WHAT IS PRODUCT AND PACKAGING REFINEMENT?
There are two sure-fire ways for your new product to fail:
- Design a product that emphasizes features, benefits or a value proposition that shoppers don’t care about.
- Disguise that product with poor packaging.
Of course, no one intentionally designs a fatal flaw into a product or sets out to create an unremarkable, invisible package.
Yet it happens all the time. ALL. THE. TIME.
Or perhaps just 95% of the time (if you believe popular statistics related to the failure rate for products).
That’s where we step in.
We can take products at any point in their development and make them better
The help we provide depends on your particular situation, but it involves everything your product needs to be ready for retail, some of which include:
Discovering or refining your value propositions: This is the promise you make to attract and satisfy buyers. Pick the wrong promise and you’ve quickly lost interest from most of your potential buyers.
Developing product design guidelines: We help you avoid making silly mistakes like overlooking cost-of-entry elements in pursuit of differentiating your product. Think about it this way: the world’s coolest travel mug isn’t going to sell if it doesn’t fit in the average car cupholder.
Developing package design principles: Shelf presence, like stage presence, separates the backup singers from the rockstar. We help clients do the best possible job of stopping, holding, and closing prospects.
Concept testing: Validating your product’s appeal in the context of competitive benchmarks can be the most predictive metric of future in-market success and one of the key data points to influence retailer’s distribution decisions.
This is all done to make sure what started out as a good idea evolves into a great product.
Do you need this service?
The answer to one simple question will tell you:
How much have you involved your prospective buyers in the design and development process?
- None – It is my idea and I know its great.
- A little – I’ve shown it to a few colleagues, friends or family to get their reaction and suggestions.
- A little more – I’ve found some syndicated data online or did a little bit of formal research along the way to support my plans.
- A lot – I’ve engaged an assortment of unbiased prospects throughout the development process to test and refine the idea and how it is executed.
If you answered anything less that ‘a lot’, you’re taking an unnecessary risk. This is true, if for no other reason, because competitive products are going to do more. And when a shopper is making a purchase decision, they’ll pick the competitor that has better listened to and met their needs.
Talking to shoppers to improve your product and packaging does not need to cost a fortune or take a lot of time. And it definitely costs less than the price of failure.
READY TO ADMIT YOU NEED HELP?
Could your product have a little more room for improvement than you’d like to admit?
Is there a chance that your remarkable product is hidden in unremarkable packaging that will get lost on the shelf and never sell?
Send us some samples and we’ll give you a free 15-minute consultation session to share our thoughts. With experience across 150+ categories, you should be able to provide some fresh and useful perspective.
After our conversation, you should either walk away confident that you’re ready for retail or you’ll have a good idea of what risk you’re taking if you don’t address apparent shortcomings.
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