Wednesday 28 January 2015

Stage 7 - Test Marketing


Stage 7

Test Marketing

The seventh stage of the new product development process is the test marketing stage. It is defined in the Dictionary of Marketing (2011) as ‘a product test prior to launch with a small representative group’, therefore, it is releasing the product into a small area to see what the reaction to the product is like. It goes on to say that ‘feedback is gathered and the product can be improved before it is rolled out to a larger market or audience’. Also, Korotkov, Occhiocupo and Simkin (2013) believe that ‘test marketing secures business by seeking to avoid major failures’ therefore, by placing the product or format into the market and gathering information on how the small market reacted to the product, decisions can be made ahead of the final release of the format, as to whether to go ahead, make final adjustments or to not go ahead with the release of the format. However, there are disadvantages of doing this, which are, competitors could rush a similar format into production to reduce how successful your format is and it can also be expensive to carry it out.

An example of test marketing is that of the new ECB under 19 Twenty20 competition. To see how successful introducing this new competition would be, they ran four different competitions in Durham, Kent, Surrey and Yorkshire. They planned to see how people reacted to the competition and to see if it would be successful in delivering their aim of ‘boosting participation and keep more youngsters in the recreational game’ (ECB, 2014). However, they also wanted to see how giving the responsibility to the players in creating an occasion of each event, instead of arriving and everything being organised by just the coach. They also wanted to see if a new initiative of letting the players organise the game had the potential to make it into an event and not only make it fun for the participants but, also for the spectators, therefore boosting revenues at clubs. 

The test marketing process will be vital for R1 racing as it will be trying to break into the Formula One market and the formatting is crucial as this is the first event, to get the fan base they want. The first step will be to invite 50 people to watch an R1 event at a smaller circuit and feedback will be collected to see if any changes would have to be made before we then carry out another test market, on one of the practice days at the British Grand Prix held at Silverstone. Again, the event will be shorter than what a usual R1 racing event will be, with only three cars racing 10 laps each rather than four cars doing 12 laps. Holding an event here will mean feedback can be gathered from a large amount of people. The feedback collated from this event will then be reviewed to decide if any more changes are needed before the final commercialisation of R1 Racing.


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Wednesday 21 January 2015

Stage 6 - Product Development


Stage 6

Product Development

The sixth stage of the new product development process is the product development stage. It is defined by Tzokas, Hultink and Hart (2004) as ‘the design and manufacturing of several prototypes’, however, in the Business Dictionary (2015) it is further described as the ‘modification of an existing product or its presentation, or formulation of an entirely new product that satisfies a newly defined customer want or market niche’. Therefore, it is bringing the idea you have had in the other stages to life and into a physical form such as prototypes of the product and developing the brand you will be using.  Having these physical representations of the product will further allow you to gather feedback on the product. With this information it will allow the organisation to make adjustments to the product depending on the reaction of the market to the prototype. Different mediums can be used to develop and advertise the prototypes, such as short promotional videos and posters, to best get the message of the product across to the target market.

An example of the product development process is the England Cricket Board’s new under 19 Twenty 20 competition. The aim of the competition was ‘keeping U19 players in club cricket’ (ECB, 2014). They came up with the idea and they created four prototype competitions in different areas to test how well this new competition will work. Therefore, these four competitions are the prototype product and they can receive feedback from these four competitions and the clubs that competed in it, to see what worked well and what can be improved when the new competition is run across the country.  They have also created the brand to run alongside the professional T20 competition, the NatWest T20 Blast, which will ensure the competition is well advertised and that people are aware of it. These prototype competitions have been used to create a promotional video for the new competition to advertise it at the target market. 

As discussed in the earlier blogs, the concept being worked through the new product development process is a relay F1 format. As discussed, we will be using cars previously used in the Formula One season therefore no prototype of cars can be made. However, the way to test the event will be to run a small race at the British Grand Prix and this means we will have the spectators there watching and will allow feedback to be gathered. With this information decisions will be made on how to improve the format before moving on to fully running the event and a season. The concept will be branded by the name of R1 Racing (Logo in Appendix A), this will mean that people will still associate the format to Formula One and will attract the supporters of that format to watch this new one. However, the use of exciting words will try to appeal to new fans and feedback can be gathered and adjustments can be made if this does not work.


Appendices

Appendix A – The R1 Racing Logo




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