Melodies in Marketing

This font belongs to a class of serifs known as didone or modern, and are distinguished for their highly variable stroke width, or contrast. Why they’re called modern, is beyond my understanding…but I guess the name stuck. Very similar to Didot is another font called Bodoni, developed by an Italian named Giambattista Bodoni in 1798.

What I love about these fonts is their elegance; you’ll often see them used for luxury items and environments. One easy example to imagine is “Giorgio Armani”. But because of their extreme contrast, they aren’t good for screen displays nor small print because it’ll be very hard to read and the serifs will disappear. Generally though, a font publisher may have a “display” version appropriate to your needs.

Another example of modern fonts is shown here using their thicker versions:

This is Poster Bodoni, which evokes a very different feeling: stylish, retro or 70s funky.

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Have you seen these fonts used in particular atmospheres or applications you really liked? Please share!

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Today we’ll be covering the second phase in new product development: Scoping

This follows our first review: The Idea Screen

The purpose of this stage is to do a little homework on the great ideas you have. Not too much time is spent here though; it could take 10 days, but should not be longer than one month. Besides being an initial investigation on the merits of your project, this stage really acts as a reality-check before you commit any serious effort. In it, we perform three activities:

Preliminary Market Assessment
The purpose of this market study is to investigate the commercial prospects of your product idea. Your objectives should be to quickly:

• Assess the market attractiveness and its potential by looking at its size, distribution channels, patterns of growth or decline, and identifying fads versus trends.
• Estimate the product’s possible acceptance and level of appeal based on customer needs and interests.
• Survey the competitive landscape by identifying the major players, their relative size and product offerings

Again, do not attempt to gather in-depth information. It can be easy to become distracted by the variety of details you may uncover and want to further pursue. It is vastly more important to build a holistic view of what the market is like. Here are some recommended sources you can use:

• Employees - Speak with your own sales and marketing personnel to get their first-hand knowledge of customer habits, preferences, order-winning criteria including assortment and pricing, and what the competitive landscape is like.
• Internet Research - A lot of information can be found using the internet. However, it is highly recommended that you employ someone who is skilled at scouring the net using various search methodologies, news alerts, engines, and portals. Doing this will save your firm a lot of time and the results will likely be much better organized.
• Internal Data - Has your firm performed any research or purchased any reports related to your efforts? Do you have a reference library of books and publications? Sometimes these sources won’t give you any specific insights, but they will provide direction on where to look next.
• Lead Users and Customers - Have an informal conversation with a few customers or people in your target audience. Remember, this meeting is about them and their likes, needs, and opinions on this product category. An in-person discussion would be preferable, but telephone and email correspondence also works.
• Partners - Do you have external sales agents or other parties with whom you have a business relationship, that might be able to provide you some unique insights on this market? Strike up a conversation with them.
• Consulting and Research Firms - Certain firms publish standard reports or white papers that may cover aspects of your product category or industry at large. Look at their abstracts and publication dates to see if they might be right for you. Don’t buy anything that’ll take a lot of time to read and analyze; there are better secondary resources available right now.
• Competitors’ Advertisements and Trade Literature - Look at how your competitors talk about their product features, performance claims, and how they’re positioning their products.
• Industry Experts - Hire a specialist in your product category/industry for a day or two. Their knowledge can save you a LOT of time in your research efforts.
• Trade Associations - There are a variety of associations related to your industry or a unique aspect of your product concept. Seek them out. Sometimes they will publish reports or maintain directories of members and organizations that may be of interest.

As you can see, there are a variety of sources at your disposal. The important point is that you try to cover all your bases.

Preliminary Technical Assessment
Here, your firm’s R&D, development, engineering, and operations staff will examine the product concept and appraise it for viability. They will need to draft early technical and performance objectives, conduct preliminary studies for technical feasibility, and identify critical issues that may pose as risks or hurdles. Your in-house staff may be able to perform these duties, but it is advised that you seek professional advice for areas you may be weak in.

The following list of questions will help guide your team in this process:

• What requirements and specifications should the product have? This is part of further defining the core elements of your product concept.
• Is your firm technically capable of producing this product? What raw materials or components would need to be sourced? What aspects of the product could be designed, developed, and manufactured in-house? Which aspects would have to be outsourced?
• What are the largest technical risks and how might we mitigate them? Are there important quality, handling, health or usage concerns that we need to be aware of and/or advise affiliated parties of?
• Are there any Intellectual Property issues (ex: patents, copyrights, licensing) or product regulatory issues involved? If the product or components thereof are being imported, what implications does that impose on us regarding quality, certification, and duties among others?
• Given our limited knowledge, how likely is it that this product can be reliably produced?
• How much will it cost to product this product? How much time would it take to develop it? Again, rough estimates is all we can expect.

