By Mike Rodenburgh, Senior Vice President, Consumer Research
There is a trend in many organizations, right now, to re-think their entire innovation process. Systems such as Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) are becoming more popular as companies strategically design entire company processes around the lifecycles of their products. There are several key goals of PLM, which include improving “time-to-market” and optimizing products to fit customer needs… but what about the screening of new product ideas? I find it ironic that while entire management systems are being tailored to focus on these goals, many companies still manage their innovation research the same way they always have and are unable to handle ad hoc requests in between their regular screening cycle.
It is no secret that the pace of innovation is changing at a rapid rate. In 1997, Stevens and Burley published a definitive paper on the success of new product introductions. In the study, they concluded that it took 3000 ideas to create one commercial success. That study is over 10 years old now, and considering how much has changed (like… the widespread use of the Internet, for example), I’d hate to learn how high the number is now! It’s time for marketing research departments to improve and simplify the development and testing of such a huge numbers of product ideas.
The product innovation process and associated MR activities of screening ideas and testing concepts are typically structured around “innovation days” where staff/agencies/consumers collaboratively brainstorm new ideas, sometimes 100’s at a time. From there, the client or agency writes idea profiles for early or late-stage screening. Often a time consuming process, these ideas are usually accompanied by design sketches to reinforce the key benefit of the new product idea. The end-to-end process often takes months.
Luckily, a new marketing paradigm is taking hold and it’s changing the rules of the game. Marketing researchers are starting to realize that they need to spend more time on innovation. There’s a push for companies to realize innovation as an “everyday habit”, as Product Marketing Manager Mak Joshi from Abbott Labs discussed in his presentation at the Business Innovation Conference. Joshi makes the point that companies need to “bring out innovations rapidly to stay ahead of the competition and continue to dominate the market.” We all know that innovation is where real growth comes from, but few researchers practice what they preach.
The digital age has really opened up new opportunities for innovation and co-creation. As many products fail to hit the mark in terms of really solving common consumer needs, companies need a way to evaluate more ideas – earlier, effectively and more efficiently. After all, what good is co-creating with consumers if you can’t conduct a timely litmus test to determine if there truly is a winning idea in a batch?
Learn more about Vision Critical’s latest research tool for testing early stage ideas: IdeaScreenPlus
