Melodies in Marketing

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the model that Robert G. Cooper established in the early 80s to describe a systematic approach toward developing new products. It was the result of three companies who approached him and asked to research their processes and establish a common best-practices framework; they were DuPont, Nortel Networks, and Pratt & Whitney. While the basic underlying principles of a development process have long been around, Cooper established a framework that also included project review sessions known as “Gates” and/or “Decision Diamonds”. The entire model is also known as a Phased Review model (among other names), and is commonly referred to as such in academic and commercial settings due to the trademarking of the name.

The following links are posts I’ve written that cover these phases:

• Discovery
• Idea Screening
• Scoping
• Business Case & Plan
• Development
• Testing & Validation

Because the Launch phase involves many differing factors and activities that are different for each product category, I will not be covering it. However, I do have a diagram that outlines how a marketing plan is developed. This is a ‘living document’ that is created within the Business Case & Plan phase, and updated throughout the NPD process. A related topic that is formed between the Business Case and Development phases, is a new product design strategy.

The next post on this topic will cover what the ‘Gates’ are all about.

Share with:

Continuing on the subject of New Product Development, today I’ll cover the essentials of ‘Testing & Validation’. The purpose of this phase is to completely validate your project in terms of the product, its marketing plan, and the production. It is broken up into three phases:

Near Testing
Also known as alpha testing, here your main objective is to find the bugs. Your product is not a prototype any longer. It has nearly all the features of its commercial model in terms of appearance and functionality, though its packaging and promotional materials may not be fully ready.

You will want to test your product with and get feedback primarily from in-house staff, and additional parties like customers and partners you feel are close to the firm. Give them a clear understanding of how the product should perform so they know what to look out for. Have a few members of your development team observe participants using the product and/or conduct surveys to gather the needed data.

Field Testing
This process, also known as beta testing, is carried out usually for an extended period of time with a larger number of participants that includes customers, partners, and others whose feedback would be valuable, but may not be familiar with your company. Your product now fully resembles its planned launch model in all aspects. Participants’ interaction rate is higher and they are much better informed on the product’s functions, features, benefits, and intended use conditions.

Your product testing has three primary objectives. First, you will want to measure participants’ interest in the product and its features, their preference of individual attributes, and if they would be willing to purchase the product. It must not only be acceptable, but desirable compared to any current purchases or competitive offerings.

Secondly, you will want to find out how the customer uses the product and its durability under normal conditions. Are there particular applications, use environments, or occasions that are appealing? Not so appealing? What kinds of participants were these?

Third, you will need to record and analyze all the feedback received. This will give you hints on minor design improvements that will not significantly affect your production, and perhaps if a line extension should be added or dropped. Additionally, your participants’ responses will provide your sales & marketing team with words, phrases, and stories that can be used in communicating the product during the launch. The features and benefits that elicit the highest initial positive reactions can be used when designing advertisements, brochures and sales presentations.

Market Testing
This last form of testing is completely optional. Its costs versus benefits will depend on your unique product category, operational flexibility, and channel strategy. Basically it comes down to this: If you feel confident that your marketing and launch plans are sound, and you have a high degree of certainty about the product’s eventual sales, proceed to launch. On the other hand, if you want to test the launch strategy with a limited production run while refining your marketing plan, there are two options available:

• Simulated Market Test - Offered as a service of specialized consumer market research firms, this test involves exposing consumers to new products and their claims in a staged advertising and purchasing situation. The goal is to obtain an early forecast of sales and/or market share from the key metrics observed, applying mathematical forecasting models, and making adjustments through management assumptions and judgments.
• Trial Sells - Here you will test your product either through specific channels, geographic regions, or particular consumer demographics. The marketing campaign is limited in scope and size, however it resembles the expected launch plan to the full extent.

Summary
A ‘product’ can be a consumer/business good, service, software, website, album, film, catalog…anything that is the result of a creationary process. While what I’ve outlined above leans toward physical goods for commercial sale, the basic principles apply toward other products as well.

For information on other phases in npd, visit the master page on The Stage-Gate Model of New Product Development

Share with:

Continuing with some tasty quotes from “The Radical Leap” by Steve Farber:

“If I love who we are, and if I love what we can be, then I’ll love the process of how we get there. And in order to make it all happen, I will act boldly and courageously and I will, at times, fail magnificently. But my love demands that I try. Demands it.”

“that’s the nature of leadership in the extreme: the dynamic interplay of love and fear. Acting out of love creates fear, and love gives me the courage to work through that fear.”

LEAP - Love, Energy, Audacity, Proof

“Love generates Energy, inspires Audacity, and requires Proof. LEAP, you see, is simply the Extreme Leader’s active, dynamic, expression of love.”

“The Extreme Leader consciously and intentionally cultivates love in order to generate boundless energy and inspire courageous audacity. And he or she must provide the proof that it’s all been worthwhile: proof through the alignment between word and action; proof through the standing up for what’s right; proof through measurable, tangible signs of progress; and proof through the experience of phenomenal success as well as glorious failure. That’s the LEAP. And, if I can add to that, it’s the LEAP that creates the OS!M [Oh Shit! Moment]. The OS!M is fear in the pursuit of creating something greater than the current reality. And the desire to create something greater is a bold expression of love. Simple as that.”

