CASE STUDY

CLEARING A PATH FOR PRODUCT ADVANCEMENTS

CASE STUDY

CLEARING A PATH FOR PRODUCT ADVANCEMENTS

The starting point for all strong brands is a commitment to continuous innovation and new product development. New concept ideas can come from anywhere: existing marketing research, brainstorming sessions with your employees and executives, discussions with industry experts, competitive reviews, and even from co-creation brainstorming sessions with consumers.

A leading commercial kitchen equipment manufacturer turned to us to identify new product development opportunities that would make its equipment more user-friendly for professional end-users.

THE CHALLENGE

Understand customers’ likes and dislikes about the current brands of kitchen equipment they use.

Get feedback on new product
design concepts and potential online apps.

THE RESEARCH

Conducted multi-faceted focus groups to reveal new insights about end-users’ needs and challenges.

Several exercises were designed for participants in order to:

Document kitchen equipment
usage experiences

Rate client and competitor products

Evaluate new product concepts featuring enhancements to the client’s product line

Design their own “ideal” product

THE RESULTS

Feedback from end-users
highlighted the need to incorporate intuitive visual elements into the new
design of equipment controls.

The emphasis end-users place on using visual cues to monitor the food preparation process helped refine new product designs and online apps.

Deepened understanding of customers’ usage experiences, from which our client was able to proceed with the next steps in their new product development and subsequent marketing strategies.

ALL CASE STUDIES

Because new product development is the critical first step to maintaining brand strength, marketers must be creative as well as diligent in order to get the deepest consumer insights at this point.