Three Innovations that are Raising Customer Expectations!

A bra that saves lives in Pakistan. A chatbot for office tacos. Political debate at a Brazilian ice-cream store.

This is a free weekly Innovation Bulletin from TrendWatching!

The promise is simple: three customer-facing innovations per week, every week. All fresh from the TrendWatching Insight Network (TW:IN), our global band of innovation spotters.

Let’s dive in!

The Pink Bra
Bra helps underprivileged women in Pakistan detect breast cancer

Pakistan has the highest rate of breast cancer in Asia: 40,000 women died from it in 2015. But there is a powerful taboo around speaking about the disease, particularly among underpriviledged women. Launched in April 2016, the Pink Bra is designed to help Pakistani women detect breast cancer early, by leveraging the local habit of tucking money inside a bra. The bra contains pockets lined with raised outlines that act as guides for a breast self-examination. Illustrations inside the bra give instructions, and there is a hotline to call for free medical advice. The accompanying #GiveAPinkBra campaign saw affluent women pledge to gift the Pink Bra to underprivileged women around them.

When your customers see this innovation — and others like it — their expectations that your brand should do some good in the world will only heighten. So how can you leverage a local custom — and inspire group action — to tackle a real local problem?

Taco Bell
Fast food chain’s chatbot lets offices order takeout

The TacoBot is a chatbot created by fast food chain Taco Bell for workplace messaging app Slack. Users can log on to Slack and tell the TacoBot what they’d like to order, with the app keeping a running tally of their chosen food and beverages. Once they’ve finalized their order, users can pay via TacoBot, before collecting their order from any participating branch. TaboBot launched in private beta mode during April 2016.

Sure, everyone’s talking about chatbots. And yes, they’re shifting customer expectations around service and interacting with brands. But how could your brand leverage this technology to ride broader social shifts, such as the blurring of traditional boundaries between life and work?

Ben & Jerry’s Brazil
Ice-cream brand hosts in-store political debates

Ben & Jerry’s invited people together to debate political issues in its São Paolo store in April 2016. The US-based ice cream brand brought people who love one another face-to-face to discuss a wide range of contentious issues they could not agree on, over an ice cream. The campaign also featured on social media using the hashtag #‎amoréprogresso — meaning ‘disagree with love’.

Ben & Jerry’s have a long history of tackling serious issues: check out this past campaign on gay marriage. This latest example will only do more to heighten consumer expectations that brands — even those built around a product that’s about indulgence — should be socially engaged. Your response?

Remember, when looking at these innovations — and all innovations! — it’s all about asking: what new customer expectations are these innovations creating? What will those expectations look like when they reach me? How can I serve them?

Until next week ;)

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