---
id: "claim-traditional-innovation-failing"
type: "claim"
source_timestamps: ["¶2"]
tags: ["product-development", "attention-economy"]
related: ["concept-algorithmic-resource-matching", "framework-algorithmic-product-lifecycle"]
confidence: "high"
testable: true
speakers: ["Yang Li"]
sources: ["attention"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-attention"
originDay: 4
articleStem: "hbr-foci-68-popmart-attention-economy"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2025/07/how-pop-mart-won-young-customers-in-a-fragmented-attention-economy"
sourceTitle: "How Pop Mart Won Young Customers in a Fragmented Attention Economy"
---
# Traditional Big-Budget Innovation is Losing Efficiency

**Claim.** [[entity-yang-li|The author]] asserts that the traditional logic of consumer product innovation and marketing — characterized by sophisticated, big-budget, and long-cycle development — is becoming less efficient. This decline in efficacy is directly attributed to the fragmented nature of modern consumer attention, driven by the daily consumption of short-form video and other rapid-fire media. Brands must shift to agile, responsive strategies (see [[concept-algorithmic-resource-matching|algorithmic resource matching]]) to survive.

**Confidence: high · Testable: yes.**

**Enrichment validation.** Broadly supported. McKinsey, Deloitte, and HBR literature on agile marketing and 'test-and-learn' development document a shift away from waterfall cycles toward continuous iteration for Gen Z / millennial brands. Pop Mart's documented practices (IP optimization from market feedback, Tencent Smart Retail 'instant feedback loop,' tiered pricing, seasonal promotions, event activations) are consistent. Caveat: this is better characterized as an interpretive trend than a fully testable causal statement — 'losing efficiency' is relative, not absolute.