In business strategy and visual design, both need to work with white space? White space is both a graphic design and a business strategy term. In graphic design white space refers to visual space that isn't occupied by text, images, or other visible elements. The amount and use of white space is a key design element to page layout. White space is a component of a page's readability and legibility.
In Web Site design, a page with too little white space makes people feel uncomfortable because the page seems so cluttered and crowded and distracting/unfocused. On the other hand, pages with too much white space seem empty and as if there’s nothing to explore. So both the brand strategy and usability strategy guides the direction must come to a balance.
The same can be applied to retail design. The same challenge remains as every dept wants their spot on the shelves. Or they want to optimize every inch of their homepage real estate for ads. This is common debate and most of the time designers can’t win and that’s why all the sites out there are filled with stuff. More is NOT better and Less is often not enough.
In the retail world, look at Apple stores. They have the highest sales per-square-foot among many retailers. Then look at a Radio Shack store , which has a lot of stuff crowding its store but is less profitable. So white space management is an essential part of optimum profits.
Harnessing Business White Space
In business marketing strategy, we also use the phrase “identifying white space” which means finding opportunities necessitates exploration into areas adjacent to but outside your core business. Unconventional approaches are required to uncover these high-value opportunities and to convert them into attractive businesses (and cash flow). We call it innovation.
And if it affects the organization in the way it competes both from an economics, channel, brand, product and user behavior and requires significant adaptation from a competencies and operations perspective, then we call it “strategic innovation”. To explore these strategic marketing white spaces, we have to apply “design thinking” concepts to business strategy development.
Managing the white space often requires a dual focus – exploring the intersection of emerging trends and at the same time defining how the convergence of multiple technologies or capabilities might satisfy powerful latent consumer needs. Whatever the idea is, you need to continually engage in continuous learning around new consumers, channel partners, suppliers, competitors, business models and other emerging marketplace dynamics.
In general today we find that there is less and less differentiation among brands, companies, technologies and channel. Therefore, it is in the most outer sphere that offers the biggest opportunity and usually associated with most risks (internal and external).
Author Steve Coley notes in The Alchemy of Growth, "What distinguishes the corporations that carry on growing is…they can innovate in their core businesses and build new ones at the same time." Great examples are Apple expanding beyond computers to the iPod music player. It changed the entire music industry, integrated with digital music on the computer and made billions.
This is not to say that profitable white space is only in new markets and categories. It can certainly emerge and be identified in a mature marketing landscape, as consumer needs change and brands mature and the whole landscape begins to transform or is redefined.
Look at the impact of change when Starbucks first exploited the "third place" market by the white space. They are now struggling with finding the new white space -- the new innovation.
Branding and Innovation
This brings us to white space and re-branding. Today Starbucks needs help from outside people because any great company carries a legacy that created an inertia -- sometimes that inertia works against them. Starbucks is a brand many still enjoy and might see another decade of success.
Another example is Kodak. They were branded as the film company. When film died, Kodak almost died because their inertia resisted the re-branding to the era of digital photography.
In order for an organization to exploit "white space", it will need to make bold strategic moves... otherwise known as change :-) These changes involve significant development of new capabiltiy, commitment of people and investment, and possibly new brand creation or even a company wide transformation. Thus the larger your company is, the slower capitalizing on white space is likely to be as a tactical quick-fix for cashflow woes.
Kodak is also an example here as well because their slow change to digital photography opened a gap of opportunity and today we have several digital camera brands that have emerged.
Social Media and White Space
Social media is an opportunity to market to your customers (and emerging prospective customers) by engaging in online dialogue with them. It takes many forms but of interest to us regarding white space opportunities is the customer feedback that social media can quickly bring into your company.
Some ad agencies make a living off of making "discovering your white space" more complicated than it needs to be. Yes, you need visionaries that see industry trends, forecast the economy and marketplace and analyze competitors. But you also to remember that all companies ultimately serve people. So the word-on-the-street is invaluable!
Enter Social Media Marketing Services! There is Business-To-Business marketing, Business to Consumer marketing. Social Media is more like Human-To-Human marketing.
Social Media is ideal for determining what customers think of your brand, of your competitor's and of what products and services they want to see. Think of it like a focus group, only it is always going on and it is less focused :-) Social Media feedback opportunities let your customers tell you what they want.
Any strategic innovation initiatives require more than creativity and new product ideas, it needs to look at an industry from economic structure perspective. If your company wants to take advantage of business white space for fresh profits ask yourself:
Let Promise Productions Strategic Marketing Communications guide you into becoming irresistible to your prospects with compelling visuals, smarter strategy and a more powerful presentation of your value in a way that translates into more profits. Call us with your needs at 972-822-3587.
In Web Site design, a page with too little white space makes people feel uncomfortable because the page seems so cluttered and crowded and distracting/unfocused. On the other hand, pages with too much white space seem empty and as if there’s nothing to explore. So both the brand strategy and usability strategy guides the direction must come to a balance.
The same can be applied to retail design. The same challenge remains as every dept wants their spot on the shelves. Or they want to optimize every inch of their homepage real estate for ads. This is common debate and most of the time designers can’t win and that’s why all the sites out there are filled with stuff. More is NOT better and Less is often not enough.
In the retail world, look at Apple stores. They have the highest sales per-square-foot among many retailers. Then look at a Radio Shack store , which has a lot of stuff crowding its store but is less profitable. So white space management is an essential part of optimum profits. Harnessing Business White Space
In business marketing strategy, we also use the phrase “identifying white space” which means finding opportunities necessitates exploration into areas adjacent to but outside your core business. Unconventional approaches are required to uncover these high-value opportunities and to convert them into attractive businesses (and cash flow). We call it innovation.
And if it affects the organization in the way it competes both from an economics, channel, brand, product and user behavior and requires significant adaptation from a competencies and operations perspective, then we call it “strategic innovation”. To explore these strategic marketing white spaces, we have to apply “design thinking” concepts to business strategy development.
Managing the white space often requires a dual focus – exploring the intersection of emerging trends and at the same time defining how the convergence of multiple technologies or capabilities might satisfy powerful latent consumer needs. Whatever the idea is, you need to continually engage in continuous learning around new consumers, channel partners, suppliers, competitors, business models and other emerging marketplace dynamics.
In general today we find that there is less and less differentiation among brands, companies, technologies and channel. Therefore, it is in the most outer sphere that offers the biggest opportunity and usually associated with most risks (internal and external).
Example: you offer professional wedding photography? Then, consider expanding into the adjacent wedding videography business too. That is great but not too much of a leap. Some others are starting to copy that move and decrease your distinctiveness. An example of white space innovation further out of the box would be to offer, Same Day Wedding Photos On An Engraved Wedding iPod. It is still wedding photos, but delivered in a whole new way.
Author Steve Coley notes in The Alchemy of Growth, "What distinguishes the corporations that carry on growing is…they can innovate in their core businesses and build new ones at the same time." Great examples are Apple expanding beyond computers to the iPod music player. It changed the entire music industry, integrated with digital music on the computer and made billions.This is not to say that profitable white space is only in new markets and categories. It can certainly emerge and be identified in a mature marketing landscape, as consumer needs change and brands mature and the whole landscape begins to transform or is redefined.
Look at the impact of change when Starbucks first exploited the "third place" market by the white space. They are now struggling with finding the new white space -- the new innovation.
Branding and Innovation
This brings us to white space and re-branding. Today Starbucks needs help from outside people because any great company carries a legacy that created an inertia -- sometimes that inertia works against them. Starbucks is a brand many still enjoy and might see another decade of success.
Another example is Kodak. They were branded as the film company. When film died, Kodak almost died because their inertia resisted the re-branding to the era of digital photography.
In order for an organization to exploit "white space", it will need to make bold strategic moves... otherwise known as change :-) These changes involve significant development of new capabiltiy, commitment of people and investment, and possibly new brand creation or even a company wide transformation. Thus the larger your company is, the slower capitalizing on white space is likely to be as a tactical quick-fix for cashflow woes.
Kodak is also an example here as well because their slow change to digital photography opened a gap of opportunity and today we have several digital camera brands that have emerged.
Social Media and White Space
Social media is an opportunity to market to your customers (and emerging prospective customers) by engaging in online dialogue with them. It takes many forms but of interest to us regarding white space opportunities is the customer feedback that social media can quickly bring into your company.
Some ad agencies make a living off of making "discovering your white space" more complicated than it needs to be. Yes, you need visionaries that see industry trends, forecast the economy and marketplace and analyze competitors. But you also to remember that all companies ultimately serve people. So the word-on-the-street is invaluable!
Enter Social Media Marketing Services! There is Business-To-Business marketing, Business to Consumer marketing. Social Media is more like Human-To-Human marketing.Social Media is ideal for determining what customers think of your brand, of your competitor's and of what products and services they want to see. Think of it like a focus group, only it is always going on and it is less focused :-) Social Media feedback opportunities let your customers tell you what they want.
Any strategic innovation initiatives require more than creativity and new product ideas, it needs to look at an industry from economic structure perspective. If your company wants to take advantage of business white space for fresh profits ask yourself:
- Are we really ready to do what it takes to make the necessary changes once we discover them?
- The rules of our industry have changed; HOW have they changed? And where are the opportunities in those changes.
- How can we take what our company is already good at and present it to another market segment in a fresh way?
Let Promise Productions Strategic Marketing Communications guide you into becoming irresistible to your prospects with compelling visuals, smarter strategy and a more powerful presentation of your value in a way that translates into more profits. Call us with your needs at 972-822-3587.
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