Don’t Bother Launching Your Product if It is the Same as The Current Players

It is important to think how you can provide relevant differentiation when you want to launch your product or service. The key words – not only just different, but relevant.

Years ago, we had the opportunity to help our client to check their new product development before being launched. The category was fiber drink. The market leader was Ve**t* at that time.

The concept and product were ready. We helped them through qualitative study to check how consumers like the concept. And we also did quantitative product taste test to ensure the taste was also accepted.

We used standard parameters for concept evaluation such comprehension, appeals based on relevance and benefits, credibility of the offer and differentiation. “Comprehension” can be likened as the gate. No comprehension of your offer, forget the rest! “Relevance” what makes people consider your offer. “Differentiation” makes your product or service got noticed.

For product test, we measured overall liking, penalty-reward analysis and aspects of the product to be improved – aroma, sweetness, thickness, and so on.

It’s not enough just being relevant

We found that the concept was well accepted – it was easy to understand, relevant benefits and credible. The product itself was well liked.

BUT… we detected a potential problem. The new product was just the same as the market leader! No different at all. So there was no reason for consumers to try a new product if the current product already satisfies.

Thus, we recommended them unless they could give something else that could make them different, and these differentiations were of valued to the consumers, then better not to launch it. Relevant differentiation means that it was not just having a different color of packaging, or from Mandarin orange to Sunkist orange taste.

If you currently plan to develop your new product or service, make sure that your new product is different from the current players. But be different in aspects valued by consumers.

Being different get your product noticed. Being relevant get your products considered.