What about Design Newness? Investigating the Relevance of a Neglected Dimension of Product Innovativeness

Abstract

In several industries, new products are very similar in functional features but compete on their unique design. Firms like Alessi, Apple, Bang & Olufsen, Dyson, or Kartell all follow a design-driven innovation approach and use their products' visual appearance as the main mean for differentiation. In spite of this, design newness is never discussed among the dimensions of product innovativeness. Instead, conceptualizations of product innovativeness mostly focus on a product's technical newness or the changes it implies for the innovating firm or for the market it enters. This paper seeks to build an argument for why design newness should be considered as a dimension of product innovativeness. In addition to providing conceptual rationale, empirical evidence is offered on the influence of design newness on sales performance across a product's life cycle. To be able to put the findings into perspective, the performance effects of design newness are compared with those of technical newness. As several products exemplify that design newness and technical newness can go hand in hand, not only direct performance effects but also interaction effects between both newness dimensions are investigated. The arguments are tested on a sample of 157 new cars launched between 1978 and 2006 in Germany. The automobile industry is selected because of the strategic role of both technical and design aspects in product innovation. Putting a focus on this industry also has the advantage that historical information on car specifics and objective sales data over time are accessible. The results emphasize that both design and technical newness are important drivers of car sales. However, the effects differ widely across the product life cycle. While design newness has a positive impact right after the introduction and persists in strength over time, technical newness drives sales with a lagged effect and decreases toward the end of the life cycle. The test of a combined influence of design newness and technical newness on sales performance produces no significant results. These results open interesting avenues for future research on product innovativeness in general and design newness in particular. For management practice, the findings emphasize the importance of overall product innovativeness, clarify the different performance effects of design and technical newness across the product life cycle, and show the value of creating a unique visual product appearance to positively trigger product diffusion.

Harnessing the ‘Essential Tension’ of Design: The Complex Relationship between the Firm and Designer Consultants

“…Other studies focused on identifying the success factors for design management, ranging from organizational structure's measures, to the presence of support technologies and knowledge management factors (Bessant and Francis, 1997;Bruce and Bessant, 2001). This issue has been also addressed by a case study centred on the ceramic tiles industry in Italy and Spain (Chiva and Alegre, 2007;2009) More recently Talke et al (2009) have argued that design newness should be considered as a dimension of product innovativeness. In addition to providing conceptual rationale, the authors also offer empirical evidence on the influence of design newness on sales performance across a product's life cycle in the car industry.…”

Design, consumption and marketing: outcomes, process, philosophy and future directions

“…For example, it has been found that in particular innovative, new design that is dissimilar compared to competing ones enhances market performance (e.g. Gemser & Leenders, 2001;Micheli & Gemser, 2016;Rubera, 2015;Tabeau et al, 2017;Talke, Salomo, Wieringa, & Lutz, 2009;Verganti, 2008), particularly in the longer term (Landwehr et al, 2013;Verganti, 2008) and when accompanied by media attention for sensemaking and market acceptance (Micheli & Gemser, 2016;Wilner & Huff, 2017). Furthermore, it has been found that, in order to generate positive design outcomes, effective design management is essential (e.g.…”

The Power of Existing Design for Establishing the Dominant “Industrial” Design

“…One argues the superiority of a very new design (e.g., Talke, Salomo, Wieringa, & Lutz, 2009). The other hypothesis emphasizes that the appearance of existing products (existing design) is superior (Landwehr, Wentzel, & Herrmann, 2013) and debates that although technological aspects of dominant design may change in de maturity, it is preferred that the appearance does not change.…”

“…First, we did not conduct any quantitative analyses on design newness (Talke et al, 2009). It is still unclear whether completely unoriginal designs could become dominant designs or certain newness is required.…”