CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT AND OPTIMIZATION FOR FOODSERVICE (2): ACCELERATING CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT AT THE FUZZY FRONT END BY

COMBINING IDEATION AND CONSUMER EVALUATION

IIOWARD MOSKOWITZ’

Moskowitz Jacobs Inc. White Plains, NY, 10604

Received for Publication August 13, 1997 Accepted for Publication January 24, 1997

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the author’s observations on the development of new products and new services, a suggested approach, and case history. The paper is simultaneously oriented to two audiences, foodservice and other business managers (those involved in the process of developing new products) and consumer researchers (those whose job it is to obtain datafiom and then insight about the customer). The primary assumption is that neither the customer nor the marketer really “know )’ what the new producthervice should be, but “they will know it when they see it”. The secondaty assumption is that by speeding up the development process to a week the developers maintain management focus, keep all the parties on the same track, and arrives at testabfe new propositions. The shortened development time enables the team to revisit the project on successive weeks using mini-experiments for development and fine tuning, thus increasing both the learning and the chance of success. The approach is designed to minimize the strain on corporate resources, as well as minimize the culture shock which inevitably ensues with new approaches.

Day I - Identifi unmet consumer needs, create bank of concept elements by

Day 2 - Test systematically varied concepts with consumers, create concept model Day 3 - Create test concepts, expose to consumers in focus groups for fine tuning Day 4 - Quantitatively evaluate test concepts + competitors on multiple attributes Day 5 - Present management with summary, g o h o go, or iterate to week # 2...

The proposedprocess requires five days, as follows:

ideation

‘All correspondence should be sent to Howard Moskowitz, c/o Moskowitz Jacobs Inc., 1025 Westchester Avenue, White Plains, NY, 10604, Phone: 914-421 -7400, Fax: 914-428-8364

Journal of Foodservice Systems 9 1996) I75 -192. Al l Rights Reserved. ‘ Copyright 1997 hy Food & Nutrition Press, h e . , Trumhull, CT06611. 175

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Throughout the process there is the inlerpluy of management, consumers, and creatives. The aidcomes consist of consumer inputs to the design of lhe concepts, consumer reactions to test concepts emerging from the creative process, and a dataahme ofreactions to existing concepts for comparison and normative purposes, respectively.

INTRODUCTION

The Current Corporate Needs

Today companies are being challenged to develop new and better products. The pace of innovation increases daily, as conipetitors from different countries and upstart competitors within one’s own country throw products and services “against the wall” in hopes that some will stick. The business literature and consultants are awash in processes which show companies how to improve the rate of product innovation. There is no dearth of new methods, no dearth of points of view. Yet, and despite the best intcntions of researchers and consultants, the processes for product introduction do not always succeed as hoped, sometimes because there are no good ideas, sometimes because these good ideas are poorly researched, some- times because the best ideas, well researched, are nonetheless executed poorly.

In an attempt to improve the success rate of new product development (including truly new product development), researchers and practitioners have appealed to the so-called “fuzzy front end”, where new ideas are born from consumers, from creative think tanks, and from just plain old homework (done by looking at the full range of competition, rigorously asscssing consumer needs and gaps, and then developing the products). Most of the procedures dealing with this fuzzy front end attempt to improve the process by catalyzing the creativity of the participants (e.g., by reducing barriers to new ideas, by restructuring the corpora- tion to create new product heroes, etc.). For the most part these procedures are successful, although they change the corporate cultures and modify traditional processes. When these procedures succeed they merit articles in business magazines, popular journals, and speeches by the consultants who have imple- mented these process improvements to the benefit of their corporate clients. When they fail, these procedures fade away, becoming memories in the consultant’s bag of tricks.

Reality in Corporations - Another Perspective

From reading the business literature, either in the popular business press or in academic papers, one might think that the business world is replete with successes, and that business comprises teams of happily and mutually adjusted participants who share the goal to improve the business by working together to create new products. A reality check in corporations is in order. In most companies there are

CONCEPTS AT THE FUZZY FRONT END 177

established cultures comprising hallowed ways of doing things. There is comfort in the traditional processes, and in doing what one knows. Thus it takes direction from the top, the introduction of new ideas by management and marketing con- sultants, and all too often a good swift kick in the pants (or the possibility of losing one’s job) in order to motivate change and increase receptivity to new ideas. The marketer and product developer should never lose sight of the power of status quo and homeostasis as factors which militate against new processes.

