At T3 we created something called the T3 Innovation Match. If a client committed to a set of innovation projects, we matched their investment up to 5% of their annual spend. Instead of 5% going to innovation, they got 10%.
But what we learned was if you call a project "innovation" but brief it the same way you brief everything else, you get the same work. The label changes nothing.
What the Match actually created was a different briefing approach. Different goals, a different process, a different bar for what great work looked like. And because we agreed up front that we weren't playing it safe, the team created work that was truly amazing.
The most interesting part was before the Innovation Match existed, clients wouldn't work this way no matter how hard we pushed. After they saw what came out the other side, they asked us to run the rest of their work through the same process.
I recently got the chance to talk with Robert Patin about the process on his podcast.