The Ways to New

Chapter 13Added-Service Disruption

In this Internet age, products are becoming services and services are becoming products. More exactly: material goods are increasingly augmented with related services. And services are often embodied within a physical object.

Some six or seven years ago, an app called Hello Baby¹ attracted my notice. It offered a two-minute video showing how the fetus grows every week. The images were riveting. In week eighteen, a tiny human being acquires fingers. Ten weeks later, he can be seen reacting to exterior sounds. This video was produced by Pampers just a few months after the first smartphone apps emerged. Mothers could download the app and add personal details, including baby due date, gender, size, and weight and so chart week-by-week development. And share their baby's progress with their friends on Facebook.

An African proverb states, “It takes a village to raise a child.”² So Pampers has built a “Pampers Village” for the digital era on its website. Mothers sign up to find all kinds of useful advice about pregnancy and the first months of a newborn's life, including nutrition, safety, sleep, and skincare…

Basically, Procter & Gamble has chosen to add services to its products in order to make them more useful. The company expects every one of its brands to offer not just a functional benefit—in the case of Pampers, drier bottoms—but also to acquire a purpose. In other words, the Pampers brand, beyond product benefits, does what it can to help ...