Product Testing

Based upon 30 years of marketing

research experience, spanning

thousands of research projects,

I am convinced that product testing

is the single most valuable marketing

research that most companies

ever do. The great value of product

testing is, perhaps, best illustrated

by some of its many uses. It can be

used to:

* Achieve product superiority over

competitive products.

* Continuously improve product

performance and customer

satisfaction (i.e., to maintain

product superiority, especially as

consumer tastes evolve over

time).

* Monitor the potential threat levels

posed by competitive products to

understand competitive strengths

and weaknesses.

* Cost-reduce product formulations

and/or processing methods, while

maintaining product superiority.

* Measure the effects of aging upon

product quality (shelf-life

studies).

* Implicitly measure the effects of

price, brand name, or packaging

upon perceived product performance/

quality.

* Provide guidance to research

and development in creating new

products or upgrading existing

products.

* Monitor product quality from

different factories, through

different channels of distribution,

and from year to year.

* Predict consumer acceptance of

new products.

Companies committed to rigorous

product testing and continuous

product improvement can, in

most instances, achieve product

superiority over their competitors.

Product superiority, in turn, helps

strengthen brand share, magnifies

the positive effects of all marketing

activities (advertising, promotion,

selling, etc.), and often allows the

superior product to command a

premium price relative to competitors.

Most companies, unfortunately,

do very little product testing.

Few companies really understand

the power of continuous product

improvement and product testing.

Even fewer companies know how

to do product testing the right way.

Fewer yet budget enough money

to support a serious product-testing

program. These shortcomings

in the majority of companies create

opportunities for the minority of

companies who are dedicated to

continuous product improvement.

How can companies realize optimal

value from product testing?

Product Testing Secrets

The secrets to truly accurate and

actionable product testing are several:

1. A systems approach. The

methods and procedures of

product testing should

constitute a standardized system,

so that every like product is

tested exactly the same way,

including identical product preparation,

age, packaging and

coding; identical questionnaires

(of course, parts of the questionnaire

must be adapted to different

product categories); identical

sampling plans, typically

employing blocking-screening

grids to ensure matched samples;

identical data preparation and

tabulation methods; and similar

analytical methods.

2. Normative data. As products

are tested over time, the goal is

to build normative databases, so

that successive product tests

become more meaningful and

valuable. The normative data,

or norms, continually improve a

company's ability to correctly

interpret product-testing scores,

and the norms help reveal

exactly how good, or how bad,

the test product is.

3. Same research company. Use