‘The systematic gathering, recording, and analyzing of data with respect to a particular market, where market refers to a specific customer group in a specific geographic area.’
New Product Development is process in which the information gathered in Market Research and other researches is used to form a new product. This new product development is done in a company to bring out a new concept according to the consumer’s needs. It continues even after a new product is launched. The American Marketing Association defines New Product Development as:
‘The overall process of strategy, organization, concept generation, concept and marketing plan evaluation, and commercialization of a new product. It occasionally is restricted in meaning to that part of the process done by technical (research and development) departments. New product development concerns activity within an organization, in contrast to the acquisition of finished new products from outside.’
- Explain two main ways in which Market Research and New Product Development processes were interlinked in the development of Pearl and Beauty.
Market Research (MR) and New Product Development (NPD) are interlinked processes in this case study. Throughout the case study, one can infer that Market Research is closely and immediately followed by NPD. Some examples are:
- Forming Product Concepts:
During this process, the market research conducted by the NIVEA marketing team revealed that consumers needed a ‘beautifying, caring deodorant’. After more MR in evolving a product development concept, the NPD came into action. In this process, the marketing team conducted a research to identify the product concept consumers liked the most. With that, NIVEA was able to identify and produce the product which corresponded with the consumer’s views and needs. This helped them to continue to the next stage of forming a new product.
Under MR, the NIVEA marketing team had conducted a research on the requirement, by consumers of other deodorants, which could be something like Pearl and Beauty deodorant. They also conducted a brand positioning research in the market. On receiving a good feedback, NIVEA produced its Pearl and Beauty deodorant and then conducted a further conducted a NPD research on it. The research was to find out whether most of the volunteers preferred NIVEA’s deodorant or not. On receiving a positive response to the product, NIVEA’s marketing team came out with different packaging concepts (after further MR).
Hence, we can see that after every process of market research, the NPD process follows. MR and NPD occur alternately when a new product is conceptualised.
- What is the relationship between consumer insights and product concepts? Identify ways in which consumer insight for Pearl and Beauty lead to aspects of the development of the new product.
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- How effective do you think qualitative research is in helping businesses to develop products for international markets?
To continue growing, a multinational company needs to continuously introduce new products which are appealing to the consumers. To manufacture and introduce products to the consumers on an international scale, a company needs to gather a lot of information on the specific requirements of consumers in different countries. But this large amount of information gained from primary or secondary sources is useless if they do not reveal the different views and needs of consumers of different countries. Hence, to find to the exact requirements of different consumer groups, the company needs to conduct qualitative research in the different countries in order to find the different concepts required by consumers in different countries. Qualitative research can help a company in the following ways:
- It prevents misunderstand able, obsolete and wrong data from being used as the data is collected by the company itself.
- It prevents losses in the long run because if the data were false, the company ran a high risk of developing the wrong product.
- It prevents loss of extra money and time because if the quantitative data on international markets is wrong, then the company will have to spend extra time and money on collecting new data.
Beiersdorf also uses qualitative market research to conclude that the female consumers needed a ‘beautifying, caring deodorant’. They use the data collected from different countries to develop Pearl and Beauty deodorant.
