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Marketing innovation, an interactive environment for developing new products |
M. S. RAYMOND, New Business Development, NewProductWorks, 680 State Cir., Ann Arbor, MI 48108 Four trends have driven new product success globally, over the past thirty years: Convenience, Wellness, Food Safety, and Gratification (which includes Taste.). Although these mega trends or “drivers” have remained the same over the years, consumer expectations for these drivers are constantly evolving as new, successful product introductions are embraced. For example, in the early seventies ‘convenient’ sandwich bags meant the use of twist ties as a closure. Today, convenient sandwich bags mean zippered closures or even disposable Gladware. These new successful introductions make up the ‘micro-trends’ that are found along the trend continuums. Restated, a trend is a trajectory from the past, through the present into the future and success comes from jumping on that trend at the right juncture for your business. To introduce successful products, one must understand the evolution of the trends in both the category of interest and related categories. This is best done by looking into the past, analyzing what has worked, what hasn’t and why. The next step is to look at what is happening today and whether today’s introductions are an extension of past successes or past failures. Those that are extensions of past successes can then be extrapolated into the future as viable new ideas; current introductions that are not extensions of past successes are less likely to succeed and should be extended only very carefully. At NewProductWorks, with our collection of 70,000 new and once-new products, these trends come alive. Products can be held, read, compared, and understood, as examples of the trends and as successes or failures.
Session 50, Getting breakthrough results from product innovation: A practical approach
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