Share with:

To me, Brand Management is such a big term that can mean a lot of different things - depending on the context and whose point of view is being expressed. This is a common effect of Nominalizations; we often must ask ‘how so?’ in order to be on the same wavelength. Nonetheless, I would like to explore a little of what I have come to learn about it. By all means, please leave comments on what it means to you.

In the world of consumer goods, Neil McElroy of Proctor & Gamble wrote a 3-page memo to senior management in 1931, outlining his vision of how a business should run and manage multiple brands (Full story here). This development was similar to Sloan’s multi-divisional structuring of GM, but it expanded on how brands should be financed, staffed, and operated like independent subsidiaries. While the concept makes clear sense today, the degree of brand independence allowed will largely be based on the brand’s perceived maturity and potential in the marketplace.

That is an ideal scenario though. One friend who worked in a multi-brand firm, complained that the owner didn’t give one brand (in a far different product category: alcohol), the dedicated financial support and independence it needed to successfully live. It had a lot of potential; some well-compensated and brilliant leaders with vast industry experience were brought on board. But the owner liked to meddle with its purse, product design, manufacturing, and market strategy. He couldn’t give up control, and the result was random chaos and frustration with folks already having invested so much time and energy with the brand.

That story made me first think about how Al & Laura Ries talked about the importance of divergence in The Origin of Brands. New product categories need new brand names because effective market positioning demands it (for most consumer products that is). The alcohol carried the parent company brand name for 2 years where it experienced limited sales, then finally got its own name. Secondly, the story made me reflect on another book: The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen. Some radical innovations can’t achieve market success within the same industry and customer base as the parent company. They need new markets, operational independence, dedicated capital, adequate staffing, and preferably a different geographic headquarters. Lastly, this is all similar to Jack Welch’s organizational structuring of General Electric and its SBUs: widely diversified brands across multiple industries, yet bound together by a common management philosophy of empowerment, team membership, mentoring, and leading with the heart.

So the pervasive theme from that perspective hearkens back to Sloan’s “Decentralization with Coordinated Control”. If we look at the latter half of that statement, we’ll come to the intersecting avenues of new product development, brand analysis, portfolio management, and product innovation & technology strategies. You’re probably thinking: No more big words! Well, all of these avenues have some common themes like: What should we create? How are we doing? What should we let go? How should we allocate our capital across new projects and existing brands?

An excellent historical model for analyzing brands is the famous Growth-Share matrix developed by Bruce Henderson for the Boston Consulting Group in 1970. Complemented with Michael Porter’s contributions to strategic analysis among various other models, we have a lot of tools at our disposal. But I would think that in our day and age, with the proliferation of so many brands combined with the long-tail effect, the changing demographic landscape, and the rise of psychographic segmentation, analysis has become a lot more difficult and great data harder to come by. What do you think?

The last areas of Brand Management that I see relevant to completing the picture relate to development, growth, maintenance, and retirement. While I could expand on each of these subjects, I will spare you some mental time & energy, and close the subject with what I consider to be probably the most important act of all: Listening to customers, prospects, partners, suppliers, and employees. Lewis Green, Christina Kerley, and Robert G. Cooper are some proud proponents of it.

So Brand Management is a big tricky affair depending on how you look at it. Your perspectives and thoughts would be much appreciated. Oh, and Thanks for listening!

Share with:

So I started a new book tonight: The Radical Leap, by Steve Farber. After the first chapter though, I really couldn’t continue reading that or anything else. I wanted a certain feeling to stick around a little longer, and not be distracted or diluted with other interesting facts or observations on any subject. Here’s some quotes that caught my attention:

“We’ve been conditioned to believe that fear is bad. And yeah, fear can save your life or keep you from doing something stupid, but it can also keep you from doing something great, from learning something new, and from growing as a human being. Fear is a natural part of growth, and since growth, change, and evolution are all on the Extreme Leader’s agenda, fear comes with the territory.”

“You screw up every day, and everyone already knows it. But when you can show us that you can face your own screw-ups, when you can publicly acknowledge that you crashed and burned, when you can - metaphorically speaking - hoist your shirt in front of a hundred people to show us the scar that you earned when you fell off the mountain, we’ll be closer to you as human beings. And we follow human beings; we don’t follow idealized icons of unattainable perfection.”

“If you’re using all the buzzwords, reading all the latest books, and holding forth at every meeting on the latest management fads, but you’re not experiencing that visceral churning in your gut, not scaring yourself every day, not feeling that Oh Shit! Moment like clockwork, then you’re not doing anything significant - let alone changing the world - and you’re certainly not leading anyone else. But you’ll sure look snappy in your big, baggy pants.” [allusion to 'posers' wearing skater clothes for fashionable reasons, not for participating in the sport where the jeans cover up protective gear underneath].

Share with: