Test marketing

Test marketing is the seventh stage of the new product development process.  This stage highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the product; Kotler and Armstrong, 2010 state how this is specifically useful as evaluations are made from those of who the product is aimed at. Consequently the desired positioning strategies can be put in place.

Test marketing is important as it allows an organisation to observe actual consumer behaviour. An organisation will often select a geographical location to represent the intended market, in doing so the organisation can determine the reception of the product. As well as receiving feedback from the product itself this stage provides a chance to evaluate the effectiveness of the desired market strategy. Post test marketing an organisation can decide whether to modify the product/service to better suit the target audience (Dubiel and Ernst, 2012).

Adidas developed the micoach device in a closed environment through supplying elite players with micoach enabled football boots in training, which allowed them to gather feedback, here they identified that 'sharing' data via social media will increase sales as amateur players can compare their speed with professionals (Adidas group, 2013), this maybe a direction collision sense could take.

Willsey, (1999) states how test marketing can be expensive, time consuming and most importantly open to competitive sabotage Therefore Prior to testing the ‘collision sense’ it’s vital that measures such as patents, trademarks, design rights and non-disclosure agreements  are made in order to prevent copying of the product from competitors. The product will be tested in a number of contact sports to evaluate its reliability, accuracy and ease of wear for the athletes, as an athlete’s main focus is performance and therefore a device that hampers this will be poorly received and essentially the aims and objectives of the organisation will be unachievable.  Usually the price of a product is examined during test marketing, for collision sense an appropriate price will be researched with the target audience of broadcasting companies and regulatory bodies, therefore it’s important to identify the value such organisations believe collision sense can bring.

An aim for the collision sense product is for it to provide heightened spectator enjoyment on sports television channel’s therefore negotiating a ‘trial’ match with a broadcast company could be an effective move for the improvement of the product/service, whilst allowing the broadcast company a chance to evaluate the uses of the product.

Reference list

Adidas group, (2013) http://blog.adidas-group.com/2011/12/interactivity-at-adidas-a-new-level-of-engagement/
Dubiel, A., & Ernst, H. (2012). Success Factors of New Product Development for Emerging Markets. The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development, 100-114.

Kotler, P. J., & Armstrong, G. M. (2010). Principles of marketing. Pearson Education.

Willsey, L. (1999). Taking these 7 steps will help you launch a new product. Marketing News. 33 (7), 17.

Product development

Product development is the sixth phase of the traditional new product development process (Morrison, 2013). The product development stage is where previous agreed requirements and specification's are defined into a final design ready to be tested internally and by consumers in order to create a commercial ready ‘concrete product’ Perceptual maps can also be developed in this stage through customer feedback, this can aid the organisation's marketing program with brand positioning (Soares, Bastos, Gavazzo, Pereira, & Baptista, 2013)

Adidas’s development of the mi coach feature is an example of good sport product development. Adidas group, 2011 show how the features of the mi coach design were revolutionary in this particular field. Dogiamis & Vijayashanker, 2009 explain how Adidas evaluated the needed specifications for a sports GPS system, completing market research into the likes of Nike and there ‘Nike+’ device. After developing the product into a final design; adding more advanced features to compete with and reduce Nike’s market share; they tested the Mi coach internally and on athletes, which allowed Adidas to finalise the design into a 'concrete' product (Adidas group, 2011)

As established the product name will be ‘Collision sense’. In relation to the perceptual map (see appendix A) the product cost will be relatively high this is due to the need for a high level of quality (see appendix A), the need for high quality is due to two key factors: Firstly an accurate and precise measurement of force has to be consistent in order for the product to be successful and this requires advanced technology. Secondly the collision sense cell must be durable as it will be used in contact sports and thus the cost of the product will be relatively high and much higher than products closest to it in the current market i.e. Nike+ and Adidas micoach (see appendix B). Therefore the decided target market for the product is different to the likes of Adidas micoach whose aims were to appeal to the average consumer i.e. a Sunday league football player. The goal of collision sense however is to be an exclusive elite sport brand which provide’s a state of the art tool for broadcasting organisations and secondly to aid refereeing decisions, therefore after securing trademark protection collision sense can be promoted to large organisations such as ESPN, BT sport, Sky sports and FIFA with a focus on gaining profit through bulk sale. Meanwhile securing deals with large broadcasting organisations will promote the product and raise brand awareness.

To conclude, going forward the collision sense product will be a high cost high quality exclusive product aimed at improving elite sport and broadcasting capabilities.

Reference list:

Adidas group, (2011) http://blog.adidas-group.com/2011/12/interactivity-at-adidas-a-new-level-of-engagement/ Accessed: 20/1/14

Dogiamis, G., & Vijayashanker, N. (2009). Adidas: Sprinting Ahead of Nike. Chicago   

Morrison, A. M. (2013). Marketing and managing tourism destinations. Routledge.

Soares, D., Bastos, J., Gavazzo, D., Pereira, J. P., & Baptista, A. J. (2013). Lean Management Methods in Product Development: A Case Study. In Advances in Sustainable and Competitive Manufacturing Systems (pp. 1385-1399). Springer International Publishing.

Appendix A

Appendix B