The Need for Organic Development of New Processes

Given the nature of individuals in corporations, is there a process to create new concepts at the fuzzy front end, which can be done by organically combining existing processes, rather than by restructuring the company? If a combination of existing processes can be put into place, with these processes accepted by the members of the company, then much of the pain and slowness of the concept development process may be avoided. Organic development is to be preferred to massive corporate change because it is more natural, and more likely to be accepted by those in the corporation charged with development.

Concept development for new products at the very early stage needs three processes which currently exist in most companies:

(1) Creation: A method to generate ideas, or at least the germ of the ideas (2) Pattern Discovery: A method to identify the key drivers of the ideas (3) Validution: A method to test final ideas before the next step

Creation develops the nucleus of the idea. Current procedures today use brain- storming, basing their validity on the ability of creative expertslthink tanks, or on the legendary (and perhaps not so common) appeal to the spouse of the chairper- son. Whatever the method used, creation is vital in the early stage because creation constitutes the engine which drives the entire development process. Most companies have devised ways to create these ideas, and feel satisfied that they can create a bank of ideas with which to move forward. These may or may not be good ideas, but there is always the reassuring bank of possibilities, which reduces anxiety. Indeed the plethora of potential ideas often amazes. The result is the oft- heard complaint that there is no way to test these ideas, or flesh them out - viz., to go beyond the simple idea to a concept that can be executed in the real world.

Pattern Discovery identifies the key drivers behind the concepts. Most marketers and researchers alike are not happy with the notion that somehow new ideas will spring fully formed from the mind of a single group of individuals, or even from consumers. It is important to understand why a concept does well or poorly, not just that it does well or poorly. That knowledge provides the framework to nurture creation. Pattern discovery usually comes from disciplined analysis of

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the concepts that are created, either using focus groups to dissect winningAosing concepts (more often dissecting the winners than the losers), or conjoint analysis to identify what particular elements in concepts were actually responsible for driving the concept win.

Vulidufion measures the appeal ofthe final concepts, either in absolute terms or against the framework of existing, in-market competitor concepts. Validation has become the stronghold of market researchers who execute concept tests at inexpensive prices, and even occasionally estimate volume to be expected from the product or service which is being tested at the concept stage. Many different research suppliers provide their own twists on this notion of validation.

Reducing Corporate Complacency, Getting Buy In, and Speeding Up the Process

Most executives would agree that they need to develop concepts and products faster. Yet, in the next breath the same executives often argue that they are well satisfied by the current procedures that they use to develop concepts. There are standard steps that the corporation follows, from ideation, to focus group, to screening, to conceptiproduct tests. The complacency manifests itself in terms of methods, but not in terms of time frames. The typical marketing executive may be satisfied with the path to concept development, but the timing is too long, there are too many parties involved, and the process is disjointed. Time pressures will be the ultimate motivator for changing the process. This paper addresses the topic of speeding up development time.

How does one speed up the process of creation in a way which maintains scientific integrity, involves the consumer, produces a valid result, and creates concepts that can be immediately tested? Furthermore, how does one create new ideas within a limited span of time (e.g., one week), with minimal corporate resources, and without the need to modify corporate culture (except with the very minimal requirement that there be some corporate members at the birth of the idea)? How does one create a self-propelled development machine? If the process works painlessly, within a short period of time (eg., one week or less), and with low resource requirements, then the new product development process will be afforded a tool that can be used repeatedly, on an iterative basis, with truly low risk. This speed becomes particularly important when the category is competitive, the margins continually shrink, and the customer is fickle - all relevant features of the foodservice industry.

Organizing Principle - I Don’t Know What It Is, But 1’11 Know It When 1 See It !

The best way to sketch out the process begins with the organizing principle, which is laid out in the companion article on the ldeaMap@ method. The organizing

CONCEPTS AT THE FUZZY FRONT END 179

principle provides a foundation on which to base the entire approach. For the fuzzy front end, the principle is that the consumers cannot necessarily create a new product or service ‘on demand’, but they certainly can evaluate products or services presented to them. Of course on some rare occasion the muse of creation will alight on the consumer or development team member, but the goal is to create in the absence of the muse. The goal is to insert creation in the process itself, rather than have the process nurture some externally imposed creation. That is, the process itself must create.

The notion underlying the principle is that neither the consumer nor the corporation really know what to create. As daunting as that might sound, it really should not discourage. From the author’s experience there is no universal mind out in the ether which “knows” what product and service to provide, and which somehow in a mysterious fashion provides the insight to a gifted few, the developmentally adept.

A Five Day Process - Comprehensive Yet Feasible

The summarized process below provides a research driven procedure, which incorporates current well-accepted procedures and technologies. Once the process is presented, the paper will then exemplify the process with data and results taken from a foodservice study. [The actual products and numbers are disguised, however]. The assumption is that neither the company nor the customer “know” what the producthervice will be, that the process must last no more than five days, that the results must be customer-driven, and that the outcome be immediately tested rather than leading to another, yet undefined step or research.

Day 1 - Identih unmet needs, create bank of concept elements by ideation Participants: Marketing group; consumer focus groups Deliverables: List of needs, list of concept elements (multi-

Day 2 - Test systematically varied concepts with customers, create concept media)

model Participants: Customers who evaluate test concepts Deliverables: Conjoint-type additive models showing utility of

each concept element, and optimization / synthesis system to create new concepts

Day 3 - Create test concepts, expose to customers forfine tuning Participants: Marketing group to create; customer focus groups Deliverables: Rough concepts, refined concepts

Day 4 - Evaluate test concepts f competitive3amework on multiple attributes Participants: Customers who evaluate finished concepts Deliverables: Ratings of concepts created in day 3, along with

ratings of all competitors in concept form

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Day 5 - Present management with summay, go/no go, or iterate to week # 2 Participants: Marketing group

The process needs no in-going knowledge of the category in order to work. This means that the process is independent of the marketer’s or developer’s state of knowledge. Thus, the research approach levels the field, and rewards the most adventurous researcher, not the most conservative.

The process need not be limited to an existing category, but can create new categories of products or services which hitherto did not exist. If the elements for the new concept come from different product and service categories, then the output will be a combination of different features derived from existing categories (syncretism), and from novel features which yet do not exist (futurism). The customer’s (viz., respondent‘s) job is simply to respond to these combinations, rather than being forced to create these new and unusual combinations of features.

CASE HISTORY

“Health” (Good For You) Beverage For Foodservice

The case history deals with the creation of a new beverage in the foodservice industry. The marketing objective was to penetrate the category with a product having defined consumer benefits, yet with physical features that one could “point to” in advertising. A survey of secondary sources in the foodservice industry and in the beverage industry showed that the entire category of health beverages was underdeveloped. The marketing director felt that a new type of product which never before existed would provide an area of profitable growth. It was not clear, however, what the features or selling proposition of this new beverage would be. Observation on the growth of beverages in foodservice revealed that a significant number of new introductions involved “value-added’’ beverages, with unusual ingredients, flavors, and health/life-style benefits. Many of these beverages involved fruits and yogurts. It was becoming clear that the rapid, inexpensive development of the concept was paramount, because of both competitive pressures and decreasing margins on the item.

We now follow the 1 I steps of the concept development process. Although the specific features are disguised, the process followed is essentially that reported here, and can thus serve as a guide for foodservice researchers who would like to follow the approach.

Step 1 - Homework Prior to the Project. Although it might be argued that a development project involving creativity and concept generation needs no homework, in actuality homework it vital. The homework phase is not formal per se, but the development team should become famiIiar with the category in which

CONCEPTS AT THE FUZZY FRONT END 181

they wish to participate. The only formal aspect of the homework in this project was to identify potential competitors to the new product, either in terms of beverages, or even in terms of other foods that might be substituted. These competitors would provide baseline data. The task was to purchase the products, record their key selling messages, and convert those messages into simplistic concepts. The marketing group identified eight different products that they perceived to be substitutable for this new health beverage. These products included current fruit juices fortified with vitamins, health bars found in health stores, and health oriented dairy beverages. All of these products appeared to have features that one would like to include in the new beverage. Some of these products were already being featured in foodservice establishments.

