Creating New Foods. The Product Developer's Guide - Product Strategy Development: Idea Generation and Screening

CREATING NEW FOODS
THE PRODUCT DEVELOPER'S GUIDE

CHAPTER 3
Product Strategy Development:
Idea Generation and Screening

3.1 INTRODUCTION

New product ideas are seldom revolutionary, they are mostly evolutionary. Many develop from the products of the past, making improvements in quality; convenience, cost or variety. The truly innovative product starts a new sequence of these evolutionary products.

For example, quick frozen peas were an innovative product which started a sequence of quick frozen vegetable products. Most often in the past, a new method of preservation - freezing, canning, drying - was the revolutionary innovation in the food industry which led to many new evolutionary products.

Idea generation is knowledgeable, creative and systematic. It develops from knowledge of the consumer, the market, the technology and the general environment, and it creates newness in product, production and marketing. It systematically develops product ideas to satisfy the aim of the project and therefore the business strategy.

Idea generation in industry is strategic and not left to chance. Ideas can come from 'blue skies' research or from inventions, but in product development these are systematically developed into innovations in the company and the marketplace. Idea generation occurs not only at the initial stages in developing product concepts but throughout the project - in the design of the product, package and process, and in developing the marketing strategy.

In idea generation, the field is kept wide so that no possible innovations are ignored, but it is focused within the aim of the project. This is a dichotomy that can cause problems.

In screening, the many ideas are reduced to smaller numbers and eventually to the one product concept, prototype product, processing method and advertising plan. The screening begins qualitatively and gradually develops, as more information is obtained, to a quantitative evaluation of the predicted outcomes for the product, production, market and finance.

There is a constant cycling of idea generation and screening throughout the project until the final market launch. A wide range of ideas gradually becomes focused into the final launch plans. Control of these activities of idea generation and screening ensures that no good ideas are lost and that poor ideas are dropped quickly. This is the ideal outcome but it is very hard to achieve.

The extent of idea generation and screening varies with the type of innovation and the product; it is minor for the product line extension, slightly greater for the me-too product and product improvements, and is very extensive throughout the company for the innovation.

After the project's aim has been established, ideas can come from free brainstorming, from systematically studying how the consumer may use the product, and from developments in technology, the industry and the market. These ideas are qualitatively screened so that they agree with the project aims and constraints, using a simple but disciplined system of judging. The selected ideas are developed into descriptions of the product and the target markets, and are further reduced in number by a more complex screening method such as checklist screening and economic evaluation. Then there is the development of the product idea concepts by the consumers, where the idea generation focuses on the product benefits; the consumers and company staff gradually reduce the number of product ideas and build more detailed product concepts. Evaluation at this stage becomes quantitative and more detailed, and is based on market research, product costing and technical evaluations which predict if the product is to be a success or a failure in meeting the company's aims.

The activities of product idea generation followed by screening are continued in product design, product commercialisation and product launch; the product concept becomes more focused, more detailed and more quantitative. Idea generation and screening are therefore important skills for anyone working in product development.

This chapter discusses mainly the product idea generation and screening at the initial stages of the project as shown in the activities diagram, Figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1 Product idea generation and screening