Every product category has a wide variety of issues to consider for design, manufacturing, logistics, and quality control among others. This basic assessment across these various factors will help your firm evaluate each product concept in an objective manner for consideration at the next review meeting.

Preliminary Business & Financial Assessment
After having evaluated the product’s market and its technical considerations, you’ll want to lay out the facts of this project regarding the business implications. Key elements of this assessment include:

• The strategic and competitive rationale for this product. How does this fit within your product portfolio? How is it aligned with your product innovation strategy?
• A core competencies assessment that addresses your capability to effectively execute this project. If partnering or outsourcing is necessary, you’ll need to explain in basic terms how these additional relationships would affect your business.
• A rough financial analysis that identifies expected sales, cash flow windows, investments required, costs, and the payback period. Note that this data will be highly speculative and based on early conjectures, but nonetheless important to know because you don’t want to spend further resources on a project that just may not make business sense.

Concept Review
Your development team should now prepare a concept brief for the second review. In it, they should include the following:

• The findings from the preliminary market, technical, business & financial assessments.
• A recommendation to either continue the project into the next stage, or to halt further investigation.
• Action plans, time lines, resources (personnel and time-requirements), and the deliverables to be expected for the final review before development begins.

Management will now hear the presentations from the development team and discuss the project details, recommendations, plans, and resources requested. Based on the information presented and the criteria by which concepts are evaluated against, Management will decide on the future of the project (go, recycle, terminate), appropriate human and financial resources, and decide when the feasibility review will be held (end of phase 3).

When you’re ready, continue to the 3rd phase in concept development: Building the Business Case & Plan

For more information on the various phases in NPD, visit the master page on The Stage-Gate Model of New Product Development

Note: The term ‘Scoping’ in NPD terminology, was coined by Robert G. Cooper as the first stage in his trademarked Stage-Gate process. A more universal term for this phase would be ‘concept development’, with the semantic implications also carrying over into the business case & plan phase.

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A little over a year ago while shopping at Target, I noticed some standard Campbell’s chicken noodle cans in a dispensing container. Then I recently saw the same devices used at my local Albertsons supermarket.

Allowing the product’s features to be prominently displayed with bigger text and imagery, helps shoppers easier see the variety of choices they have and make a quicker purchasing decision. This readability is particularly helpful to older shoppers, whose eyes aren’t as light receptive as their younger counterparts.

In a category like soup, visuals are important in arousing emotional appeal, thereby increasing the propensity to buy. Traditional soup lovers are greater convenienced, other shoppers take greater notice, and total category sales will grow.

What else I like is that the product always appears orderly. Re-facing products can be a chore. In fast-moving consumer goods, it’s just a necessity. Items need to be moved to the front and the shelf should look in order. More facings in the visual shelf-estate leads to greater notice. But this process costs employees time, which they could be using for service in the daytime. With this system, everything’s taken care of.

Kind of geeky topic, I know…and it isn’t exactly a new invention. But this does represent a unique way of merchandising products that affects both retail sales and operations.

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Have you seen some interesting examples of innovation in store environments?

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Looks much better in print, trust me. The low resolution of a screen hides the beauty of this typeface.
Best used for when you want to give your copy a historic look.
Wikipedia Entry

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In a previous post, I explained a little bit about the first phase in developing new products: Discovery

Today, we’ll briefly visit the first review session in the product development process: The Idea Screen

Once you’ve generated plenty of ideas, you’ll need to evaluate them for viability, score them, and decide which ones you’ll want to further investigate.

Winning Criteria

First, you’ll want to establish criteria to judge each idea against. The criteria will often involve the following:

• Alignment with your Product Innovation Strategy
• Degree of compatibility with the company’s values & principles (ex: moral, health, environmental)
• Market attractiveness / opportunity
• Project feasibility
• Degree of product advantage over other options
• Ability to leverage existing company resources

From the book “Launch It!“, the authors give in the first chapters some great questions to ask when evaluating your own ideas. A number of “No”s should indicate the idea needs some work or should be scrapped. Here are the questions (in my own words):

