Innovation can be a great way to get noticed and advance your career. But “new” for the sake of “new” may not bring you the success you are hoping for. Sometimes, innovation needs to be more subtle, more invested … more long-term. Check out the new electric Volkswagen Golf for inspiration on how to do it right.

The all-electric Golf is not necessarily new, but it is new to the American marketplace. Herein lies the first lesson. You may not have the most original idea in the world, but if you can take your idea and introduce it to a ready audience, then you may very well have a winner.

The Wright brothers get all the credit for flight, but what about the guys who took culture from props to jet engines? Theirs may not be household names, but these guys redefined what it means to travel, to fight and to reach for the stars. And there is still plenty of room for improvement.

Both aeronautics and rocketry are growth industries. Society at large may never learn the names of all the innovators who will make “The Future” our reality, but they will innovate nonetheless. They will succeed. They will fail. They will take risks and make changes and turn “new” into average. Then they will do it all over again. These people, too, are innovators. They may not be swinging for the fences during every at-bat, but Ted Williams and Wade Boggs are just as important to baseball as Babe Ruth. The same can be said of sequential innovators in every business.

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Further, VW has a specific – and simple – goal. They need the attention of the American consumer in order to gain a foothold on market share in an incredibly competitive marketplace. Better still, VW understands there’s no need to get weird just to get attention. The electric Golf looks pretty much exactly like the gas-powered Golf. And it operates along similar parameters.

It may not stand out, but the Golf excels at the one thing that it does differently. It’s an electric car that doesn’t lose much in performance when compared to its gas-powered counterpart. In other words, it brings a very desirable benefit to the table without sacrificing much, if anything. So, instead of being defined by what it lacks, the Golf is defined for exactly what it can do for its buyers. PR doesn’t get much better than that.

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Ronn Torossian is the Founder & Chairman of 5W Public Relations, one of the largest independently owned PR firms in the United States. Since founding 5WPR in 2003, he has led the company's growth and vision, with the agency earning accolades including being named a Top 50 Global PR Agency by PRovoke Media, a top three NYC PR agency by O'Dwyers, one of Inc. Magazine's Best Workplaces and being awarded multiple American Business Awards, including a Stevie Award for PR Agency of the Year. With over 25 years of experience crafting and executing powerful narratives, Torossian is one of America's most prolific and well-respected public relations executives. Throughout his career he has advised leading and high-growth businesses, organizations, leaders and boards across corporate, technology and consumer industries. Torossian is known as one of the country's foremost experts on crisis communications. He has lectured on crisis PR at Harvard Business School, appears regularly in the media and has authored two editions of his book, "For Immediate Release: Shape Minds, Build Brands, and Deliver Results With Game-Changing Public Relations," which is an industry best-seller. Torossian's strategic, resourceful approach has been recognized with numerous awards including being named the Stevie American Business Awards Entrepreneur of the Year, the American Business Awards PR Executive of the Year, twice over, an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year semi-finalist, a Top Crisis Communications Professional by Business Insider, Metropolitan Magazine's Most Influential New Yorker, and a recipient of Crain's New York Most Notable in Marketing & PR. Outside of 5W, Torossian serves as a business advisor to and investor in multiple early stage businesses across the media, B2B and B2C landscape. Torossian is the proud father of two daughters. He is an active member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and a board member of multiple not for profit organizations.