Why Speed Matters When Concept Testing

A product team’s worst nightmare is realizing they won’t reach their deadline in time for a product launch. Often this impacts a variety of teams from product to marketing to engineering. Feelings of disappointment, panic, and stress may be familiar to those who’ve missed a product launch. But those are just a few of the emotions and challenges that could be avoided through the ability to conduct faster concept testing.

The More Time Spent on Development, the More Revenue Declines

It’s no surprise that the longer concept testing takes, the longer it takes to get the final product to market. This means potential revenue lost each time there is a delay and more time and company resources spent on product development instead of marketing support. For Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies, staying on track for product concept testing is critical when meeting with manufacturers and retailers—missing face-time with merchandisers because a product isn’t ready may mean having to wait another six months to a year to get the product on the shelf.

Chances Are, If You Aren’t Getting to Market First, Your Competition Is

One way or another, if your product isn’t getting to market first, then it’s likely your competition is. Alternatively, if a competitor comes to market with a new innovation, the ability to test quickly means you can counter their innovations sooner and retain customers who would otherwise be at risk for switching to the competition. Quick concept testing also increases your chances of first-mover advantages:

• Greater brand recognition and better brand image through innovating first
• More time to optimize and develop strategy and processes outside of product development
• Stronger supplier and manufacturing relationships as deadlines are more consistently met

Testing Faster Means the Ability to Test Earlier and More Often

Testing concepts early and quickly means less time and money is used— saving resources for later on in the development timeline when it matters most. Testing earlier and often as a result of faster concept testing also means additional feedback outside of the concept approval process can help identify areas for improvement and make optimizations before in-market testing.

Conducting product concept testing quickly doesn’t have to mean sacrificing the quality and benefits of traditional concept testing either. In under a week’s time, identify your strongest concepts and provide diagnostics of areas to focus on during refinement with our Concept Prioritizer™ solution. To see an example of how it works, check out the report below. You’ll also learn about how a small craft brewery utilized concept testing to determine a winning label design for their new product line.