Step 2 - Ideation with the Team Members (Mon. 10 AM - 2 PM). On the Monday morning of the development week the six team members assembled for a three hour ideation session “off campus” (in order to eliminate the ever-present disturbances, such as telephones, mail, and colleagues who just needed a moment of one’s time for a small matter). The team members sat around as a group, and discussed the features, benefits, and promotion of the new product in the foodservice environment. The goal for Step 2 was to develop snippets of ideas, rather than complete ideas. The team itself was principally involved in the creation of the elements. Some practitioners aver that the best elements come from consumer discussion, but in rapid-fire development necessary in foodservice the luxury of consumer research at the very early stage cannot often be afforded. Table 1 shows some of these snippets. [These are elements in the IdeaMap@ system].

In addition to the ideation, the team members also looked through a library of prepared visual elements for the study. These visual elements comprised static pictures (scrap art), and short videos lasting about 3-5 s each (of packages, of packages in use, and of people drinking products).

The output of Step 2 comprised a list of 145 elements, and 25 visuals (some static pictures, the remainder videos culled from the pre-developed collection). Upon the completion of this step the team members remarked that they had learned as much from thinking about the product in this way as they had from the numerous previous attempts to develop new products for foodservice, but with one difference. The team members were forced to think about the structure of the product and its component pieces, rather than being put on the line to come up with new ideas that would pass the consumer vote. There was no pressure to produce final ideas, just pressure to explore one’s own mind.

S tep 3 - Ideation Process With Consumers (Mon. 6 PM - 10 PM). Four hours after the team ideation session ended it was time to work with consumers, this time in the format of two ideation focus groups (Fern 1982; Hayes 1989). Each

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TABLE I . EXAMPLE O F SNIPPETS O F IDEAS (ELEMENTS) FOR HEALTH BEVERAGE

(ELEMENTS CLASSIFIED INTO RELEVANT CATEGORIES)

Category Element Ingredient Ineredient

A fruit juice with added liber A fruit and veaetable iuice from 14 natural ingredients

Ingredient Pulp and vitamin enriched Package Package

Comes in a disposable containers for drinking pleasure C‘oines i n a can with a flio too and a straw

Package Nutrition Nutrition

Comes in a plastic squeeze bottle Fulfills 50% or the recommended daily allowance of vitamins Filled with energv giviiie ingredients

Nutrition From the foods recommended by the US. Sports Academy, blended into a beverage Drink i t in the morning, or whenever you need a pick me up

For those mornings when you want energy Usage Oc- casion

Usage Oc- casion Visual Visual

Foi anytime o f the day when you want nutrition and vim

Picture o f a woman drinking the beverage in a restaurant Picture o f a erouo of men drinking the beverage in a restaurant

I Visual I Video of the beverage being drunk in a restaurant setting

focus group lasted two hours. The consumers ideated in the same way as the team members did, in order to create snippets of concept ideas (viz., the elements) that would be used in the next research step. As one might expect the consumers and the team generated many of the same elements, but the consumers came up with a more limited number. [Quite often researchers and marketers aver that it is definitely more critical to use consumers than to use in-house personnel to ideate and create the concept elements. In actuality, however, the two groups come up with many of the same ideas, but often the in-house groups comes up with more diverse elements, perhaps because they are more motivated and involved]. The consumer data yielded 256 elements, that were typed up on the spot by an attending member of the team for review the next morning.

As part of the ideation process among consumers, a second exercise was run to identify unmet needs or intake occasions that would be most appropriate for the new product. After the early dump of ideas, the second focus group narrowed in on the use of the product in two distinct situations, as a diet adjuvant for breakfast to complement the out-of-home meal, and as a general “pick me up” beverage to

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replace carbonated soft drinks, typically consumed with an afternoon snack. Further probing in the focus group narrowed the end use to a “pick me up” beverage to be served in a fast food restaurant (and especially quick-serve restaurants located in the food court of a shopping mall). There seemed to be no vegetable beverages which filled that need.

