CRAEVS: Clean Label Research Through Agile Evolutions into Stores
By Mark Crowell, CuliNex LLC
As a product development (PD) professional, running PD teams at both large multi-nationals (and for the past 16 years) at my own small product development consultancy, CuliNex, one question has nagged me above all others, “Why do so many new products fail?”
Admittedly, simple questions often have surprisingly complex answers… and there are certainly many ways to fail: inadequate company capitalization, poor distribution, incorrect pricing/margins, mediocre package design, and so forth. However, I am a product developer and I only control the PD process, so for me the question boils down to asking, “Could changes to the PD process itself improve the odds of new product success?” After two years of development and testing, I now know the answer is a resounding YES!
Working with Dave Lundahl, CEO of behavioral consumer research firm InsightsNow, we jointly developed the CRAEVS Solution. CRAEVS brings together the latest Product Development and Behavioral research methodologies into one seamless solution that is fast, efficient, cost effective and grounded in consumer insights.
A series of product development and consumer research sprints move seamlessly from category research and market analysis, through development, and on to retail store and home use testing in a series of five sprints. These sprints cover the four essential D’s of the CRAEVS Solution, Discovery, Design, Delivery, and Drive into the marketplace.
For projects seeking blue sky solutions or complex technical unlocks, (where products and categories aren’t yet defined), there is what we call “White Space Discovery.” This occurs prior to the CRAEVS sprints and seeks to uncover new to the marketplace opportunities to disrupt consumer behaviors through a combination of technology innovation, product platforms and consumer behavioral impact discoveries. These discoveries come in the form of viable new product ideas with example prototypes targeting the opportunity to achieve market breakthroughs.
As the white space discoveries evolving out of Discovery are viable new product ideas, they can quickly be Designed, Delivered and Driven to market success through the CRAEVS solution-a series of rapid, iterative learning sprints. These sprints take the viable idea, and rapidly Design the product against Discovered behavioral KPIs established to ensure success in market disruption. This solution also shortens time to market through a Delivery sprint where prototypes are produced in a pilot run, ready for rapid, in-store and in-home testing to ensure the behavioral KPIs (key performance indicators) are met.
The result? A 60% increase in successful market launches and a 30% improvement in speed to market. Proven success from a proven process. That’s CRAEVS.
Over the next six weeks please look for more posts that drill down into CRAEVS details, uncovering how you can use the CRAEVS Solution to sprint to success through the four Ds of innovation.
Find more information at https://try.craevs.com/
Contact us to discuss how our team can accelerate your food product development project.
