The Product Concept and Ready-Made New

Product Ideas &

New Product Ideas: The Problem Find-Solve
Approach
Barriers to Firm Creativity
Required Inputs to the Creation
Process
1. Form
(the physical thing created, or, for a service, the set of
steps by which the service will be created)
2. Technology
(the source by which the form is to be attained)
3. Benefit or Need
(benefit to the customer for which the customer sees a
need or desire)

Technology permits us to develop a form that provides the

benefit.
Some Patterns in Concept Generation

1. Customer need firm develops technology

produces form
2. Firm develops technology finds match to
need in a customer segment produces
form
3. Firm envisions form develops
technology to product form tests with
customer to see what benefits are delivered
Note: the innovation process can start with any of the
three inputs.
What is a Product Concept?

A product concept is a claim of proposed customer

value.
It can be a verbal and/or prototype expression that
describes need, form, and technology (at least two
of these) and how the customer stands to gain (and
lose).
It should clearly relate the products form and
technology to the customer benefit delivered.
Rule: You need at least two of the three inputs to have
a feasible new product concept, and all three to have
a new product.
New Product Concepts and the New Product
Would You Buy This Printer?

 “Would you buy our great new office printer? It prints

120 pages a minute!” On a 5-point scale, how likely
would you be to buy this printer?

 You can’t answer this! You will no doubt wonder how

much it costs, how big it is, whether the pages print
neatly, whether it jams up, even if the claim is
believable!
Why Do You Need At Least Two Inputs?

 The customer needs to be able to judge whether the

concept is worthy of development into a product.
 If you just have an idea (the benefit, the form, or the
technology), potential customers do not have enough
information to judge its worthiness, and will be unable
to state how much they like the product or their
purchase intentions.
 The product concept statement (providing benefit, form,
and technology, or at least two of these) gives potential
customers the required information. One can get a
rough but useful early read on customer liking and
purchase intention based on their reactions to the
product concept.
The Toilet Brush Example

 Idea: A new and improved toilet brush.

 Concept: A toilet brush that contains detergent,
refillable, and easy for the customer to attach to the
handle.
 Product (executions of this concept):
 Lysol Ready Brush
 Scrubbing Bubbles Fresh Brush
 Clorox Toilet Wand
 Others?
The Designer Decaf Example
 Benefit: “Consumers want decaffeinated espresso that
tastes identical to regular.”
 Form: “We should make a darker, thicker, Turkish-
coffee-like espresso.”
 Technology: “There’s a new chemical extraction
process that isolates and separates chemicals from
foods; maybe we can use that for decaffeinating
espresso coffee.”

Each of these taken individually

is not a product concept
Methods for Generating Product
Concepts

Two Broad Categories of Methods:

1. Gathering Ready-Made Product Concepts

2. Using a Managed Process Run by the
New Products Team
 Problem analysis
 Attribute Analysis Techniques
Best Sources of Ready-Made New
Product Concepts
Internal Sources:
 New Products Employees
 Technical: R&D, engineering, design
 Marketing and manufacturing
External Sources:
 End users, lead users
 Resellers, suppliers, vendors, advertising agencies
 Competitors, other manufacturers
 Inventors, technologists, product specialists, industrial
designers
 Idea exploration firms, consulting engineers, marketing
research firms
 Other miscellaneous and secondary sources (universities,
research laboratories, governments, printed sources, Internet)
Crowdsourcing as a Creative Source

 Dell’s Idea Storm: encouraged customers to submit ideas for new

products and improvements to existing products online. Over
10,000 ideas were obtained from sources around the world.
 Apple used crowdsourcing in generating ideas for the iPad. Apple
monitored reviews and blogs and also obtained Voice of the
Customer data to understand the needs of potential users.
 Starbucks’ community website My Starbucks Idea has received
over 70,000 user-generated ideas and has implemented hundreds
of these, including innovative coffee flavors.
 Ford set up the “City of Tomorrow Challenge” to use
crowdsourcing to find creative ideas to solve traffic congestion
problems.
 Threadless invites contributors for T-shirt designs, encourages
users to vote for favorite designs, and produces and sells the
favorites.
Pros and Cons of Crowdsourcing

 “Wisdom of the crowds”: sheer numbers suggest a few

fantastic ideas will emerge.
 Especially useful if solutions can be obtained easily
(crowdsourced ideas for new baby products were more
novel and offered more benefits than those from new
product professionals).
 Most likely to generate modest product improvements
rather than new-to-the-world products.
 Typical user less likely to come up with ideas that are
easily developed into real products.
 Professionals, or experienced users may have a more
realistic view of what is feasible.
Lead Users as a Creative Source

 An important source of new product ideas.

 Customers associated with a significant current trend.
 They have the best understanding of the problems
faced and can gain from solutions to these problems.
 In many cases, have already begun to solve their own
problems, or can work with product developers to
anticipate the next problem in the future.
 Example: X-Games athletes for new high-performance
snowboards.
 They provide design requirements and also are
early adopters and good at stimulating word-of-
mouth
What Should You Ask Lead Users (or Any Users)?