Step 4 - Review Of Ideas (Tues. 9 AM - 12 PM). Step 4 comprised a review of the elements generated on Monday, the selection of 64 of these ideas, and the selection of 8 visuals from the library of visual elements provided at the start of the session (under homework). Thus there were a total of 72 such elements. These 72 elements covered the range of product features, product packaging, usage occasions, and end benefits. The elements spanned the range from functional to emotional. The visuals spanned the range from videos showing the product in the package, to the product being consumed, to emotional evocations (people shots).

Step 5 - Setup Conjoint Measurement ( IdeaMapO) Study (Tues. 12 PM - 2 PM). In Step 5 the computer group inserted the 72 elements into the IdeaMap@ program. IdeaMap@ is a multi-media conjoint measurement system which deals with many different concept elements, creates a model for each consumer showing how each element drives consumer attribute ratings, and then uses the aggregate consumer data in order to create new concepts by means of a concept synthesizer (Cattin and Wittink 1982; Green and Srinivasa 1978; Wittink and Cattin 1989). IdeaMap@ has been extensively discussed in a number of publications (Moskowitz 1994; Moskowitz and Martin 1993) and has been validated both on a scientific basis (Cardello and Moskowitz 1996) and in a number of commercial applications (Research Business Reports 1995).

Step 6 - Individualized Concept Evaluations Using IdeaMapO (Tues. 8 PM - 10 PM) The IdeaMap@ study with consumers was run on Tuesday evening at 7 PM in two markets (New York, Chicago). Thus it was necessary to set up 50 such experimental designs, one for each consumer respondent. In a rapid concept development procedure the researcher must bypass many of the standard setup procedures (such as pair-wise restrictions for incompatible elements; dimen- sionalization to describe the tonality of the concept element). However, the need to accelerate the development process and learn as much as possible more than compensated for these short cuts.

Each of the 50 customer respondents evaluated 120 concepts. The concepts were short, and easy to read. Across the full set of 120 concepts‘ there were 72 different concept elements. Each concept element appeared four different times (essentially against four different backgrounds). Furthermore each of the 50 customer respondents rated a unique set of 120 concepts. Thus the total number of

184 H. MOSKOWITZ

different concepts was 6,000, in which the 72 concept elements appeared in different combinations.

ldeaMap@ system is set up under the assumption that neither the researcher/ marketer nor the consumer knows the “right answer”. That is, the ob-jective is to deduce relation between what is under the researcher’dmarketer’s control and the respondent’s ratings, even if going into the research neither the team nor the customer is aware of the relation. Thus the system is set up to be indepen- dent of the current “state-of-knowledge”. Therefore, it becomes vital to test different combinations of the elements, rather than merely to select which pre- designed combination represents the best concept. In this way it is the customer who really drives the concept development, with the marketers and researchers (as well as consumers) simply providing the raw material for the concepts.

The

Each customer rated every one of their own 120 concepts on two attributes: Attribute 1 : Interest in the concept in general (1= hate ... > 9 = Love) Attribute 2: Fit to a pick-me-up beverage ( I = pick-me-up ... 9 = relax me)

The first attribute represents an evaluation of the concept (accept versus reject), whereas the second attribute represents a location of the concept on a psychological continuum. It is more productive to have the respondent locate a concept on a series of nonevaluative attributes (viz. pick-me-up versus relax me) than to have the respondent rate the concept on a series of unidirectional scales (viz., interest, fits pick me up, fits another use, etc.). By forcing the respondent to locate the concept on the set of bipolar dimensions the researcher moves the respondent from the domain of evaluation into the domain of description.

Step 7 - Review Data, Create Concepts (Weds. 9 AM - 1 PM). The data gen- erated by the IdeaMap@ exercise with SO respondents the night before provided the corporate team with a rich matrix. Most importantly, however, the data lends itself to modeling by regression analysis, on an individual by individual basis. The model is an additive one, developed by dummy variable regression. The independent variables are the 72 elements. There are two dependent variables; purchase intent and location on the bipolar attribute of “pick-me-up versus relax me”. The purchase intent ratings were transformed to a binary scale. Ratings of 1-6 were transformed to 0, ratings of 7-9 were transformed to 100, respectively. Thus the additive model for purchase intent more closely represented a model showing the proportion of consumers who would change their rating from “indifferent/dis- interested” to “interested”, when the element was added to the concept. The continuum scale of pick-me-up versus relax me was converted to a 0-100 point scale by a transformation which mapped a rating of 1 to 0, a rating of 5 to SO, and a rating of 9 to 100, respectively.