1. Does the product represent something completely new and different from anything out there in the marketplace? Would it likely appeal to a specialty/niche segment of people?
2. Does the idea have a unique design to it, that’ll make it appeal to more people than a comparable product does now?
3. Will this idea offer a noticeably superior quality in comparison to competitive offerings? If so, can it remain in the same price range as those competitive products?
4. If it’s a popular item (in terms of category volume), would you be able to noticeably lower its price without affecting its quality?
5. Is the idea able to offer enough new features to differentiate it from the competition? If so, to what degree would these additional features be of value or seen as advantageous?
6. For popular products, will your idea enable you to produce and distribute it faster than the competition? Importantly, will this matter? Popular competitive products may carry a strong brand appeal which may be too high a hurdle. However, if the product category is a bit more commoditized, then speed to market will definitely be a strong advantage.
7. How much longevity does your product idea have? Is it part of an established category of products, a trend, or a fad? Having a grip on this is crucial. I’m not saying some product categories are no-growth, sometimes it depends on the sales channel. But obviously you don’t want to base a lot of business on a me-too product whose lifespan may only last a few years.
8. Similar to #7, how new is this idea compared to existing products in your portfolio or pipeline? Buyers are likely to be approached next season by similar products with the additional features and attributes you’ll be pitching. If you’re redesigning a SKU to extend its lifespan, that may be fine. But ultimately, you should try and have additional, newer concepts in your development pipeline.

The Review Session

The format for the review session and how it’s conducted is up to each firm. Here are some tips:

• Allow transparency into the presentations and foster open discussion. The more people that feel they are a part of the process, the larger the buy in will be. Personnel from Sales, Marketing, R&D, and PDD (Product Design and Development) are the key attendees to these sessions. Communicate to them the decision-making criteria and the primary aspects of the Product Innovation Strategy.
• Create standardized idea forms for presenters to fill-out and distribute. Fields include: product definition, target market, explanation of user benefits, and criteria against which the ideas are judged, and a sketch (if applicable).
• With a large number of ideas and participants, create voting schemes. This could involve having idea cards/boards set up around the presentation room, and giving every participant a number of votes. Voting by raised hands can work, but perhaps it might be best to give people post-its to place on the ideas they like, then tally the votes. Techniques may vary - the idea is that participation is important.

Once you’ve selected your winning ideas, place them into an idea portfolio. Any ideas leftover that had some terrific potential, but for some reason couldn’t make the cut, should be stored in an idea bank for future review. There might be a new sales channel opening at a future date, through which these older ideas may be of value.

When you’re ready, continue to the next phase in concept development: Scoping

For more information on the various phases in NPD, visit the master page on The Stage-Gate Model of New Product Development

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Sara Cantor of the Curious Shopper, wrote a well-written piece on designing better gift cards. To her, they’re very practical for the giver and receiver, however the feeling is a bit impersonal. Ok, we smarties know that complementing a gift card with a note or ‘regular card’?! is the obvious quick personalization tool we can use to show that extra TLC. But what else can we do?

The gift card is the one product that retailers have complete design dominion over. First there was an option to choose a different card design, but who really cares about that? Sara shows an example of a nice ‘experience set’ that formed the environment of a card she purchased, but which ultimately didn’t do the trick for her. I thought it was well designed, but ah well…I had to read more, and she got me thinking of the possibilities advanced web tools retailers could use on their website to make some really nifty gift experiences. If people can make their own custom postcards, stickers and correspondence/business cards with Moo, well there should be a lot of additional personalization options to retailers who are willing to step up to the plate and look into printing & fulfillment outsourcing options that are available.

If any of you have stories or examples of personalized gift cards and related experiences, please share!

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When you have to explain a product REALLY well so as to stir in people the slightest tinge of curiosity,
and you do it very creatively with great acting, compelling copy, and interactivity that is playful and amusing,
that is the ultimate high in marketing. Good design can make almost anything more appealing.

I sense there was a lot of time and passion devoted to the product concept and definition phase, a critical area in development. A solid product concept accompanied by its business case, establishes a unifying vision and organizational support for it. But still, we must try and use sticky elements in our communicating that vision. Otherwise, the message and concept will be interpreted by everyone differently, who then explain it to third parties in their own way, who then….yeah…I think you get the idea.

Chip and Dan Heath advise using stories whenever possible. When introducing new products to others, it sure can help a lot…especially if that product/service category is full of “me-toos”. I’ll write about this again at a future date. In the meantime, I’d like you to check out the following website and share what you like about it.

http://www.cleanishappy.com/

I particularly like the xylophone effect when you roll over the people’s faces on the main navigation.
What about you?

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