Exhibit 11.1 The first moment of truth: Will she
pick up the new product and place it in her cart?
“Consumers don’t think how they feel. They don’t say what they think and don’t do as they say.” — David Ogilvy
Consumer goods companies devote
considerable time, resource and attention to appeal to the hearts and minds of
consumers so that they may powerfully influence them when they seek to find the
product, when they initially encounter it, and when they actually experience
it. These moments of truth ultimately determine how a new product will perform
in the marketplace.
For business marketing firms, it is the touchpoints
with their customers that represent their moments of truth. Whether it is the
customer’s interaction with the firm’s product or service, or with the
employees of the firm, the experiences offer opportunities to build the firm’s
brand equity.
The objective of this section is to impart knowledge
of the processes and techniques to validate new products. Considering that the
incidence of failure of new products is particularly high, stresses the importance
of their use to mitigate the risk of failure.
Most of this section is devoted to these
validation techniques which are categorized as pre-launch and post-launch. The
pre-launch methods include simulated test markets such as BASES, MicroTest,
Designor and Assessor, and controlled store tests. Post-launch methods include
the TRB Share Prediction model, which is suited for FMCG, and the Bass Diffusion
model which is applicable for consumer durables.
