If it's about innovative designing and creativity, why be led by what meets the eye?
It's time to preempt customer demands before they are explicit. A good product has the power to create demand.
First mover advantage being only one of the major pluses. Many products come to mind - Nintendo Wii & Facebook to name a couple. Nintendo didn't focus on already saturated gamers market but went for blue ocean strategy with Wii- focusing on non-gamers, complete with a range of games, rather experiences that one could explore with Wii like the cooking games, Wii Fit, and many more.
Likewise, Facebook exploits the fact that human beings are social animal and provided a virtual extension to socializing. Whilst whether it's good or bad for us is debatable, they have done really well with designing an engaging experience.
Whilst I stick to the latter school of thought, with a product or service it is important to focus on customer experience than just the expressed need or want.