MMR Unveils NPD Tool
January 15 2013
Food, drink and consumer goods specialist MMR Research Worldwide (MMR) has announced a new NPD tool, 'Concept Lab', which it says will screen, optimise and validate product potential cost-effectively and without the need for multiple rounds of research.
The part-standardised, part-tailored approach delivers specific recommendations for 'the whole NPD cycle', addressing six facets of concept performance:
- hedonic (would customers buy the product),
- perceptual (what are the functional benefits offered?)
- emotional (what are the emotional conceptualisations associated with the idea?)
- diagnostic (what specific concept areas are liked/disliked and how could they be improved?)
- usage (who, what, where, when, why, how would it be consumed?) and
- activation (how would the product perform in a competitive context?).
The approach uses interactive online tools designed to estimate the likely performance of a product against what is identified as its most likely competitive set.
MMR MD Mat Lintern says the failure rate of NPD remains 'stubbornly high' and that old techniques 'rely on external, historic benchmarks and normative data, and lack the competitive context required in today's highly dynamic markets'.
Concept Lab complements the firm's existing tools, including early stage idea shaper Concept-EROS, concept/product alignment tool SensoHedonic+, and packaging optimiser FACETS.
'We've packed Concept Lab with everything clients need to create winning ideas' says Lintern. 'Having piloted the approach globally for a range of categories, including chocolate, soft cheese and toothpaste, we have seen that it can be used to take a concept further along the journey towards optimum execution in terms of positioning, product and packaging than typical quantitative concept screening research.'
MMR has offices in the UK, USA, Singapore and China and is part of the MMR Group which employs more than 130 people. The Group was founded in 1989 by Professor David Thomson, is headquartered in Oxfordshire, UK and is online at
www.mmr-research.com .
All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.
