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Achieving Product Innovation in Digital Age

Jan 25-2024   



Marketing used to be thought as a combination of art and science, but modern marketing is putting ever more value on scientific approach and quantitative analysis, said Ms. Du Xiaomeng, NSD Associate Research Fellow and Deputy Dean of BiMBA Business School. In her speech at MBA Lectern, an event of the NSD, she laid out the fundamental steps for conducting full-lifecycle product innovation in the quantitative age.

 

Besides doing consumer profiling, production innovation also requires studying consumers’ differentiated demands and product-using scenarios. In the case of lipsticks, that might mean daytime, nighttime, business occasions, dating, and other possibilities. Some products pair innovation with the creation of a trending topic, which results in phenomenal consumption. It is also common to see crossover collaboration between brands to expand consumer coverage and access supplementary resources.

 

Ms. Du illustrated her points with a range of cases, such as the partnership of a ramen brand and a pharmaceutical one that gave birth to a chicken soup ramen for those with a cold, and that of a candy brand and a perfume one to create a milky candy-flavored perfume. The much-hyped crossover between Luck in Coffee and Moutai (a spirit), served both well in drawing the attention of consumers, expanding their respective sales networks, and enlarging consumer bases, said Ms. Du. However, crossover is not a guarantee of success, as evidenced by that between a nail polish brand and a potato chips brand.

 

Production innovation should adhere to the scientific approach of product life cycle (PLC) theory, which comprises six stages: strategy, idea, concept, product, before product launch, and after product launch. In her speech, Ms. Du mainly focused on the strategic stage, which concerns fully studying the changing demands and unmet demands of consumers and users with the aim of developing products that they aspire to have. She then used various examples to illustrate methodologies in consumer research, including monitoring topical discussions on social media to glean insights into new trends, analyzing consumer reviews on e-commerce sites to dig up directions for product improvement, and conducting usage attitude analysis to uncover product demands and consumers’ pain points.

 

Another integral part of market research is consumption scenarios. Bike sharing fits well into a new consumption scenario: facing expanding urban areas and fast-paced life, users want to cover that last one kilometer fast and at little cost. Ms. Du highlighted the importance of being constantly observant of daily life and changing needs of consumers, so that new scenarios can be discovered.

 

She believed that innovation never dries up as every era has its own opportunities. Currently, AI and big-data technologies mean that all scenarios provide fertile soil for great creativity. She advised paying special attention to tedious, boring, and uncreative work and find ways to free people from such work.

 

Before product launch, it is important to conduct channel research. In digital age, channels (or ‘place’ in 4P theory) range from online to offline, as well as to communities on social media and some others. Only organically integrating various channels can decisions be made regarding optimal channel selection to accurately reach target groups. In addition, Ms. Du said that product launch should go hand in hand with quick and all-rounded satisfaction tests, which directly affect how long a product’s life cycle can be and if it can be made a main product.

Achieving Product Innovation in Digital Age

Jan 25-2024   



Marketing used to be thought as a combination of art and science, but modern marketing is putting ever more value on scientific approach and quantitative analysis, said Ms. Du Xiaomeng, NSD Associate Research Fellow and Deputy Dean of BiMBA Business School. In her speech at MBA Lectern, an event of the NSD, she laid out the fundamental steps for conducting full-lifecycle product innovation in the quantitative age.

 

Besides doing consumer profiling, production innovation also requires studying consumers’ differentiated demands and product-using scenarios. In the case of lipsticks, that might mean daytime, nighttime, business occasions, dating, and other possibilities. Some products pair innovation with the creation of a trending topic, which results in phenomenal consumption. It is also common to see crossover collaboration between brands to expand consumer coverage and access supplementary resources.

 

Ms. Du illustrated her points with a range of cases, such as the partnership of a ramen brand and a pharmaceutical one that gave birth to a chicken soup ramen for those with a cold, and that of a candy brand and a perfume one to create a milky candy-flavored perfume. The much-hyped crossover between Luck in Coffee and Moutai (a spirit), served both well in drawing the attention of consumers, expanding their respective sales networks, and enlarging consumer bases, said Ms. Du. However, crossover is not a guarantee of success, as evidenced by that between a nail polish brand and a potato chips brand.

 

Production innovation should adhere to the scientific approach of product life cycle (PLC) theory, which comprises six stages: strategy, idea, concept, product, before product launch, and after product launch. In her speech, Ms. Du mainly focused on the strategic stage, which concerns fully studying the changing demands and unmet demands of consumers and users with the aim of developing products that they aspire to have. She then used various examples to illustrate methodologies in consumer research, including monitoring topical discussions on social media to glean insights into new trends, analyzing consumer reviews on e-commerce sites to dig up directions for product improvement, and conducting usage attitude analysis to uncover product demands and consumers’ pain points.

 

Another integral part of market research is consumption scenarios. Bike sharing fits well into a new consumption scenario: facing expanding urban areas and fast-paced life, users want to cover that last one kilometer fast and at little cost. Ms. Du highlighted the importance of being constantly observant of daily life and changing needs of consumers, so that new scenarios can be discovered.

 

She believed that innovation never dries up as every era has its own opportunities. Currently, AI and big-data technologies mean that all scenarios provide fertile soil for great creativity. She advised paying special attention to tedious, boring, and uncreative work and find ways to free people from such work.

 

Before product launch, it is important to conduct channel research. In digital age, channels (or ‘place’ in 4P theory) range from online to offline, as well as to communities on social media and some others. Only organically integrating various channels can decisions be made regarding optimal channel selection to accurately reach target groups. In addition, Ms. Du said that product launch should go hand in hand with quick and all-rounded satisfaction tests, which directly affect how long a product’s life cycle can be and if it can be made a main product.