Concept/Product Optimization and Testing

Today more than ever, the ability to develop and launch new products successfully and quickly is the key to business success. What makes a new product a success? What can be done to improve the odds of winning at new products in your company?

The number one success factor is product superiority. Premium products that deliver real and unique benefits to users are far more successful than "me too" products.

A superior product is comprised of six items:

• Offering unique features not available in competitive products
• Meeting customer needs better than competitive products
• Having higher relative product quality
• Solving a problem the customer has with a competitive product
• Reducing the customer's total costs — high value in use
• Being innovative — the first of their kind on the market

If a proposed new product scores low on the above criteria, then the odds of success are low.

Superiority must be defined from the customer’s standpoint, based on an in-depth understanding of customer needs & wants, and the competitive situation. Developing a product with real advantages & benefits to customers entails: 

• Identifying the target market — exactly who the intended user is
• Conducting extensive market research to identify customer/user needs, wants & preferences,
  and to define what the customer sees as a better product
• Translating customer needs or problems into a technically viable solution — product features, attributes, requirements & specifications
• Defining the product concept — what the product will be and do, and the benefits to be delivered
• Testing & verifying — e.g., concept testing, prototype testing, field trials or test markets — to ensure that the final product scores high with the customer. The customer should be exposed to the product as it takes shape, not solely as an after-the-fact check.

 SMART concept and product evaluations include:    

• Various forms of full and partial profile trade-offs: conjoint, discrete choice, maximum difference scaling (MaxDiff)
• Conventional approaches including monadic, sequential-monadic, proto-monadic, paired-comparison designs
• IHUT / In-home use testing
• Central location taste tests

As a full-service research firm, SMART provides assistance throughout the new product development process — from identifying customer needs and preferences to concept/product optimization and testing.