With every product sector highly competitive, identifying market opportunities and developing a product and brand for success presents significant challenges. Whilst we’re all familiar with the expression ‘a gap in the market’, it’s so important to know whether there is ‘a market in the gap’.
Taking a helicopter view of a particular product category may indeed identify potential opportunities, but evaluating the strength of a concept within the broader context of feasibility, pricing, retailer interest and potential consumer demand requires diligence and in-depth exploration.
There are ten key reasons for undertaking diligent work at the outset and before committing to spend on product development, brand and packaging design:
- To validate or challenge your product and brand concept.
- To determine the potential for your product in your proposed format (ambient, chilled, frozen?).
- To explore manufacturing feasibility.
- To understand the current market and market size – and importantly is it in both volume and value growth. If not, it may well have already peaked which results in downward price pressure.
- To create a competitor market map and determine the positioning for your brand.
- To quantify and identify the size of your target audience and to know them inside out.
- To develop your routes to market.
- To maximise your price potential.
- To optimise your concept.
- To shape your packaging communication and marketing strategy.
Whilst brands work on an emotive, intangible level, this is not the case for a product concept which will live or die based on whether there is both a need and a demand of adequate size to warrant the investment – and whether it ‘delivers the promise’ once purchased and tasted.
And because we choose products and brands based on our perceptions of how they are different rather than how they are the same, ensuring that concepts have distinct differences from existing competitors is crucial. Research can play a vital role here in both determining the potential for success as well as defining a truly differentiated proposition and positioning.
This can only be made possible by forensic interrogation of every aspect of the competitive landscape: how the product sector is performing, sector brands, opportunities for new entrants, concept shaping, consumer targeting and most importantly the opportunities for optimisation for success.
A robust approach such as this also aids development of an understanding of consumer needs, thinking and desires in relation to existing category brands and products and what they might be looking for from new market entrants – and in doing so clearly define the best way forward.
And it can future-proof the investment in the concept by not only looking at the market sector today, but by predicting how emerging trends will influence consumer behaviour and how broader societal changes will impact on the development of a relationship between consumers and the concept.
There are numerous research resources and techniques that I use to create the foundation for the product and brand ideation and innovation programme.
1. Macro Economics
Understanding and analysing how the shape of our society is changing is key so we can build a picture of how changing lifestyles and aspirations will shape future consumer demand and how this will impact on your concept.
2. Desktop Research
There are a number of large research businesses that evaluate an enormous range of product sectors and produce highly detailed reports often running into hundreds of pages. Typically these will detail the size of the product category, whether it is in growth or decline, gaps in the market, major brands, market share by retailer, consumer audiences, price mapping and an analysis of the future potential for the category. The ability to identify the key trends and opportunities from the myriad of data points is key.
3. Macro consumer panels
Other research specialists focus on utilising large numbers of pre-selected consumers, chosen to accurately represent the socio-demographics of the UK population and within that they core demographic for a concept. Typically they collect data based on the real purchasing behaviour of their panels, with each individual product purchase logged using sophisticated software so they can build very detailed models of the shape and size of the shopping basket of 1,000’s of consumers .Analysing the trends in terms of changing consumer behaviour can give the earliest indication to products that are falling out of favour and therefore categories to be avoided.
4. Store audits
It’s so important to have an understanding of what the consumer sees at point of purchase and who your potential competitors are so undertaking store visits, evaluating the fixture and creating a planogram is another key part of the research jigsaw. And if you’re looking to launch online, I will undertake extensive web searches to develop competitor knowledge.
5. Concept evaluation
Research programmes delivered through social media are a brilliant tool for cost-effective evaluation of initial concepts and a great way on getting an early steer on the best ideas, particularly if you have a number of options or approaches that you want to assess at the outset.
6. Buyer interviews
Depending on the project, it may be appropriate to talk to retail buyers to gain an understanding of the kind of products they are looking for which are not being met by current brands. Which gaps in the market have they identified for new product opportunities? The various Future Brands programmes operated by retailers will often see the kind of products they are looking for published as pitch opportunities and I use my knowledge and industry contacts to good effect.
7. Food service
Chefs are always at the forefront of new product ideas and often unique food ideas or twists on traditional dishes that start life in restaurants will emerge in retail in the future. My annual Trends Report is a good starting point to understanding what is hot and what is not and I supplement this with specific analysis relevant to the potential product concept.
8. Focus groups
Consumers are recruited against specific lifestyle and demographic criteria to take part in open group discussions. Typically these are 1.5 to 2 hours in length and provide an opportunity to ask in-depth questions around a whole range of related topics. These are structured to provide a range of diverse outputs and data – for example groups can be asked to create mood boards which represent how they view a particular brand, or they might be asked to evaluate a product idea or brand concept or indeed to sample product concepts and evaluate them against competing brands where relevant.
9. Identity data
Using information gleaned from a range of research data sources, it is possible to group consumers by their response to a product idea or brand concept whilst taking into consideration their socio-demographic profile and purchasing behaviour. This allows the creation of ‘identities’ for like-minded individuals and the ranking of these groups in order of importance in relation to the concept.
10. Street interviews
An approach which is being used less now with the advent of online research but a useful technique if consumer feedback is required quickly and relatively cost effectively, particularly where engaging, live video presentation of the respondents is important.
11. Online research
A tool which uses pre-recruited consumers to respond to a range of closed questions, usually derived from focus group open discussions. A very efficient way of gaining responses from a large number of consumers quickly and effectively.
12. Hall tests
The most-used method for gaining large-scale sensory feedback from consumers on new product ideas. Consumers are typically recruited in shopping malls and directed to a nearby location where they can sample products and view concepts.
13. Taste profiling
Highly sophisticated organoleptic analysis can be used if detailed sensory profiling is required which can be provided by commissioning expert panelists either in the 10’s or the 100’s.
Where new product development is part of the programme of work, I very much advocate a parallel development strategy. By which I mean having gained an understanding of the attributes that combine to fill a gap in the market, these are then incorporated into an ongoing research programme providing sequential feedback and outputs as product iterations are presented to consumers for further feedback.
14. Social media sentiment
This is a relatively new research resource made possible by AI. Thousands of data points are created by analysing live, social media chatter which is then presented in ranked order. It can also determine whether comments are negative or positive. This can be targeted to analysing specific, competitor brands for example and it can also broadly quantity volumes by brand as well as identifying key, brand sentiments.
If you’d like to explore how I can help you decide the best approach to evaluate your concept, define your unique competitor advantage and translate this into a powerful strategy to optimise your potential for success, ping an email so we can schedule a call.
And take a look at Food Brand Strategist for some insights into how I ready new food and drink ideas for launch.
Call: +44 (0) 207 205 2998 or email today for an initial chat.
Last Updated on 01/04/2024 by Eddie Stableford
