More and more often corporations are looking to combine comic books and product development. If you read our page Corporate comic books you would know that the usage of comic books are increasing. And while more and more educational institutions are beginning to include graphic novels and comic books in their curriculum, corporations are also starting to understand the benefits of the media.
Many global companies are realizing that corporate comic books may be a good investment. Also when it comes to developing and testing new products and ideas.
INNOVATIVE GIGANTS ALREADY USE COMICS
When innovative gigants like Google, Twitter, eBay, Zappos, Yahoo and Peugot resort to using comic books actively in their product development or internal change management processes, it’s not just because it’s “fun” or a new creative format. No! It’s because they know it saves them both time and money in the long run.
You can see the process here in this comic we created for you.
THE PROCESS WITH COMIC BOOKS
SMART COMPANIES SAVE TIME AND MONEY WITH COMICS
Imagine this: Your team has a new idea for a product, and you’ve collected data on customer demands and potential customers. Now the product needs to be built as a alpha-version. But hold your horses! What if you could test your solution or product before you’ve even built it?
TEST YOUR PRODUCT BEFORE IT’S CREATED
That’s what global innovative companies do. They hire a team of professional illustrators and storytellers to create a comic book or storyboard that explains the product idea and how it solves different issues and problems for the target group. This way they actively tell the story of how their product can help their taret audience. And they haven’t even created the product yet!
The comic book is created in collaboration with your team of product developers and can be show to your focus group (your potential new customers, your target audience).
GET VALUABLE FEEDBACK
The really great thing about this more creative approach to product development is, that you can get valuable feedback very early in your project – and with a smaller budget. You can easily find out whether your new product idea is worth investing more time and money in – or whether it must be abandoned. You learn where your solution is lacking and needs tweaking or more creative thinking.
By creating a corporate comic book to do the storytelling about your new product idea, you’re now able to explain the product to internal and external stakeholder, employees and even your target audience – your potential customers.
SHOW PEOPLE YOUR GREAT IDEA
Imagine you have a new idea for a product. But creating the real thing to show people and to test it is expensive. You want to know what people think BEFORE you invest more time and money in the project. You need to get feedback from co-workers, from people helping you with the product, from potential customers, from stakeholders.
In your head – you know what problem your product will be solving in potential customers’ life, you have a sense of the feel and look of the product, you have ideas for pricing, you have idea for customer plans – but it’s still all in your head! And that’s where you need storytelling and visualization combined to share your idea.
GET BUY-IN FROM CO-WORKERS AND MANAGERS
A lot of global companies use comic books or storyboards to create a storyline in their team, test it on potential customers – and when they feel they’re on to something, they present the comic book or storyboard to the people in the company treasury, the board of directors, the people with influence. This way you get buy-in from the important people in your company.
UNDERSTOOD ACROSS CULTURES AND LANGUAGES
A lot of the companies we work with actively use comic books to communicate across cultures and languages both internally and externally. And that’s one of the great benefits of using illustrations in your communication.