The Adjacent-Category Innovation Scan
Import a trusted mechanism from outside your category, then rebuild the offer
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 96%
Nicola argues that taking inspiration from the category in which a company already competes tends to reproduce what incumbents do, but with fewer resources. Her alternative is to begin with a customer frustration, look outside the category for a system that already resolves an analogous problem, isolate its trust-producing mechanism, and translate that mechanism into the offer. The Ordinary arose from frustration with opaque skincare pricing and claims. DECIEM looked to pharmacy, where familiar active ingredients and dosages make it difficult to present a routine painkiller as an unexplained luxury. The company adapted that logic through ingredient-led names, simple packaging, established formulations, and accessible prices. This is not a claim that skincare products are equivalent to medicines; pharmacy supplied the commercial and communication analogy, while product safety and efficacy still required their own evidence.
Origin
Nicola Kilner says The Ordinary took inspiration from pharmacy rather than beauty. Ingredient transparency and a narrow price range for familiar medicines suggested a way to challenge opaque skincare positioning without copying established beauty brands.
Core principles
- 01Copying category conventions reproduces incumbent choices
- 02A distant category can reveal a mechanism competitors overlook
- 03The useful unit of inspiration is a mechanism, not surface styling
- 04Imported trust cues must solve a real customer problem
- 05Fewer resources make direct imitation of incumbents especially weak
How to run it
- 1
Name the frustration
Define the customer problem that category conventions have left unresolved. Phrase it in terms of trust, access, effort, cost, or understanding rather than a preferred solution.
Pro tip Use a frustration customers can recognize in a buying decision.
- 2
Expose category assumptions
List the packaging, pricing, language, channels, and product rules competitors repeat. Mark which are required and which merely persist through imitation.
Pro tip Ask what a newcomer would find unnecessarily confusing.
Watch out Do not treat legal or safety requirements as optional conventions.
- 3
Scan outside the category
Find another field that handles an analogous customer problem more clearly. Look for the process that creates trust or access, not a visual trend to copy.
Pro tip Search for the same customer job in a structurally different market.
- 4
Extract the mechanism
State why the outside model works in its original context. Separate causal elements such as transparency or standardization from incidental elements such as colour or terminology.
Pro tip Complete the sentence: customers trust this because...
Watch out A loose analogy can conceal important differences between categories.
- 5
Translate the offer
Adapt the mechanism into product design, naming, pricing, or communication suitable for your category. Preserve the customer benefit without pretending the two industries are identical.
Pro tip Make the translated difference visible at the buying point.
Watch out Support product claims with the evidence your own category requires.
- 6
Test understanding
Put the translated offer in front of customers and measure whether it improves comprehension, trust, and demand. Refine or reject it using observed response.
Pro tip Ask customers to explain the difference in their own words.
Watch out Distinctive presentation is not proof of product performance.
In the wild
DECIEM compared opaque skincare pricing with a pharmacy, where consumers can see a familiar ingredient and dosage and would question an unexplained hundred-pound painkiller. The Ordinary translated that transparency into ingredient-led products and accessible pricing, despite retailers initially saying the white boxes and names would confuse customers.
→ An outside-category trust mechanism created a skincare proposition that customers rapidly adopted.
Common mistakes
Copying the surface
Borrowing another category's visual language without its useful mechanism produces novelty rather than meaningful differentiation.
Ignoring category-specific evidence
An analogy can inspire positioning, but it does not transfer another industry's safety or performance proof.
Following incumbent advice by default
Retailers may correctly describe current conventions without correctly predicting demand for a new category design.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for founders in mature categories where incumbents have normalized confusing prices, claims, packaging, or buying experiences.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal when regulation, safety, or customer expectations make the imported mechanism invalid without substantial adaptation.
From the transcript
“you need to take inspiration from everywhere but the industry and category you're playing in”
“the ordinary inspiration came from pharmacy from Healthcare”
“there wasn't enough transparency in the world of skin care”
From the episode
A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner