NPD Thoughts from the Technology Sector

With under a month to go until the MRS annual conference, Mr Web is privileged to feature a synopsis of some of the papers to be presented at the event. The first paper we look at examines a new framework for npd research developed out of the technology sector as presented by Andrew Vincent and Jerome Norris of Business & Market Research.

It is well documented that most new products fail and that successfully launching new products has got harder in recent decades. The inspiration for this paper derived from the adoption of a new product on an unprecedented scale, ie. the mobile phone. Oftel estimates that in the UK the number of mobile phone subscribers increased from around 9 million in spring 1998 to over 34 million three years later.

The speakers believed that few, if any, other products had been embraced so strongly and so rapidly across such a breadth of adoption. Vincent and Norris hypothesised that although much has been documented about product diffusion in terms of market penetration, little is known about the emotional depth of that diffusion.

The implications of work in this area lead Vincent and Morris to state 'that to maximise the likelihood of success, npd research must identify the continuous need for any new product. Indeed, we would go so far as to say if continuous needs cannot be identified, the product is unlikely to succeed.'

The pair reached some of the following conclusions:

• Successful new products attain emotional adoption not just quantitative market penetration.
  
• To maximise the chances of emotional adoption, new products must be seen as an extension of existing needs.
  
• Technology does not need to be continuous for a new product to be seen as tapping into continuous or existing needs.
  
• Against this background, marketing has a key role to play in both positioning a new product as a continuous development and in communicating that it does meet the deep adoption choice criteria.

Vincent and Morris will be presenting the full paper at the conference on Thursday 21 March in the first morning session.

All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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