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Now available, Breakthrough Food Product Innovation Through Emotions Research

Posted by InsightsNow Marketing Team on January 17, 2012

Dave Lundahl's new release, Breakthrough Food Product Innovation Through Emotions Research, provides a clear answer for innovation teams seeking to increase product success rates by breaking through the clutter in an otherwise undifferentiated, commoditized marketplace.  This book uncover practical approaches for applying emotions research throughout the food innovation and product development process. CLICK HERE for special offers.

Hitting the Product Innovation Homerun

Posted by Dave Lundahl on June 30, 2011

I am a big fan of baseball.  This is the season (spring / summer) where baseball is top of mind for many.  It has led me to consider how winning at baseball is analogous to how to improve new product innovation.   Success comes from thinking behaviorally in how you approach innovation.  Traditional innovation thinking uses a push-to-market strategy where products are developed and then marketed on the basis of filling identified feature “white space” within target product categories. 

InsightsNow Announces “Strategic Partnership for Innovation” with Rubinson Partners

Posted by InsightsNow Marketing Team on April 12, 2011

InsightsNow and Joel Rubinson, have entered into a strategic partnership for reinventing innovation methods for the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry.  CLICK HERE to read full release.

Sensory Scientists and Marketing Researchers, Their Role in the Product Innovation Process

Posted by InsightsNow Marketing Team on March 11, 2011

A Modified Excerpt from Dave Lundahl’s Upcoming Book, “Breakthrough Food Product Innovation through Emotions Research”

“When all think alike, then no one is thinking." — Walter Lippman

The above quote by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Walter Lippman emphasizes the power of critical thinking through collaboration. Differing perspectives cultivate the opportunity for breakthrough ideas to emerge.  This concept applies well to innovation teams; they function best when they are comprised of a melting pot of different perspectives. The diversity of perspectives comes from the mix of professionals trained in and having experience with different disciplines that contribute to thought diversity.

In this article, we will reveal the key players on the innovation team, highlight their respective roles and contributions to the product innovation process, and expose the barriers some of the team players are facing.

Consumer Connection - The Landscape Has Changed

Posted by InsightsNow Marketing Team on February 15, 2011

by Amanda Anderson, Marketing Associate

Not too long ago, the only form of gathering product preference and usage information from consumers was by sending surveys via U.S. Postal Service or by picking up a landline telephone and calling.  Most often these methods did not provide accurate findings for how consumers use products in-context (i.e. why they use and/or choose a product at that very moment and what the emotional implications are), since the use or purchase occasion occured hours or even days before the survey arrived or the phone call was placed.  In the last decade, things slightly improved with the popularity of online surveying.  But this technique also resulted in the purchase or usage occasion taking place hours or even days from when the online survey was completed.  Now, however, the landscape has changed even more dramatically.    

Beyond the Inflection Point - Product Line Optimization Tools that Tap Choice, Competition and Consumer Usage

Posted by InsightsNow Marketing Team on January 13, 2011

by Alec Maki, Product Marketing Manager

The Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry has reached a fork in the road.  As discussed in the October 2010 article, Paradox of Progress – Product Line Optimization, the Status Quo is Broken, the joy ride of the last 40 years has ended. 

Dr. Andrew Grove, Co-Founder and Former CEO of Intel once said, “Sooner or later, something fundamental in your business world will change.”  In his book Only the Paranoid Survive, Andy Grove discusses his greatest concern in the business world: inflection points.  An inflection point occurs when the old strategic picture dissolves and gives way to another.  For a business, that change can mean an opportunity for even greater success.  But it may just as likely signal a descent into corporate purgatory.

Paradox of Progress - Product Line Optimization, the Status Quo is Broken

Posted by InsightsNow Marketing Team on October 14, 2010

by Alec Maki, Product Marketing Manager

How do you…
- Make the most money with a product line? 
- Decide which line extensions to keep and which to prune? 
- Which will reach the most new consumers without stealing share from the rest of the line? 

In a push to expand market share, consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand teams have answered these same questions for decades.  Over time, marketing research tools have been developed to address these questions.  Even today, as new line extensions are brought to market, the same traditional tools are used.  In recent years however, a confluence of events has exposed limitations of these traditional methods.

The Elusive Search for the Silver Bullet - Emotion Measurement

Posted by Dave Lundahl on September 8, 2010

Everyone in our industry is looking for a silver bullet – a way to measure emotions.  Why?  There is a belief that if the capability to measure emotions existed, then researchers could incorporate this new source of information to better guide product innovation and development decisions.  However, it’s not that simple.  In fact, I think this is an elusive search.

As Marketing Researchers and Consumer Product and/or Sensory Researchers, we need to focus on “emotion insight,” not “emotion measurement”. The two are extremely different and not necessarily dependent.  Let me explain.

You Want Me to Eat What?

Posted by Dave Lundahl on August 4, 2010

Summary of Dr. Dave Lundahl’s recent talk given at the IFT 2010 Annual Meeting:Three Steps for Changing Consumer Nutrition Behavior

How do you reconcile the need to change consumers’ nutrition behavior with developing wellness-related food products that sell?  In recent years, this is a question industry experts have been struggling with - as obesity in the U.S. continues to be one of the highest in the world.                

Thus far, efforts in the health and wellness community to improve diet have largely focused on changing the consumer.  Food science has given innovators the ability to bring more healthy food to market.  However, these efforts have had only marginal success in motivating a change in consumer buying behavior.  In order to bring about real change in the kinds of foods that consumers buy, fundamentals of human behavior need to be uncovered.

Holism: The Whole as More Than the Sum of its Parts

Posted by Dave Lundahl on June 30, 2010

The word holism is from the Greek meaning all, entire, total of all the properties of a given system (biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc.).  Rarely can any system be understood by understanding all of its component parts. However, this is exactly what we do in consumer product research.