Table 2 shows part of the additive model generated for the total panel by aggregating the individual model from each of the SO respondents. For the column labeled “interest” read the model as follows. ‘The additive constant shows the

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Category Usage Occasion

proportion of individuals who are interested in the beverage, even if there is no element present. This number is 36, and suggests that moderate proportion of individuals (viz., 36%) would be basically interested in the idea. The value of +11 for the element “For any time of the day when you want nutrition and vim” shows that 1 1% of the individuals would be added to the interested group if that element were present in the concept. This coefficient of + I 1 can be combined with the additive constant (+36) to generate a sum (viz., + 47).

Pick Element Interest Me Up

Relax Me

Additive Constant 36 42

vs

For anytime of the day when you want nutrition 1 1 +2

TABLE 2.

THE ELEMENT ON THE SCALE “PICK ME UP VS RELAX” PARAMETERS OF THE MODEL FOR PURCHASE INTENT AND FOR THE LOCATION OF

Ingredient

Nutrition

Visual

Nutrition Visual

Package

A fruit and vegetable juice from 14 natural 8 + I

From the foods recommended by the U.S. Sports 5 -9

Video ofthe beverage being drunk at a party with

Filled with energy giving ingredients -3 -4

Picture o f a group ofmcn after a morning workout -6 -8

Comes in a plastic squeeze bottle -7 +4

ingredients

Academy, blended into a beverage

other people standing around 4 +7

(in the gym)

The data set enables the researchedmarketer to synthesize new ideas by combining hot button elements and thus create improved concepts, even if the concepts had not been previously tested directly in combination. The synthesizer can be likened to an erector set, which enables the developer to create new ideas by combining components whose persuasive and image values are already known. When maximizing consumer interest is the only objective then the researcher need only identify hot buttons which make intuitive sense, combine these, and then estimate the likely customer response.

For the rating attribute ofpick me up versus relax me, read the model as follows. The additive constant shows the basic tenor or tonality of the idea. If the additive

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constant is 50 then we conclude that the fundamental idea of the product (without any elements) is halfway between relaxing and pick me up. The constant, 42, suggests that the basic tonality of the concept is more towards “pick me up”, rather than towards “relax”. Further, we can add the components to drive the tonality of the concept in either direction. By adding negative elements to the concept we push the concept more towards “pick me up”, whereas by adding positive elements to the concept we push the concept more towards “relax”. However, keep in mind that the location on the continuum pick-me-up versus relax does not correlate with interest. Interest is a value judgment, location on the continuum is a description.

Once the development team had the utilities of the concept elements, as well as where the concept elements lay on the dimension of pick-me-up versus relax, it was straightforward to create new combinations of concept elements by combining elements. There were three business objectives:

Objective I - Interest the Customer: It would do no good to combine elements which turned off the customer. It was important to identify elements that would entice the customer. This was done by selecting winning elements based upon the rating attribute of purchase interest.

Objective 2 - Possess The Riglit Tonality: The elements had to skew more in the direction of “pick-me-up” rather than skew in the direction of relax. One can see these appropriate elements immediately by sorting through the data in Table 2 (full set, however), in order to identify the elements which skewed in the correct direction.

Objective 3 - Make Intuitive Sense: The combination of elements satisfying objectives 1 and 2 had to make sense at an intuitive level. That is, there was judgment involved in the creation of the new concept, but judgment aided by a database which showed how each element drove consumer reactions.

As part of the exercise the researcher used the method of integer optimization in order to select new concept elements which maximized the two objectives simultaneously (see Moskowitz and Martin 1993). Integer optimization (embodied within an optimization program) enables the researcher to rapidly synthesize many different combinations of concept elements, estimate the total scores on the two response attributes (e.g., interest, location on the pick-me-up versus relaxation dimension), and differentially weight the various response attributes (e.g., to emphasize tonality at the expense of persuasion).Table 3 presents three of 10 new concepts synthesized by the team, by using the combination of intuition and data from the IdeaMap@ concept study.

