Focus On Intent

What drives a customer to buy? If you think that a unique product will magically find its market, you can quash a great idea. If you know the factors that influence consumers' attitudes, you can avoid costly new product failures. Before introducing a new product, astute companies are using the insight of concept tests to measure consumer purchase intent and benchmark the product's likelihood of success. Tests measure the influence of factors like consumer interest in the category, category involvement, retail distribution, advertising spending, demographics, price value, likeability, and uniqueness to determine purchase intent--and whether the new product will be a winner.

In order to benchmark a new product's likelihood of success, comparisons are often made to scores from a normative database. Normative scores (or norms) reveal how a concept idea compares to others [e.g., the new concept is in the 80th percentile (top 20%) of all concepts tested]. Comparing a new concept to a norm consisting of the scores of similar concepts can show how much more likely people would be to buy the product, how unique the concept is, how expensive people think it is, and other important measures that reveal the concept's potential compared with other concepts. In the high-risk, high-expense business of new product development, knowing how the concept value compares before introducing the product to the market is as close as you get to a great outcome guarantee.

Involvement & intent

Consumers who make frequent purchases in a category have higher purchase intent for concepts in that category than those who make less frequent purchases. Since these consumers make regular purchases, they are highly involved with the category, they pay attention to different products, and they are very interested in new concept ideas within the category. Non-category buyers, however, are not very likely to buy the concept, no matter what the concept is.

A concept idea for a line extension will have a higher appeal than a new brand, particularly if the base brand is highly advertised and has a large market share; the base brand's users will thus constitute a significant proportion of the sample. Since consumers are already familiar with the base brand of the line extension, they only need to decide if they want to buy this different variety. New brands are seen as a "higher risk" purchase since they are unknown to consumers. Because of this, consumers have lower purchase intent for new brands than for the familiar brand line extension.

While few consumers purchase some categories, other categories are purchased by the vast majority. Categories with lower penetration (i.e., categories that are purchased by fewer consumers) have lower purchase intent. Therefore, when testing a concept in a category that is purchased by few consumers, interviewing general samples will tend to have the effect of reducing purchase intent scores, since many respondents will be non-category or lighter buyers. Comparing that idea to other concepts that also have low penetration will provide a more accurate view of the concept's potential.

Demographics & intent

Involvement in different categories varies by demographics. Generally, females are the primary grocery shoppers, and therefore pay more attention to packaged goods products. Generally, men have lower purchase intent than women because they are less involved in the different products available within the category. Consumers in households with children are frequently buying products for their family, thus have higher purchase intent than those without children. Consumers in higher income households may be less involved in packaged food purchases because they dine in restaurants more often and thus have lower purchase intent than lower income households. With these differences, concepts targeted to a specific audience need to be compared to similar concepts to accurately understand the concept's likelihood of success.

Concept value, likeability and price

Understanding the relationship between purchase intent and other measures also can aid in introducing successful concepts. A concept needs to be created with a strong value proposition; consumers' purchase intent is strongly correlated with value. Purchase intent also is highly correlated with the concept's likeability. Food concepts should have basic taste appeal, while in other categories the concept idea has to be of interest to consumers. Since price impacts both purchase interest and value more than price impacts likeability, the correlation between purchase interest and value is higher than the correlation between purchase interest and liking.

Uniqueness & intent

Uniqueness does not necessarily compel purchase interest. A concept might be very unique, but purchase interest is low (niche product). Or a concept might not be unique at all, but purchase interest is high (close in-line extension). In each of these cases, whether it is appropriate to pursue the concept depends on the company's objectives. For example, low purchase interest might suggest pursuing a new target group that demonstrates more interest in the concept.

Uniqueness also plays an important role in repeat purchasing. While uniqueness after use is a much stronger measure than uniqueness at concept for predicting repeat purchasing, an understanding of a concept's uniqueness can tell us some important things about the potential success of the proposition. If a concept is very unique and if the value proposition is good, repeat purchasing can be very strong (i.e., a successful new innovation). As consumers repeat, there are no substitutes for this product. However, a very unique concept with a weak value proposition can lead to very weak repeat (such as with premium, novelty, or special use products). Concepts that are low on uniqueness often do not fare as well at repeat; if they do, it's often at the expense of a parent brand. Evaluating a concept requires examining purchase interest, uniqueness, and the relationship between them in order to determine which concepts will be successful and which ideas should be abandoned.

With the high expense of introducing an unsuccessful product, it is vital to understand what factors influence consumers' attitude toward a concept idea for a new product, and how. Concept tests that measure purchase intent and other scores and compare them to other product success provide invaluable insight into a new product's potential.