Editor's note: Martha E. Guidry is president of The Rite Concept, an Avon, Conn., research company. She can be reached at 860-675-5522 or at martha@theriteconcept.com. This article appeared in the July 11, 2011, edition of Quirk's e-newsletter.

Most business units have to respond to competitive pressure by maintaining or increasing market share and enhancing profitability. Launching new products or services is a core strategy behind achieving these goals. Marketers are most often on the front line of this battle, continually trying to develop line extensions or new offerings to satisfy the organizational demands of share and profit while meeting the desires of an often-fickle marketplace. The need to develop high-quality, winning concepts for new products or services becomes glaringly apparent.

According to Procter & Gamble, a concept is simply "a promise a product makes to resolve an unmet consumer need, the reason why it will satisfy the need, and a description or portrayal of any key elements that will affect the perception." This process sounds relatively simple yet creating a winning concept can be more challenging than first imagined. 

According to several information sources, the number of product failures in a year ranges from 50-to-90 percent, depending on the industry. This failure rate is due to a variety of factors but it can usually be at least partially attributed to poor concept development.

Great concept development is both an art and a science. I've outlined the seven major pitfalls in concept development in the hope that, armed with this information, researchers will have greater success in their next effort. Although I've referred to the audience for the concept as a consumer, I use this in its broadest possible sense, to be representative of any product end user. At the end of the day, all potential audiences are consumers and the same principles of concept development generally apply. 

1. The concept is not driven by unmet consumer needs.

The single biggest mistake that occurs in the concept development process is creating a concept that is too internally focused. Several factors can cause this to happen. First, the R&D engine of the organization may develop a product or service or find a technology that they see as irresistibly exciting and they "find" (read: create) a consumer to whom they can sell it. Typically, this becomes the tail wags the dog syndrome, where marketers scramble to create a compelling way to convince the consumer that the product really is offering them a relevant benefit, in spite of what they may truly know about consumers' needs. Second, time pressure may prevent the concept development team from thoroughly reviewing previous consumer research - or the amount of research is so daunting that they don't give it the attention it deserves. And third, many organizations don't want to spend the time and/or money to do the research to fill in their knowledge gaps or to gain the foundational knowledge they need prior to developing the concepts. 

A solid concept development process cannot occur without a complete understanding of: consumer frustrations and desires and how they are important; consumer beliefs about these frustrations and desires; and whether consumers believe that any available products or services can meet these needs. 

2. The concept is poorly written.

A client might have a wonderfully successful ideation session and emerge simply bursting with new ideas they want to test.  However, translating these ideas into well-articulated positioning concepts is difficult. Although many marketing and R&D professionals believe that they have strong concept-writing skills, they seldom have spent sufficient time with consumers to easily articulate in the consumers' natural language and likely have little to no training in the art of concept-writing.

Given the importance of concept-writing skills, my clients often find real value by involving a trained concept writer, who can bring both the discipline of proper concept structure and an objective eye. Some of the more common structural issues a trained concept writer can help resolve are an unclear benefit; an illogical reason to believe, one that doesn't support the benefit; an insight/accepted consumer belief that isn't relevant to the hero benefit; or a concept that is missing a key structural component. 

Regarding the objective eye, a skilled concept writer can also hear the obvious concept flaws, potentially saving significant dollars in research. These obvious issues could include poorly-worded concepts; a lack of consumer-friendly language; or not enough of the right information to make the sale.

3. The concept fits poorly with the current brand equity.

In the classic animated movie The Lion King, Mufasa tells his son Simba, "Remember who you are." This is an essential directive for any business that wishes to develop concepts to reinforce an existing brand's equity. Unfortunately, product development efforts often go astray when the team gets excited about the possibilities and the potential of a newfangled idea that may not fit with the consumer's expectations of the brand. The internal momentum behind the idea puts blinders on the developers, leading to concepts that do not fit with the brand promise, resulting in a failed launch.

It is critical to collect information about the brand's consumer perception before development begins. The process of understanding the brand's strengths and weaknesses; its current image; what makes it different; and what the brand actually can (or can't) own in the marketplace can't be short-changed. Armed with this knowledge, the development team can screen out duds and develop ideas that use the brand's market position. 

4. The concept was developed without considering the competitive environment.

For a product or service to take advantage of its competitors' vulnerabilities, the marketer must have a clear understanding of its competitive set. Without an up-to-date understanding, a company may find that its positioning is not sitting in marketplace white space and consumers will not consider the product or service to be a unique offering in the category. Time pressure to get something to market causes the development team to rush - or even skip - this important step.

Whether through primary or secondary research, the smart marketer will take the time to become thoroughly familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of its competitors' offerings, as well as identify potential substitutes for a proposed product or service. Also, remember that the marketplace can significantly change over time. Don't expect that information gathered three or four years ago will give you an accurate competitive analysis.

5. The concept lacks an emotional connection.

Understanding and using an emotional hook for the consumer allows the product or service to fit the consumer's life in a meaningful way. Often the overt focus on the features and benefits creates a relatively flat concept in the consumer's mind. In addition, this sometimes-simplistic approach may become vulnerable to competitive pressure, due to the ease with which these areas can be duplicated by the competition. If a brand can own some emotional space, it not only taps into consumers' value structure but it tends to tap into their wallet as well. 

A homework collage is one way to access these emotional connections during a qualitative session but laddering, analogy, visualization and personification exercises completed during the research session can also generate the necessary consumer imagery and feelings. 

6. Too many ideas are loaded into a single concept.

Beware the kitchen sink. In an effort to hit too many consumer touchpoints or to appeal to a large number of consumer segments, client teams sometimes will generate a concept that is laden with choices for the buyer, where there is something for everyone, including multiple insights; many different product or service benefits; or several different reasons to believe a single benefit is true.

This kitchen-sink concept is pushed through the process, culminating in a very expensive quantitative test, where - because there is something for everyone - purchase intent meets the success criteria. So far, so good. But the team is in for a rude awakening when they try to translate this multi-legged, monster concept into a successful copy strategy. To be optimally successful, consumer copy must be single-minded and kitchen-sink concepts are more accurately described as schizophrenic than cleanly single-minded. Ultimately, the ad agency must decide what single aspect of the concept will be communicated, only to find that the stand-alone idea lacked the appeal to generate sufficient volume for the product or service to succeed in the market.

Avoid the kitchen-sink concept by enlisting the aid of an outsider with a more objective perspective than the rest of the team - someone who can help the team narrow the field, breaking the concept into multiple executable ideas, each of which can then be individually assessed for true market potential.

7. The concept's words and images are mismatched.

Neither practitioners nor academicians can agree on whether a concept should be presented in a simple, whiteboard format or in a more embellished format with pictures and language that more closely resemble a print ad. However, most can agree that the wrong picture can do more harm to a concept than good. Too often, the concept and its associated visual evolve differently so when the final concept is pulled together, a mismatch occurs. When consumers look at a picture and it doesn't match the expectation created in the text, they generally become reflexive concept rejectors. 

It is important to qualitatively check how consumers perceive the fit of the picture with the written concept. This simple check can avoid making a costly misstep in an expensive quantitative test of the concept.

Winners and losers

Although concept development is both an art and a science, a qualitative researcher with strong concept-writing and marketing consulting skills can make the difference between crafting expressions of ideas that are winners and losers. As a qualitative researcher, you should be aware of these pitfalls to ensure your clients are starting from a better place before the concepts are put in front of consumers in any focus group.