4 minutes to read. By author Michaela Mora on September 14, 2021 Topics: Analysis Techniques, Business Strategy, Concept Testing, New Product Development
Designing good product concept tests requires a lot of forethought. I often meet clients wanting to test product concepts, who are surprised when we discuss all the issues we need to consider in product concept testing.
In Quick’s article Best practices to improve new product concept testing, Jerry Thomas, from Decision Analyst, discusses what he has seen to work best when designing product concept tests. This has also been my experience.
Firstly, Thomas recommends creating a research system supported by standards and standardized processes. The goal is to test all new product concepts in the same way inside the company. Consequently, companies will be able to compare concept tests over time and across concepts.
According to him, concept standards should address at least the following:
Unfortunately, in my experience, most companies don’t have such a system and treat concept tests as isolated ad-hoc projects. This is also reflected in the quality of the concept descriptions, which differ in style, content richness, and format across concepts.
In other words, concepts are often poorly written by internal research or marketing staff. Above all, they frequently have little resemblance to how the product will actually be positioned and presented to consumers.
Secondly, Thomas goes further to elaborate on some of the decisions we need to make when designing product concept tests.
These decisions include: which approach to use (monadic vs. multiple, decision often driven by cost), whether to show prices and brands, which sampling strategy to follow, which normative data to use as a reference (if available), and what analytical approach to adopt. This applies to both physical or digital products and services.
Finally, Thomas shares the odds of succeeding with tested concepts. According to him, “about one-in-ten concepts will be good enough to warrant investments in product development to create the product that fulfills the promise of the concept.” Furthermore, “roughly one-in-five of this group will eventually be deemed worthy of taking to market. Unfortunately, it’s a numbers game, and the odds are against you.”
To sum up, companies that establish research systems to support consistent product concept testing and chose to follow best practices discussed above are more likely to develop successful new products.
To learn more about our Product Concept Testing service visit Concept Testing and Product Optimization.
(An earlier version of this article was originally published March 21, 2011. The article was last updated and revised on September 14, 2021.)
Share on:
Subscribe to our newsletter to get notified about future articles
Subscribe and don’t miss anything!
Subscribe
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.