Archive for the ‘NPD News’ Category

Should you invest in Re-Value Engineering?

Monday, October 25th, 2010

Last week’s evolveNPD post mentioned a former Kraft executive’s prediction that companies will invest in what I’m calling Re-Value Engineering:  focusing on taking out less important features and lowering the price, rather than just adding more features and cost into products.  Do we see signs of this already?  What does it mean for our industries?  Here are a few examples from this week’s news… (more…)

From Great to Good: the New Consumer Paradigm

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

When the former President of Kraft Foods, the V.P. of Consumer Insights at General Mills, and the CEO of M/A/R/C Research all agree that we are embarking on a major industry shift, it is hard to ignore.  That is precisely what happened last week at the 2010 Marketing Research Summit held at University of Wisconsin-Madison.  I am loosely calling the theme of these presentations “from Great to Good,” because they address downsizing of budgets from the boardroom to the living room.  Here are some ways they see businesses acting differently over the next 5 years… (more…)

Product superiority and the science of pleasure

Friday, September 24th, 2010

Product Superiority is the holy grail of product development.  What makes a product superior?  If you are in the food business, you might say it is about winning in a blind taste test.  But what if your product isn’t superior on a blind basis?  Should you reformulate?  Not necessarily.  According to an interview with Paul Bloom, professor of psychology at Yale University and author of How Pleasure Works, (more…)