“Anyone who launches new products will immediately appreciate the power of this resource to influence design direction, target appropriate price points, and select materials with high consumer appeal. What I love most is that it facilitates open and powerful discussions across the marketing, design and business teams. It minimizes reliance on “the gut feel” of just one individual in an organization and helps create a unified vision for success.”
Your team puts its best efforts into every product you introduce. From design to prototyping to production to support materials to advertising, everything is meant to make that product the best it can be. But your perspective is only one side of the coin. You haven’t used your product. You may have tested it, but you designed it so your testing takes place with an awareness of what it does and how it does it. In house lab testing is biased in favor of the product. But what happens in the real world when it gets in the hands of consumers? Consumers who don’t read the instructions. Consumers who are distracted. We’ve tested products that, despite their manufacturer’s best efforts, caught fire. Or leaked. Or burned food. If your product requires instructions, you should test the product in-home before releasing it. If you release a product that doesn’t work or is hard to work or hard to figure out or is non-intuitive, you will get a high level of costly returns and you’ll lose your credibility with consumers and retail partners. Further, our research shows that most consumers DON’T return disappointing kitchen products. These consumers also tell us they are not likely to buy from the same brand again. In other words, you could be losing valuable customers and not even know it. On the other hand, if you test in advance, you’ll learn a great deal about the product and come away with lots of great ideas about what consumers love about it, which might lead to follow-on products or great marketing campaigns with on-point messaging.
Typical Project Timing: Depends on the product category, 6 weeks to 3 months depending on typical usage frequency.