core driver of the innovation itself.
This is the glitch.
To be blunt, it's not a business-driven enough mindset.
And sure, I understand how working on desirability can be as interesting as working on anything else. Yet if the term aims to convey how much perceived value, sexiness, or enjoyment the new offer will have for the customer (admittedly, an important point), we want more.
We want to see where the money is.
(And now I went from blunt to plain gross...)
The truth is, desirability is the weakest way to remove barriers to entry for an innovation. The most important one is to be able to measure a precise, clear, and objective return on investment for the customer. And yes, it's quite technical. I'm sorry to report it's a tad more than filling a mood chart or empathy map that looks like a big smiling face, and to add even more complexity, it works differently in B2B versus B2C.
In B2B, customers mostly work on measurable value, and everything links back to money. The larger the organization, the more KPIs, dashboards, reports, processes, and financial reports they deal with, the more the parameters are measured, recorded, and benchmarked. Applying a positive lever and adding value means understanding how such organizations work, who decides, where the money goes (or is lost), etc. It's technical, yes, but also quite well defined if you understand businesses. In B2B, desirability is mostly a nice-to-have; it can be important, but rarely makes or breaks an innovation project. I'm not saying you shouldn't aim for it; I'm saying it's not the key focus. And you shouldn't focus on that alone.
In B2C, everything changes as customers work mostly on perceived value. There is no objective value, or very little of it, that will enter the equation. At the end of the day, people start to make rational decisions when they have no other option left. Like in the automotive market now, where cost per kilometer became a key factor in decision-making, as car prices have exploded, and all cars in the same category look the same. But most of the time, yes, desirability, sense of fashion, or fun, will feed the consumer mind (cue your discussion on fast fashion, where design thinking would excel at making it even more addictive).
When was the last time you saw someone working out desirability makes the distinction between B2B and B2C?
Exactly.
Still, the iPhone in 2007 didn't sell because it was desirable. It sold because it opened a new ecosystem, new ways of using a device. Taking pictures and sharing them easily. Browsing the Internet on a phone. These aren't about "desirability." They're new value, new usage patterns, new practice. On top of that? Yes, it was also desirable.
My point with all this?
Working on desirability is never a waste of time when it's needed, and at the level it's needed. It's a nuanced discussion: sometimes desirability brings only minor tweaks that, honestly, can be skipped until a V2 or V3.
It's also about a deeper problem I see many innovators struggling with: they think too much about their technology or product. And sure, while design thinking will tell you "oh but this is exactly what we solve," they aren't. They still focus on the product, but they do so by trying to map how potential customers would think and feel about it.
But it's still a product-driven discussion that obscures what you should actually be working on: value generation and return on investment for the innovation. That's what matters.
And the uncomfortable truth of all this?
Money trumps pretty.
Philippe MEDA
Philippe MEDA
Philippe MEDA
Philippe MEDA
