Disruptive CMO Marketing

Marketing concept testing for new product development

Concept testing allows you to take some of the risk out of new product development by assessing consumer reactions to a fundamental idea or design at its early stage. The objective is to identify which new ideas have the most potential and are worthy of further development.

Here is a video on the well known example of how New Coke failed with consumers:

 

It is clear from this video that the full brand experience is an important part of concept testing.

One of the objectives of concept testing is to forecast the likely sales take-off in year one, to estimate the repeat purchasing levels and to clarify the profile of potential users.

Concept testing and product testing are particularly suited to the online medium because a wide variety of visual and audio stimuli can be displayed and evaluated. By using images and sound files to provide a ‘near-real-world’ test environment, online testing provides you with actionable information about how your concept is perceived by your target audience, and how it compares with others on the market. Even at the pre-concept level, online testing enables large numbers of potential concept ideas to be prioritised and reduced to a manageable number that can be taken to the next step in development and research.

Benefits of concept testing online    
* Cost effectiveness - No need for expensive, physical prototype construction or fieldwork costs.    
* Reduced development cycle - Allows you to bring your product to market sooner.    
* Interactivity - Respondents can interact with high quality images or logos if required.    
* Speed of turnaround - Questionnaire can be distributed and results collected in real-time.    
* Richness of responses - Results show that people tend to be more honest and responses are ‘richer’ in content when completed online.    
* Reduced bias - There is no interviewer bias online.    
* Respondent convenience - Respondents can complete the questionnaire when and where it suits them. They can suspend the interview and come back to it later. This has a positive impact on response rates.    
* Geographical reach - For nation-wide and multi-country research, respondents can be located anywhere.    
* Automated questionnaire delivery - Exact skip and flow control and accurate rotations when multiple concepts are being shown.    
* Time and click-based interaction data - Respondent’s behaviour and level of interaction with each of the concepts can be monitored.    
* Online reporting - real-time results can be provided via our online Snapshot software, allowing percentages and simple cross-tabs to be produced whilst the study is ‘in field’.    
* Verbatim responses - Responses to open-ended questions can be provided directly to the client.    
* Evaluation control - Respondents view concepts from a consistent position and in the required order.    
* Flexibility - Variations on a concept can be tested without incurring significant costs.

For information on how to write a proper Product Concept click here

A Well Written Product Concept Goes A Long Way

What is a Product Concept?

Definition: A concept is a description of a promise, which the brand, resp the product offers the consumer as an answer to a consumer need.

It contains 4 elements:

1. A Consumer Belief / Consumer Insight

This is the first paragraph of a concept. It functions as an invitation to the brand / product offering.
- A deeply rooted belief or a consumer need which is connected to the brand or product
- It makes the product / brand benefit relevant for the consumer
- It builds a bond or removes a barrier between the product / band and the consumer

2. A Consumer Benefit / Benefit of the product / Brand

The second paragraph of a concept. It is the central part, which introduces the 'offering'. It tells what the product Does, Wants and Can.
- Is the core advantage which the consumer gets from the product / brand
- Is the final outcome, the rational and / or emotional benefit
- Is distinguishing and specific

3. A Reason To Believe / Reason Why

The clsoing of the concept. It supports why the product / brand is good for 'me'. It creates credibility and destroys doubt.
- Is a logical and relevant support for the brand benefit
- Is ideally of a short and tight format - not a long 'washing list'

4. Further details, which may be purchasing decisive

- Price
- Distribution
- Quantity

The concept can have a closing sentence which lays out clearly the whole benefit 'for me'

Here is a shorter version of a concept:

 

How collaborative concept development with consumers can increase success for a new marketing concept?

I have been involved with the development of many new products or innovations and I use a very simple technique to improve and refine the concept.

I call it collaborative consumer centric concept development. Con­cept devel­op­ment is a process of suc­ces­sively refin­ing, ampli­fy­ing and enhanc­ing the basic idea of the product, brand or proposition. The process is fairly simple.

1. Develop the concept
This includes the basic product, several concept descriptions or statements which will be evaluated, several name options, price and channel options and several stimuli for consumers to react to.

2. Collaborate with 4 - 6 groups of 8 carefully selected consumers
- Screen consumers on relevant criteria so that they are a user of the category, articulated and well-read,  up to speed on the latest digital advances, have interesting jobs and are advanced in their understanding. I like to keep the number of participants between 6 and 8. You need a few groups as the first two groups will go through the obvious issues. After that you will present improved work but it still might be issues at a deeper level. The improved concept might only be fully formed after 4 - 6 groups.

- Sit together with them and explain what will happen. Tell them we want them to tell the truth. They are paid to share their vision and they should express what they believe. Next start with broad generic questions that cover current usage, competitive analysis, ideal product descriptions, etc... so you get a pretty good picture of what is out there, how it performs in the mind of consumers and what is missing.

- Next, you go through your prepared materials. I like to interact with them directly. Yes the moderator is there, but it is a different dynamic if the brand / agency teams are there with them and ask different questions. If they say they don't like something you can improvise on the the spot and test new ideas. The consumer feels they are co-creating and you progress the concept.

- It is ok to hear objections. The group might start out skeptical. Encourage them to express issues. The better you understand the true issues the more you are equiped to address them.

3. Rewrite and rework the concept as you progress
- .The con­cept state­ment is writ­ten and rewrit­ten, for suc­ces­sive groups, con­tin­u­ally tak­ing into account what has been learned before. It will very likely take a few groups to really fully understand what will work nicely. Yes the first group will say, I like the combination of A and B. But often the next group will bring new insights as they might say, actually that combination has these drawbacks so I rather see D.

- For this to go smoothly, it is important that the creatives are part of this process and are participating. It is important that they hear the feedback live from the consumer. It should feed them to further progress and to better understand what works and does not.

4. Now quant test the final proposition with several worked out options
- You can only get so far with qualitative groups. You now need to measure how strong the concept is.