A major multinational retail bank was looking for a new credit card product that could break through in an incredibly crowded and competitive marketplace.
Their new product development team was looking for an efficient and collaborative approach that could help them create, evaluate, and refine ideas to ultimately identify winning ideas. We knew we needed validation at a significant level (quantitative) but also generate insights to drive product refinement and steer the team to new potential product ideas (qualitative). The development cycle also created a need for a sustainable, learnable process, not an isolated project test.
The Solution
We used a truly collaborative approach in building out this process. S+R brought social scientists and data analysts to the table who then partnered with the bank’s product development team, product marketing team, and their ad agency.
We created a two-step process for idea testing. For the product team and agency, we defined the concept expression framework that would be used for each generated product. This framework allowed for consistent stimuli that would clearly convey the product idea and the RTB’s to respondents.
The second step involved the execution of our BrandImpact™ study. The S+R BrandImpact™ evaluates the product idea not in isolation but relative the competitive set. It defines the critical drivers influencing consideration and preference and allows us to understand the impact our product ideas can have on competitors and the marketplace.
The Outcome
The BrandImpact™ defined the category drivers that we needed to address with our product offerings. The approach allowed the team to refine product ideas to drive product consideration and preference.
Our testing approach became an integral component of the new product development process. A BrandImpact™ was launched every six to eight weeks testing an average of ten to fifteen product ideas each wave. The disciplined approach brought normative data and KPI targets for each concept to meet for further consideration. And, led to two of the brand’s best performing new card products in terms of new customer acquisition.