How To Write a New Product Concept Statement That Works

Decide what ‘image’ you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place. – David Ogilvy

One of the many types of focus groups I moderate are product and advertising concept tests. Usually the client’s advertising agency will provide  2 to 3 written concept statements for the respondents to comment based on several variables. These concepts from a portfolio of a dozen or so studies are supposedly finalize or on some cases refined further. The concept statements are usually written in an illustration board, whiteboard, Keynote slides (if you’re a Macbook user like me) or Powerpoint. I usually request my client to provide the boards and have it discussed at least a day before the session. I also had experiences when my client would just put it in a bond paper on the day itself. Yup, those pieces of paper coming from the other side of the one way mirror.

What I normally asked my client to produce has a simple visual and a verbal statement that contains the following points.

1. A statement of the problem that the product is meant to solve.

2. A definition of the type of solution that the product requires.

3. Supporting attributes (physical and communications) that adds credibility to product’s ability to solve the problem.

By this I mean that when writing a concept statement you should state the problem the product is proposing to solve. The first paragraph should set the stage for the subsequent solution by defining the customer’s problem. Then tell the customer that your product will solve the problem. Lastly give the necessary attributes to support the facts.

Feel free to email me at ric.cortez@asiaresearch.com.org if you need any assistance, or to just simply share your ideas.

Test Market Simulations- What Should You Be Testing?

In test market simulations or actual test marketing, there are two areas that every marketer should consider testing.

1. Determining how your target consumer will buy your product (trial) or will they continue to buy it (repeat purchase). In others words, you want to see whether or not you have a potential product for success.

2. Test some strategic alternatives. Test different prices, test two advertising weights, or you can test a mix of trial tactics like couponing and sampling.

What To Research When Pitching For New Business

In Researching For A Purpose- Pitching For New Business, I mentioned that without any data information, the connections will be much harder to make. We need to gather raw materials, a critical step in the preparation phase. It seems like such an essential and obvious step, yet it is a stage that many ignore. They all want to jump straight to the solution before they have considered the facts, in order to save time.  So what’s the secret?

In Presenting To Win, Weissman expresses that no presenters should ever data dump on their audience. However, he said that performing one is vital to the success of any type of pitch. It must be part of your preparation not the presentation. Organize it as soon as possible after the client has provided you the brief. So what are the types of information that needs to be collected? Specific and general in nature. 

Specific information:  product, brand, market size, categories, competitors and target audience.

General information: social, economic, trends and cultural background

Collecting specific material for a presentation or pitch is a job for now. Collecting general information to give your pitch depth is a job for life.

How to take your concept test to market

How are concept tests made actionable to help you manage your products and priorities?

• Roadmap of Development Priorities: Development plans are canceled for three new features because of low priority to customers and high associated development costs.
• Scheduling and Launch Priorities: Based on the concept test, your product is given new priority for launch because of the demonstrated greater market potential. The concept test identifies not only market potential, but avoids a potential failure that could have been launched.
• Market Potential: New product uses are discovered through a new product concept test that could double the market potential.
• Product Superiority: New features are added to the existing product to meet the demands of customers before the competition responds. The proposed features of greatest value to the customer receive top priority for development and implementation. Your product or service maintains the competitive advantage by further distancing itself from the competition. Concept tests provide the customer feedback you need to prioritize and implement ahead of the competition.
• Eliminate Product Deficiency: The currently marketed product is evaluated and product performance tests reveal flaws in the current design and implementation. This information is integrated and verified in the new concept tests.
• Promotion Planning: Concept tests combined with market analysis help you to understand who is buying, where they can be reached, and most importantly, what message motivates them to respond to your product.
• Increase Profitability: Concept testing shows that we are delivering the best value in the market and have room for a 10% increase in price for the new product.

When is a product concept test needed?

Throughout my 18 years experience in product and brand management, the following applications gave me the value of concept tests.

1. Reaching out to new market segment
2. Whenever I want to identify how my customers use and interface with my product
3. Testing a new product concept before the initial introduction
4. Need to determine the optimal pricing point
5. Go no go decision