Step 8 - Focus Groups - Fine Tune Concepts (Weds. 6 PM - 10 PM). The concepts which emerge from this rapid paced development often need ‘fine tuning’ because they are created without the time needed for reflection. Too much time for reflection, however, ends in analysis paralysis. Focus groups run in the evening, after the exercise of creating concepts enabled the project team to fine tune the

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concepts by providing customer feedback, as well as the time necessary to re- experience the concepts in a simpler, less pressured environment. The focus groups revealed that the wording for some of the newly developed concepts needed modification because the essential idea behind the concept did not come through as well as desired. Also, some elements needed to be changed because they did not go well together. With a database of 10 concepts, however, the team selected six revised and polished concepts for further testing the next day.

TABLE 3 . TI IREE SYNTHESIZED CONCEPTS OBTAINED BY COMBINING WINNING ELEMENTS

WHICH EXHIBIT THE RIGHT “TONALITY” AND WHICH MAKE INTUITIVE SENSE

Concept

1

2

3

Concept Components - Text / Picture / Video Introducing a new energy and pick-me-up beverage available at your favorite

quick scrve restaurant Contains all the vitamins and fiber you need for the energy you want

Drink this beverage any time of day when you want to feel invigorated, full of vim and vigor

Video of the beverage being drunk at in a quick-serve restaurant with other people standing around

Introducing a new energy beverage available at your favorite quick serve restaurant

Specially created with your needs in mind From the foods recommended by the U.S. Sports Academy, blended into a

beverage - Picture of men in a restaurant

Introducing a new health beverage available at your favorite quick serve restaurant

A fruit and vegetable juice from 14 natural ingredients Comes in “easy to chug” containers, to drink at the store or take out Specially formulated to pick you up, any time of the day, naturally

Step 9 - Testing the Fine Tuned Concepts and Competitors in a Concept Screen (Thurs. 9 AM - 12 PM). Step 9 consists of typing in the final six concepts (with pictures), along with the eight competitive concepts (created in Step 1, the week before, in the homework phase). These 14 concepts comprised the set to be evaluated by a new set of customer respondents. The marketing group wanted a more in-depth look at each concept, and so they selected six key attributes on which each of the 14 concepts would be rated:

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( 1 ) Overall interest (2) Uniqueness (3) (4) (5) (6)

Location on the pick-me-up versus relaxation scale Reason for buying ( I = more for taste ... 9 = more for health) Frequency of use ( I = never .... 9 = daily) Why the product would be bought ( I = substitute for a current beverage purchased, 9 = add to current set of beverages purchased).

Step 10 - Concept Screening (Thurs. 6 PM - 8 PM). The final research step comprised the screening of the 14 concepts by 50 new respondents (25 in New York, 25 in Chicago). These were different individuals from those who had participated in the IdeaMap@ or the focus groups, respectively, but recruited using the same qualifications. Each of the 50 respondents rated all 14 concepts in a unique, individualized random order to avoid order bias. The same computer- interview format was followed. The results generate a table showing how each concept scores on each attribute. The researcher can compare the scores of concepts, rather than the scores of elements. Table 4 shows the performance of six of the 14 concepts.

Since the researcher has ratings for both the six new beverage ideas and the eight substitutable competitors one can plot the data to see how the new ideas perform versus the current competitors. Figure 1 shows a scatter plot of the concepts. The stars represent the new (test) concepts, and the circles represent the concepts corresponding to products which would compete with the new product, and which currently exist in the marketplace (but tested without brand name). The size of the individual point is proportional to the degree of purchase intent. The abscissa shows the location of the concept on the “pick-me-up versus relax” scale, and the abscissa shows the relative frequency with which the consumers feel that they would drink the beverage. The concepts for further development lie at the left and upper part of the figure, where the tonality is “pick-me-up” and the frequency is high. We should look for big stars in that region, suggesting potential products which provide the correct tonality, frequency, and purchase intent values.

