The LAB: Innovating the Wedding Invitation with S.I.T. (April 2010)

 Over 2 million couples marry every year in the U.S..  This fuels the $50 billion dollar wedding industry.  In an industry that prides itself in tradition,  companies must innovate new products and services within those traditions if they want to grow and prosper.  For this month’s LAB, we will use the corporate innovation method, S.I.T. to create new-to-the-world ideas for wedding invitations.

Here are five unique ideas from graduate students* at the University of Cincinnati taking the course, “Systematic Innovation Tools.”  They constructed a hypothetical “Dream Catalog” of these ideas for a local start-up design company.  Listed with each innovation is the specific innovation template the team used to create the idea.  You can download this and the other Dream Catalogs here.

1.  “Read It, and Eat It” :  Unlike traditional paper-made cards, the “Read It, Eat It” series of wedding invitations takes a non-traditional way by using edible materials to make the cards (except for the reply card), like cookie, candy or chocolate. Thus, recipients may eat the card afterward.

• Benefits
  •Unique and beautiful
  •Practical; more like a gift
  •Conveys emotion and sentiments
  •Recipients would feel happy to receive the invitation
  •Recipients don’t have to find a place to keep the cards afterward
  •Less paper, environment-friendly
• Target Audience
  •Young wedding couples who are seeking uniqueness for their wedding invitations with related spending ability and willingness
  •Those who need to send the invitation to recipients with kids
• S.I.T. Template:  Task Unification

2.  “Pictures Say It All” :  Instead of conveying the message through words, the “Pictures say it all” series of wedding invitations conveys the message only through pictures. This invitation is pleasing and gives a more personal touch to the recipient.

• Benefits
  •More personal
  •Recipient gets a feel of the venue and menu
  •Unique
  •Can become part of the recipients photo collection
• Target Audience
  •Young couples who need some uniqueness and difference in their wedding
  •Those who want to customize invitations for different recipients with the ability and willingness to spend an extra amount
• S.I.T. Template:  Subtraction

3.  “The Blossom Invitation” :  How do you make the intimate celebration of a marriage and the gathering of close friends and family even more festive and meaningful? The Blossom Invitation not only informs your guests of all vital wedding information, it is also made of plantable paper that grows into gorgeous flowers in two months. The envelope also dissolves in water and is used as plant food to help the flowers grow. Each guest is encouraged to grow these flowers as a symbol of their support of your marriage. Upon arrival to the wedding reception, they will put the flowers into the large vase set by on the table of the bride and groom to make an immaculate centerpiece for the reception.

• Benefits:  It provides a unique, fun and creative way to involve guests in the wedding in a small but meaningful way.  It is memorable and meaningful.  It is also extremely environmentally friendly.
• Target Audience: Engaged couples of all ages who are looking for a unique and fun wedding invitation.
• S.I.T. Template:  Task Unification

4.  “Digi Invitation” :  For computer addicts, this is the perfect card. The card includes a “thumb” drive No words, no material. The thumb drive can be plugged into a computer/laptop where the content can be viewed.

• Benefits
  •For people who are love computer mediated communication this is the best card.
  •Unique
  •Light
  •Tons of content can be stored – Flash, Photos, videos, etc.
• Target Audience
  •Young people who are in IT field or who love computers.
  •Very close relative and friend circle with who you might want to share personal videos and photos
  •For the next Generation
• S.I.T. Template:  Subtraction

5.  “Fragrance Invitation” : Why not let the recipient of the card do something more than just read the details in the card? This card has fragrances of the desserts which are going to be served in the wedding. The recipient has to scratch out the scratch pads and check the dessert fragrance he/she likes the most.

• Benefits
  •The reply cards can be used to plan for the amount of each dessert which needs to be served in the wedding
  •Unique
  •Conveys a message that the choice of the invitee is matters and is taken into account at the wedding
  •Higher response rate from the invitees
• Target Audience
  •Couples who are looking to have a unique card instead of a traditional wedding invitation card
  •Couples who want to involve people they are inviting in the preparation
• S.I.T. Template:  Task Unification

*Graduate Students:  Abhinav Gupta, Manqing Jin, Luke Kim, Srikanth Rajamani, Shobhana Srinivasan