Marketing Lessons from Cupcakes

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend about how to create innovative products and stores at a time where most things have already been done. Innovation on a technological level is still possible, but beyond that it often seems like everything that can be invented has already been invented. So we decided to change the idea.

Rather than actually create an innovative product, maybe it was possible that someone could make a product that was perceived to be innovative enough to draw people in like a niche, even though the product itself is neither new nor really that innovative. We then came up with the following two examples.

The first example was actually from the show Seinfeld. Rather than simply create a company that sells muffins, which would clearly not be innovative, Elaine comes up with the idea of creating a business that sells only muffin tops – the part of the muffin that most people prefer to eat. The idea is innovative – market to the customer only the product they need, removing the part they have no use for. Yet the muffin is still a muffin, so the “innovation” is only perceived.

My friend mentioned something she used to see her students do back when she was teaching an elementary school class. Whenever they had a class event, everyone would be given cupcakes.

But the children were tired of getting frosting on their faces. So instead of eating the cupcake as it was designed, the children took the cupcake, ripped off the top (similar to the muffin top example above), then took the bottom half and squished it on top of the frosting, turning it into a cupcake sandwich. Now the cupcake could be eaten without: Being forced to eat the frosting first and the cupcake second.

Getting frosting on your nose when you try to bite into the cupcake. What both of these ideas show is that innovation may not have to be the focus of a new or aspiring business. Instead, you may be able to focus on perceived innovation – taking something that already exists, but make it appear as though it is something much different.

The muffin is still a muffin. The cupcake is still a cupcake. Yet both of these are so different in presentation that it can easily be argued they are innovative – or at the very least, they can be seen as innovative.