Innovative approach in marketing

Peter Drucker, in his classic work on innovation, speaks of a real estate company which became a success in a depressed post-war market. It was months after the Second World War. No one was buying a house. Young people, just married, were particularly averse to investing in a home. Till a young real estate genius created a runaway success. He did not sell houses, he sold dreams. He sold a little 200 square foot studio apartment with a 2000 square foot blueprint of a dream house. ‘Build your dream home as and when you can afford it, in modules,’ was the message. He used the concept that people invest in dreams rather than immediately visible, touch and feel products.

The innovation tool, ‘Turn it upside down,’ helped me turn a major corporate hospital brand from a place of illness to a sanctuary of wellness. The same hospital taught me that the most important element of a place of healing is not the floor, not the walls, not the counters…. These things are important to care-givers who are on their feet and vertical to the floor. But hospitals are built for patients—most of whom are horizontal, on their back, lying on beds, looking at the CEILING. One of the hospitals where special care has been lavished on the ceiling is the Singhania’s hospital in Kota. The ceilings are a blaze of colour. Collages are created out of broken marble chips. What must have started as an attempt to practice economy, has resulted in a masterpiece to keep patients as happy and amused ‘watching the changing patterns on the ceiling like clouds in the sky!