Stage 3 - Concept Development and Testing

New Product Development Process

Stage 3 – Concept Development and Testing

The third stage of the new product development process is concept development and testing. The whole aim of this stage is to gather information and feedback on the concept from the general public and the market you will be entering into. Concept testing is defined in the Dictionary of Business and Management (2009) as ‘a technique used in marketing research to assess the reactions of consumers to a new product or a proposed change to an existing product’.  The best way to retrieve this information is by showing a picture or something that contains minimal information and note the reaction you get. This information can then be collated and then you will be able to see what impact this new sport concept will have on the market when it is put into action. At this stage, your idea is not final and any information received could be used to make improvements to your concept, which in the long term will have benefits to how successful the idea will be. Therefore, this stage is vital when assessing if your concept is going to be successful because if the consumers do not like the idea then they will not watch it meaning it will be a failure.

An example of concept testing and development, is seen in the emergence of Twenty 20 cricket. In 2003, the ECB’s head of marketing, Simon Robertson, commissioned a survey to see why people were not attending cricket anymore and part of this survey included the idea of a new format of cricket. When asked about the possible new format which was twenty 20, only a total of 34% expressed an interest, however, as Martin Williamson (2012) shows ‘of the 34% who expressed interest, most had never attended a county game’. Therefore due to this concept test of twenty 20 the ECB discovered that this format would be worth pursuing because it appealed to a new market and would reinvigorate cricket.  

  

As seen in the last blog, it was decided the concept that will be taken further is the idea of relay Formula One. In this stage, firstly, questionnaires will be made and then these can be asked at Formula One races and at events of similar formats, such as GP2 and Formula E. This way you will be able to see how the concept is received by fans of motor racing and see if they will take to the concept. After this you can take the questionnaire to the wider general public to see if they would be interested in watching the new concept. Even if the fans are not sure about the concept, if the wider general public begin to show an interest this would mean a new audience will be created for motor racing. Taking these questions to fans will mean that if they are not at first supportive you can ask what improvements can made to the concept to enhance it and to appeal to the wider audience.

Reference List

• Williamson, M. (2012) ‘Crash, bang and Pandora's Box is opened - The day the game of cricket was changed forever’, ESPN Cric info. [Online] Available at: http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/579245.html (Accessed: 25th November 2014).
•  Law, J. (ed.) (2009) The Dictionary of Business and Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stage 2 - Idea Screening

The New Product Development Process

Stage 2 – Idea Screening

The Second Stage of the New Product Development Process is Idea Screening. It is described by Scott Edgett (1999, pg.510) as ‘the initial go/no go decision where it was first decided to allocate funds to the proposed new product idea’. Therefore this shows that in this stage, you analyse the product or new sport format to decide whether it is a viable in both the short term and long term. You will try to assess the impact it will have on the current market and to assess if an investment in the product will show a return. Christopher Easingwood (1986, pg.273) indicates that ‘The new product concept would normally be evaluated by customer discussion groups’. This shows that it is important to go out and test the market to see how well your new concept would be taken to by the target market of the concept. You would also have to approach potential sponsors and investors to see if they would be interested in your new concept. At this stage you will also have to investigate how well a new concept of a sport would fit into the market at the minute as well because if the sport is already successful a new concept of the sport may not be appreciated. 

    

An example of idea screening in action is the way the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) analysed how Twenty 20 cricket would affect the market. They discovered that two thirds of the population either hated cricket or had no interest in watching it. However, they discovered that over half of the survey approved the idea of the shorter format and Martin Williamson (2012) says the 34% of the people that approved the format had never attended a match. Therefore, the ECB spotted a new market they could exploit and Twenty 20 cricket has been a huge success.  

In the last blog, two new concepts of sports were discussed briefly and now in this blog we have analysed the two new concepts of golf and Formula One. To find out which idea would be best to pursue further through the new product development process and decision matrix was constructed and analysed against five options which were: entertainment value, the investment needed, chance of a participation boost, how popular the sport already is and how long the event would last.  When both concepts were analysed it was decided that the concept of a relay F1 event would be the best to pursue. In figure 1, we can see that it was believed that the F1 relay would be more entertaining because it would be a quicker format than already exists. However, it was also decided that the golf league had the best chance to increase participation due to golf being more accessible. The deciding factor though was how long the event would last and with the F1 relay being a short format there would be a bigger chance of people taking to the concept and watching it.  

Figure 1 – A Decision Matrix

Weight	5	8	4	3	1	21
	24%	38%	19%	14%	5%	100%
Option	Entertainment Value	Investment Needed in Project	Chance of a Participation Boost in the Sport	Popularity of the Sport	How long the event would last	Score
Golf league	50	30	20	75	25	39
Relay F1	85	25	10	50	70	42

Reference List

•  Easingwood, C, J. (1986) ‘New Product Development for Service Companies’, Journal of Product Innovation Management, 3(4), pg. 264-275. 
• Edgett, S, J. (1996) ‘The New Product Development Process for Commercial Financial Services’, Industrial Marketing Management, 25(6), pg. 507-515.   
• Williamson, M. (2012) ‘Crash, bang and Pandora's Box is opened - The day the game of cricket was changed forever’, ESPN Cric info. [Online] Available at: http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/579245.html (Accessed: 18^th November 2014)