Project Scope: Product Concept Testing and Message Testing

(part of Chapter 2: Defining Your Project's Scope)

 

While defining a project scope may seem like a daunting task, it really comes down to two things; knowing you want to get out of your project, and deciding how you’re going to get it.

It also helps to know some of the common language used to define market research studies. Read on to learn about product concept testing and message testing.

 

As you start to plan your RFP, it’s a good idea to think about the “type” of project you will be doing. By now, you should have your goals—again, stated as either questions or hypotheses. But you want to make it crystal clear to your RFP recipients what this project is about, and framing it in their vernacular will help you do this.

Common project types include the following:

• Product concept testing
• Market segmentation
• Message testing
• Customer loyalty/customer satisfaction
• Win-loss research
• Brand awareness tracking
• Needs discovery

 

There are more, but we’ll use these common types.

 

Product Concept Testing

There are many different flavors of product concept testing, but two types are most common. The first type is about identifying which of several concepts are worth pursuing, and the second is about taking a concept you’ve already chosen to develop and determining how to optimize its features for maximum market penetration.

In the first case, you haven’t actually decided what product you’re going to develop. Perhaps you have three or four different potential ideas and you’re trying to figure out which are worth pursuing further, perhaps to the point of developing a prototype. This is a great stage at which to use MR. The outcomes from this type of study typically include a prioritized set of concepts, and usually include one or more of the following:

• Perceived pros and cons of each concept.
• Perceived attribute or feature must-haves vs. nice-to-haves.
• Perceived value proposition of each concept (how a customer would justify or rationalize its purchase). In B2B studies, this might include an expected return on investment (ROI) model.
• Indications of each concept’s differentiation compared to competitors or substitutes.

 

In the other common type of product concept testing, you’ve already decided what the product is going to be and you are trying to optimize it. Typically, these projects are designed to do one or more of the following:

• Prioritize which features are going to be most important to potential buyers.
  • This informs decisions about which features to emphasize on packaging, in ads, and so on. This is often referred to as messaging.
• Determine what else could be bundled with the product to maximize adoption.
  • For example, if your company is about to manufacture a new children’s toy, you might do research to understand which types of accessories should be bundled with the toy to command the highest share of preference or the greatest price premium.
• Determine which features have to be in a first-release version vs. subsequent releases.
  • This is usually done for software products, for which there might be a sense of urgency to get the product to market quickly—even if that means doing so without all of the features available.
• Test aesthetic or user interface appeal.
  • For example, perhaps you are designing home theater equipment, and you know that it’s important that the choice of colors, shape, and controls (dials, buttons, LEDs) appeals to your target market.

 

Message Testing

The goal of message testing studies is to find out which messages are most likely to resonate with the target market and which are perceived as credible from the company issuing the messages. The premise is that most organizations could use multiple messages, but finding the best ones are important to marketing success.

Message testing is often conducted using qualitative research techniques—although exceptions certainly exist—because you usually want to view body language reactions and hear people talk in their own words about the messages being tested.

In addition, a common exercise in this type of study is to discover what brands people think would use a given message. Let’s say one message you want to test is labeled Message A. Research participants are asked to name what companies they think would use Message A. They are also asked from which companies they think Message A is most believable. After all, you will waste a lot of money if you choose a marketing message that positions you as something that nobody’s going to believe. CVS would probably not be successful positioning itself as a retailer of luxury goods because nobody has experienced the brand in that way.

These studies also can be designed to answer the following types of questions:

• Which message will differentiate us the most from our competitors?
• Which message will be perceived as consistent with our overall positioning strategy?
• Which message will seem most in-tune with customers’ needs?

 

This is an excerpt from the book, "How to Hire & Manage Market Research Agencies," which is available on Amazon. Published by Research Rockstar LLC. Copyright © by Kathryn Korostoff. All rights reserved.