 Ask for outcomes – what they would like the product to

do for them.
 Don’t ask what product improvements they want!
 Customers say they want low-salt canned soup or
low-fat fast food but don’t buy them!
 Be “informed” by customers.
 Kawasaki Jet Ski: customers said they wanted
padding and other comfort improvements for the
standing rider. But by focusing on the outcome
(comfort), competitors found a better solution (add a
seat)
Principles of Open Innovation

 Accept that “not all the smart people work for us.”
 Is both in- and out-bound: obtain knowhow
(technology, patents, etc.) from external partners, and
also monetize technology (through licensing, sale, etc.)
that is no longer consistent with corporate strategy.
 It is not the same as outsourcing. The external sources
are viewed as complementary to internal sources so
that innovation can be more efficient.
 Selecting the best partners is critical, and mutual trust
is important.
Open Innovation at Work: P&G

 P&G’s “Connect and Develop” program, designed to allow for

internal intellectual property to be marketed outside, spun off, or
licensed.
 Avoids the “not invented here” syndrome.
 To execute Connect and Develop, P&G assigned a team to find
external partners, build brand equity, access new technologies,
and create new product categories.
 Examples:
 SunHealth Solutions (a P&G partner) developed the UV
sensing technology used in Huggies swimpants with UV
sensors, that help parents monitor their child’s exposure to UV
radiation
 Mr. Clean scrubbing brush uses technology originally used as
insulation in the auto industry
 Magic Eraser cleaning pad was sourced from a German
chemicals company, and first noticed by P&G in use in Japan
Problem Analysis: General Procedure

1. Determine product or activity category for study (may

already be in the PIC).
2. Identify heavy users (alternative: can study non-users).
3. Gather set of problems associated with product
category.
 Identify “benefits they want” and “benefits they are

getting”
 Avoid “omniscient proximity” -- rate importance of

benefits and levels of satisfaction

4. Sort and rank the problems according to severity or
importance (can use extent of problem and frequency
of occurrence).
Problem Analysis Applied to the Smartphone

 Keeping the unit clean.  Health risks?

 Breaks when I drop it.  Can’t cradle between ear and

shoulder.
 Battery doesn’t stay charged
long enough.  Disruptive instrument.

 Finding it in dark.  Can’t see facial/body language.

 Battery dies in mid-conversation.  Rings too loud/too soft.

 Who “out there” hears me?  Wrong numbers.

 Dropped calls.  Fear of what ringing might be

for.
 Looking up numbers.
 Difficulty in looking up numbers.
 Voice fades in and out.

 Hard to hold.
Problem Analysis at Dyson: The Air Multiplier Fan

 Problems with conventional fans:

 Spinning blades lead to choppy airflow, hard to
clean, blades dangerous to children, fan can tip
over, not energy efficient
 Air Multiplier fan based on Airblade technology solved
all these problems by replacing the fan with a jet
stream of air line a hand dryer.
 High price point ($300), but offered improved
performance and sleek design.
 Later versions included heater as well as fan.
 The Bothersomeness Technique of Scoring Problems

 The following is an abbreviated list of pet owners’ problems found by

manufacturers of pet products.

A B
Problem Occurs Problem Is C
Frequently Bothersome A×B
Need constant feeding 98% 21% .21
Get fleas 78% 53% .41
Shed hairs 70% 46% .32
Make noise 66% 25% .17
Have unwanted babies 44% 48% .21

 This technique identifies frequency of occurrence and extent of

problem (bothersomeness).
 Source: From Burton H. Marcus and Edward M. Tauber, Market Analysis and Decision Making, Little, Brown, 1979, p. 225.
Problem Analysis: Sources and Methodologies

 Experts
 Published Sources
 Contacts with Your Business Customers or
Consumers
 Interviewing
 Focus groups
 Ethnographic market research
 Role playing
Typical Questions for Problem Analysis Focus Groups

 What is the real problem here – what if the product

category did not exist?
 What are current attitudes and behaviors of focus
group members toward the product category?
 What product attributes and benefits do the focus
group members want?
 What are their dissatisfactions, problems, and unfilled
needs?
 What changes occurring in their lifestyles are relevant
to the product category?
Ethnographic Market Research

 Watch customers (or non-customers) using the

product in their own environment.
 Video recordings or photos may be used to obtain
observational data.
 New product team examines actions, body language,
etc. to identify customer needs and wants to satisfy.
 Can be done on-site or in-home.
 Observation and Role Playing in
Problem Analysis
 Carmakers send their designers out to parking lots to watch
people and how they interact with their cars (Ford called this
“gorilla research”).
 Honda got insights as to how large the passenger
compartments of their SUVs should be by observing U.S.
families.
 Bausch and Lomb generated ideas on making contact lenses
more comfortable by getting pairs of executives to act out
skits in which they played the eyeball and the contact lens.