The last place you’d expect to find innovation is in the halls of a 100 year old auto manufacturer.

Ford has it’s back up against the wall…and human nature shows us there’s a thin line sewn between desperation and innovation.

The fruits of Ford innovation are beginning to grow.

Witness Ford dropping emphasis on its own brand name and placing emphasis on pop culture icons like Funk Master Flex, and Chip Foose.

To the unfamiliar, Funk Master Flex is perhaps the most recognized hip hop DJ in New York and urban circles across America. A man who’s been associated with customizing cars and trucks. Great cross-over appeal to the malls of Billings as well as the streets of Brooklyn.

Chip Foose is perhaps the best known figure for designing and customizing very very expensive muscle cars…giving them a modern cool. Also a man with his own TV show and current media platform, his cars typically go for $125,000 and higher.

The news:

1) The dowdy Ford Expedition will be customized into a Funk Master Flex edition

2) The Mustang will be customized by Foose into a 500+ horsepower edition

To do this, somebody recognized what’s a rewind to the pre-Mustang days of the early 1960’s (also outlined in the Mustang chapter of my book)…which is the following:

Nobody young today wants to buy a Ford.

Ford has no buzz. No impetus to talk. No impetus to buy.

Somebody at Ford, however, recognized this and followed the path of somewhat risky innovation (definition: producing something like nothing done or experienced or created before). That’s risk.

Not just signing Funk Master Flex and Foose as commercial pitch men (young people see through this…star gets paid to stand in front of camera, then drives Porsche home). They embedded Flex and Foose into the car, into the product, and into the brand. A Flex product, a Foose product…not necessarily a Ford product.

Somebody at Ford took enough risk to reduce the importance of the Ford brand (mass and manufactured) in favor of becoming unique and personalized.

Keep track of my mantra to clients: look more personal, look less corporate.

Bravo for Ford on this.

Imagine, however, if we filmed the process and the meetings, and the healthy discussions which got them there.

My guess is it could have been ugly. It could have been easy.

But timing, unfortunately for most, is everything when it comes to innovation.

Most companies wait for desperation before they can discover innovation.

A Study in Innovation and Human Nature

Human nature in the corporate environment is not too dissimilar from poker.

When you’re up, you play conservative. You don’t want to lose your chips when you’re in the lead.

But as great poker players know (ask my Buzznation Studios partner Jamie Gold who is the $12 million World Series of Poker Champ)…results come from taking calculated risks when you’re up!

Corporate nature (and most human nature) is to avoid risk when you’re up.

Innovation = New.

New (and radically new) = Risk

When things are going OK…risk is avoided.

Unless you’re Andy Grove at Intel, most try to keep their chips with low risk bets when you’re up.

But ask the champion of Poker, Jamie Gold…and that’s not how you win.
That’s how you lose.

In order to win, with consistent stock price growth, risks are best taken when you’re up.

Unfortunately for Ford, half the value of their company had to be lost in order to find innovation. Glad to see it beginning to bud now, though.

Calculated risks when you’re up get you the gold.

P.S. If you’re looking to read Jamie’s White Paper on “Secrets of Calculated Risk and Success: Lessons from Business and the Winningest Poker Player in the World” fill out the contact form at Buzznation with a comment reading “Poker White Paper” here.

I can’t wait to read it myself. Should be ready in a couple weeks.

Mark Hughes is a professional speaker, consultant, and author of the book Buzzmarketing: Get People to Talk About Your Stuff (Penguin/Portfolio).

Technorati Profile