Ensure Market Success: Concept Testing in New Product Development

In an increasingly competitive, rapidly changing world, businesses need to get product launches right. They can’t rely on just a gut feeling when launching products. Enter concept testing in new product development, an effective process that helps brands test ideas and concepts before rolling out at scale. Not only does it mitigate risk, but it also helps you make sure you’re building something your audience wants.

With mounting consumer expectations and ever-shortening product development cycles, it’s not just helpful — but critical to get input on your concept as early as possible. At Borderless Access, we support brands to make the most out of their innovation conversation through concept testing research to reveal actionable insights for smarter, customer-driven innovations.

Everything You Need to Know About Concept Testing in NPD

Why You Need Concept Testing

Concept testing is the systematic technique of getting responsive feedback from the target audience about a planned idea or concept before introducing it into the market. This could be a product design, or a marketing campaign, or a piece of packaging.

In particular, concept testing in the context of new product development makes sure that your idea connects with actual consumer needs, wants, and expectations. It provides time to refine your offering, make adjustments, or even start again — all before you spend big money and resources.

Why It Matters More Than Ever

Unfortunate as it sounds, most product launches fail not because of poor execution, but because the ideas bear no similarity to consumer expectations. Concept testing also helps provide clarity and direction by addressing fundamental questions:

• Does this product concept sell to the target?
• Is its features and benefits obvious and attractive?
• What role does it fulfill for users, serving emotional or functional needs?
• How does it stack up vs competitor offerings?

If businesses answer these, they can minimize risk and maximize chances of success.

Part 1: Borderless Access’ Approach to Product Concept Testing

At Borderless Access, we provide a full set of product concept testing capabilities to help you ideate, innovate, and implement. A real, real-world lens on our research efforts to validate interest and potential of new ideas.

Here’s what sets us apart:

Testing in the Real World at All Phases

We don’t believe a one-size-fits-all approach. From a sketch on a napkin to a near-final product design, our concept testing caters to every stage of innovation.

Innovative Testing Techniques

We use advanced methods like:

• Eye-Tracking: Learn what captivates your audience’s eye.
• Max-Diff Analysis: Determine the top and bottom responses from a selection of choices.
• Explore consumer trade-offs and prioritize feature combinations which drive preference – Conjoint (CBC) Analysis

These enable brands to get both qualitative and quantitative insights that can lead to better decision-making.

Bias-Free Insights

We construct our studies to mitigate exposure and order bias in order to imitate true market environments. That helps ensure that the feedback is more akin to how consumers would act in actual buying scenarios.

The Advantage of Testing Concepts at an Early Stage

Key Benefits of Concept Testing in New Product Development that You Need to Know:

• Save Time and Money: Diagnose weak concepts before spending the money to produce and market them.
• Minimise Market Risk: Ensure product fit to prevent failed launches.
• Customer-Centric Innovation: Make products consumers actually want and need.
• Data-Driven Decisions: Substitute guesstimates with scientific evidence and predictive analytics.

When done correctly, concept testing changes the way businesses innovate — through insight instead of assumption and opportunity instead of risk.

Real-World Applications

Apart from FMCG, healthcare, technology, and financial services, client organisations in other sectors also leverage concept testing research with us to come up with better products. Whether testing packaging design or knowing the audience preferences for mobile app features, we can customize our platforms for your industry and audience.

For instance, a top consumer brand employed our Max-Diff method to gain insights into which product claims had the most resonance with millennials. As a result, they optimized their messaging and increased purchase intent up to 40%.

Final Thoughts

Creating what you think the market wants is no longer innovation. It’s about listening, validating and adapting — in advance of your launch. That’s what is really valuable about concept testing in NPD. It can make or break a product in tandem with the appropriate methodologies and audience targeting.

We are Borderless Access and we equip brands with future-ready tools and actionable insights that help them lead. Just be sure to test your next big idea.