Concept Development and Testing

Concept development and testing

What is it?

Concept development and testing follows idea generation and screening in the new product development cycle. A product concept is defined as a detailed version of a product idea that is stated in meaningful consumer terms (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012). After a product idea has been screened organisations look to test the concept with groups of their target market, they look to gather information on consumer reactions to a description of the product/service or to visual representations of the product (McDaniel, Lamb & Hair, 2011). Consumers are then asked questions on the product which help the organisation evaluate which concept has the biggest appeal in terms of potential sales (Kotler & Armstrong).

To the left is a product positioning map [See Fig.1]. This model shows where in the market a certain product would fall and this can lead on to show what the potential target market would be. This example provided is for cars. Showing the price of the car against the fuel economy provides us with which car would suit a different area of the market. 

Examples

One example of an organisation which has undertaken concept testing is Lycra, who undertook concept testing to evaluate customers wants with regard to new sport fibre clothing. Lycrca asked questions regarding interest in the product, how believable the organisations claims were, how different customers thought the product was and how much customers thought the product would cost, this allowed Lycra to evaluate possible consumer demand and purchase intention (Lycra 2008).

Another example of an organisation that developed a concept and tested it in research labs is Athletic Propulsion Labs, who claim to have made a basketball shoe that allows athletes to jump significantly higher (APL, 2011). This shoe was banned by the NBA, as it was judged to provide athletes with an ‘undue advantage’; the owners claim that this serves as proof that their products work. 

My Concept

Having established in the idea screening stage that my cone collecting idea was the one with the biggest potential I have chosen to take that forward to testing and concept development. The product name have been finalised as “Cone King”.

Concept A – Picks up cones and acts as a stand but does not distribute cones as this would cost more and be harder to develop.

Concept B – Picks up cones and distributes them, this costs more to develop but is a higher quality product with more uses.

Having tested both concept ideas with people in the industry, including teachers and coaches, it is apparent that nearly all people asked would prefer Concept B, even if it cost more money, as it has more uses and would improve the overall coaching experience vastly.

Reference List

APA, (2011) “About us” Available at: http://www.athleticpropulsionlabs.com/about.html (Accessed 24th November 2013)

Kotler, P.  & Armstrong, G. (2012) Principles of Marketing. 14th Edn. London: Pearson Education.

 Lycra (2008) “LYCRA SPORT Fabric”. Available at: http://www.lycra.com/g_en/webpage.aspx?id=963 (Accessed 24th November 2013)

Mcdaniel, C.D. Lamb, C.W. and Hair J.F. (2011) Introduction to Marketing. 11th Edn. Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Idea Screening

Stage Two: Idea Screening

What is idea screening?

Idea screening is the second stage of the NPD process which follows on from idea generation. (Kotler & Armstrong, 2008). According to Lamb, Hair & McDaniel (2009) screening is the first filter in the NPD process; they explain it as eliminating products/ ideas that aren’t consistent with the company’s new product strategy.  This is similar to Wafa, van Riel & Zuzuna’s (2011) thoughts; they say idea screening is the process of evaluating new ideas to select which ones are suitable for further development and to drop ideas that will probably not lead to successful products.

One of the most common methods used in the idea screening phase is a decision matrix (Akao, 1988).  The matrix helps organisations establish which product is the most efficient and whether or not it would fit into the current market. It uses an objective system weighting different criteria according to their perceived importance and then rating each product on how well it performs in that category; this allows most products to be dropped from the process (Akao, 1988).

Example of Idea Screening

One example of idea screening is by Adidas, the German Sports equipment manufacturer. They have created the lightest football boot in the world, the Adidas f50 (TechRadar, 2013). Adidas established through idea screening that there was both the technology and the market, to create a super light football boot. This market has come about because, according to them, players want an extra edge and if they can make lighter boots then it will make for faster players. They went about it by completely stripping down the boot to what is essential and leaving nothing else which resulted in a football boot weighing less than 100grams.

My Idea

In order to ensure my products are screened objectively I used the decision matrix to assess my three ideas against each other. I used 6 criteria and weighted them accordingly with the feasibility of the idea being the most important factor and the time taken to develop the least important.

 

I established from the matrix that my cone collector/distributor was the best idea as it scored the highest weighted score and did particularly well when judged against the level of competition and the benefits to the customer. This is because there is no product like it and it is a product that would help coaches a lot. A close second in the ranking was my idea for a boot cleaner; however, the low scores in cost to develop and level of competition mean that I will drop this idea and continue with the cone collector.

Reference list

Akao, Y. (1988) 'Integrating Customer Requirements into Product Design', Quality Function Deployment, 1.

Hammedi, W., van Riel, A. C. R. and Sasovova, Z. (2011), ‘Antecedents and Consequences of Reflexivity in New Product Idea Screening.’  Journal of Product Innovation Management, 28: 662–679.

Kotler, P & Armstrong, G. (2008) Principles of Marketing. 12^th edn. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Lamb, C. Hair, J. McDaniel, C. (2009) Essentials of Marketing. Cengage Learning, Mason, OH.

Tech Radar, (2013) ‘Uncovered: the technology behind the impossibly light football boot’ Available at: http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/uncovered-yhe-technology-behind-the-impossibly-light-football-boot-1153914 Accessed on: 20/11/2013