The Disruptive Octopus

How Seed Helped Ball Aluminum Cup^® Leverage the 8 Tentacles of Disruptive Innovation to Drive Success

This article details how Seed Strategy leveraged the 8 tentacles of disruptive innovation to help the Ball Corporation turn an innovative product idea into a purpose-driven brand that successfully debuted at professional football’s biggest game—all within eight months. The national brand launch of the Ball Aluminum Cup^® resulted in a 4x increase in website traffic and featured a campaign credited with driving 60% of Amazon sales. Less than a year later, the product rolled out to 18,000 stores nationwide and in 2020, Fast Company recognized it as a “World Changing Idea.”

There’s no shortage of brands seeking to launch disruptive innovation, but many are short on the resources and experience required to tackle such a unique and ambitious endeavor.

That’s where Seed comes in. Our eclectic yet purposefully constructed cast of experts has the wide-ranging knowledge, skills and experience it takes to bring truly disruptive innovation to market. In fact, many clients rely on us to serve as their full-service marketing partner, to support disruptive entrepreneurial ventures within their larger organizations. This allows us to not only help them achieve their goals, but also instill a lasting culture of innovation within the company.

An Intro to the 8 Tentacles of Disruptive Innovation
Through our work on countless disruptive innovation initiatives, we’ve identified 8 key tentacles—or practices—that can be strategically and creatively leveraged to drive success.

1. Critical Foundational Learning and Analysis
2. Channel and Business Model Innovation
3. Category Domination Strategy and Execution
4. Rapid Ideation and Alignment
5. Partnership Innovation
6. Infusion of Entrepreneurial Passion
7. Test Market Transactional Learning
8. Future-Forward Brand Communication and Experience Testing

We use the unique talents from our team and these 8 tentacles to help brands win with disruptive innovation, regardless of the category they operate in.

Sounds great, right? But what does that actually look like? Let’s take a peek behind the scenes at a real-world example of how the Seed team helped a client weather the waves of adversity and launch an offering that made a huge splash in the marketplace.

Please click here to continue to the next section of the article about Tentacle 1: Critical Foundational Learning and Analysis—or click here to read the full-length version of the article.

Contact Sean Smyth to learn more about how Seed can help with your next disruptive innovation effort.

Written by Eric Scheer and Adam Siegel.

Eric Scheer is President, Chief Strategy Officer at Seed Strategy where he leverages his rich experience as an entrepreneur, designer and strategist to expertly lead the agency and help clients achieve meaningful growth.

Adam Siegel is the Editor of The Accelerator and VP, Creative at Seed Strategy where he draws upon his diverse experience in advertising, research and innovation to craft breakthrough creative and winning copy.

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