How to Develop Successful New Products

Citation

Blauner, J. (1999), "How to Develop Successful New Products", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 104-105. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.1999.16.1.104.5

This book is an easy but important read for anyone who develops new products and services. Most of the book is just good practical advice with a strong emphasis on consumer (as opposed to technology) driven new product development. The book reviews many new product issues: reasons for failure; barriers to effective communication; identifying customer needs; positioning; value‐added benefits; ideation; segmentation; and “going global but thinking local”.

An idea introduced at the end of Chapter 1, however, proves the real value of the book. The author suggests that buying and brand decisions are made at a deeper level than marketers and market researchers have been reaching. The author “goes back to the drawing board”. If the technology is there and the need is there, then why all the new product failures? The answer is flawed communication. To gain insight into communication the author draws on academic theory. It turns out that marketers measure opinions about products and services while customers make buying and brand decisions at a deeper subconscious “attitudinal” level. Messages pass through a pattern of communication filters where they are matched with pre‐existing perceptions and evaluated against unfulfilled needs. Consumers form opinions about the messages and how well they fulfill needs. While marketing research has been trying for years to get an accurate reading of opinions, in fact we must break through the opinion level to get to the deeper attitude level where purchase decisions are made. The author calls his new model the perception expansion theory of today’s customer looks for new data to fulfill unfulfilled needs and marketers must try to communicate with consumers to get to attitudes rather than opinions to discover their true needs.

The author re‐examines how people process data with today’s information overload for need fulfillment and form attitudes on which they base decisions. He describes five levels of emotions, or feelings, that guide consumer behavior, starting from initial exposure to the concept and proceeding through a filtering process from assimilation to opinions, attitudes, beliefs, values, and finally to self. Opinions are our first emotional responses, but are formed and changed quickly. For years marketers have conducted opinion polls, intending to measure what people want in new products. In fact, they were only measuring what people like at a particular instant in time, but which might change quickly. Attitudes, by contrast are more stable. They are defined as a general predisposition to respond in a particular way to influence and motivate behavior. The perception expansion theory (PET) is when people put additional value on new ideas or product concepts which satisfy their needs in new ways.

While the author’s new behavioral communication model is a valuable discovery, the solution in the book is disappointing and less than satisfactory. The author claims to develop a new research technique which breaks through the opinion barrier. The technique is appropriate and effective, however, it does not appear to be new. The author suggests using 11in. × 14in. graphic renderings or concept boards to put the product in an end‐use situation consumers can relate to. The concept board shows the product benefits in an environment which consumers can relate to and where the new product is the hero. Headlines and body copy show specific benefits, and, when necessary, supporting copy helps explain the concept further so that customers will feel comfortable.

To break the opinion barrier, customers are asked to react to the concept boards and are specifically challenged as to what is wrong with the concepts. The author probes for negatives to learn from rejection. In this way, respondents discuss and project attitudes and unmet needs to understand what problems the concept does not solve. Successful new products are about fulfilling customer’s unmet needs. The author says “at times we actually challenge them to rewrite the headline or the benefit statement to make it more appealing to their situation”.

While it is refreshing to see this creatively open and honest approach being used, these techniques have been used for at least 15 years. Graphic concept boards showing end use benefits in familiar environments and probing for negatives and unfulfilled needs are standard in new product practice. In the author’s experience, however, marketers develop several new product concepts which they expose to groups of end‐users as descriptive words. End users are then asked to choose such that one of the concepts emerges as the winner, and “R&D is put to work”. No one asked the end‐users if they really like any of the concepts. The author says this accounts for more new product failures than any other reason. Surely there are still pockets of marketers who use these techniques, but it seems the exception rather than the rule. Even challenging consumers to rewrite the headline or benefit statement or even change the graphic is part of the process today and expected.

Despite the disappointment with the “solution”, this book is still an important work introducing the idea of looking for deeper attitudes rather than opinions to understand consumers’ unfulfilled needs.