Step 1 1 - Final Results (Fri. 9 AM - 11 AM). The final outcome of the approach comprises the concept elements, the concept model, the concept scores for the six new concepts (in absolute terms, and versus the eight competitors, respectively), as well as the insights garnered from the ideation and fine-tuning focus groups.

CONCEPTS AT THE FUZZY FRONT END 189

TABLE 4. PROFILE OF THE SIX TEST AND EIGHT COMPETITOR CONCEPTS ON

ATTRIBUTES (DATA RANKED BY PURCHASE INTENT IN THE CONCEPT)

I I

I

FIG. 1 , SCATTER PLOT SHOWING THE LOCATION OF TEST CONCEPTS (STARS) AND COMPETITOR IN-MARKET CONCEPTS (CIRCLES)

The size of the shape shows the degree of purchase intent

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A REVIEW OF THE PROCESS

The process outlined in this paper was designed to optimize the power and speed of two aspects of the development cycle, the free wheeling ideationall creative process at the fuzzy front end, and the consumer evaluation of concepts in a more quantitative fashion. The process differs from conventional methods in five ways, as follows:

( I ) Intertwined Creutivity and Evaluation. The process mixes ideation and eval- uation, rather than keeping them separate. The goal is to interdigitate creativity and evaluation, in a dynamic and cost effective fashion.

(2) Emphasis on Discovering the Underlying Rules: The process focuses on understanding the reasons for the acceptance of concept elements, instead of blindly selecting winning concepts.

(3) Speed to Allow Multiple iterations and thus Ability to Profit from One’s Own Mistakes: The process is sufficiently rapid that should the development team fail in the first week it can rapidly return the second week with either new elements or with a new end use. Speed becomes a tool to enhance creativity and learning.

Focus and Interest: The process is sufficiently rapid to maintain the interest of all parties, with concrete feedback ranging from stimulus input, to the qualitative reactions in focus groups, to the quantitative reaction from concept screening (along with competitors to serve as benchmarks). There are a variety of different inputs and exercises which maintain and stimulate the team’s creativity.

( 5 ) Database Creation: The process creates an integrated database that can be expanded over time.

(4) Speed and Variety to Maintain

SOME OBSERVATIONS BY OTHERS AND COMMENTS

The author has observed some typical and atypical behaviors when using the process or its components. These observations are offered up with comments where relevant, but without judgment.

( 1 ) The process is too quick. Marketers are used to the stately, measured pace of the development process. There is a sense of comfort in the orderly, slow procession from idea to concept to product. Speeding up the pace is something to be written about, but not necessarily something to actually accomplish. In reality, however, once the speed of development is increased all must fall into lockstep, or

CONCEPTS AT THE FUZZY FRONT END 191

be left behind. It does no good to bewail that the pace has quickened beyond endurance.

(2) The process is too scientific. Somehow people have gotten it into their head that there is a disconnect between the scientific rational approach to development and the creative mind. This notion of science as a negative is similar to the plea by creatives at agencies that only they are privileged to understand the synergies among words and pictures which make great advertising. It appears to be acceptable to talk in scientific terms about the process of development as long as the process itself is not particularly scientific. The subject matter of creativity must be approached in a mystical fashion.

(3) Not everyone wants to create even when they are part of the new products team. All participants in a creative or development group do not necessarily share the same objectives. Some are task oriented and want to create. Others are affiliation oriented and want to belong to the group, independent of whether or not anything really gets accomplished. The problem with the different agendas is only magnified when the time frame for development is shortened so dramatically, because the process is virtually over before it begins. For indeed, that’s the whole idea about acceleration.

(4) Criteria for creation change, especially when creation actualb occurs. Whenever one accomplishes one’s objectives new objectives arise. Whereas it was simply acceptable to create new products, now with the potential for an ongoing creation system the focus shifts to validation. When confronted with the potential to achieve their life’s ambition of creating to one’s heart’s content, the skeptics retreat to the corner, and demands proof that the “approach works”. Were the approach to take six months or a year such demands would be muted because of the difficulty simply in moving the process along. Speed of creation appears to awaken in people an insecurity which evidences itself in “taking the high road” of scientific dubiousness and skepticism.

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