Case Study

New Product Concept Testing:Polaris Case Study

New Product Concept Testing:Polaris Case Study

Polaris Marketing Research has successfully applied our client-side, real-world new product development experience for a wide variety of new product launches. Here’s one example of how we successfully convinced our client not to revamp a product.

 

Situation:

Polaris was hired by k101 Agency, a marketing communications firm, to help one of their clients with a product targeted to women only. The brand was very strong in the ’80s and ’90s, but it was management’s opinion that it had since lost relevance with the target audience. They felt a complete redesign of the product would increase demand and revitalize the brand.

Project Objectives:

Conduct qualitative (in-depth interviews) and quantitative (online surveys) research with consumers to test:
product design concepts
new logo and marketing concepts

Outcomes:

Polaris found there was little appeal of the new logo or product designs. The desired target audiences (women ages 25 to 45) actually preferred the old logo. Although it was certainly not what they wanted to hear, in the end the research was well received by all parties and considered a success for two reasons. First, the research saved well over six-figure dollars in marketing efforts to establish and promote a new logo and product redesign that had little market potential. Second, they discovered there was a warm, sentimental and lasting attachment to the old logo that crossed generations and far outweighed management’s concerns they were not perceived as modern and stylish. So not only should the branding not be “fixed,” it was far from “broken” and in fact had an untapped positive image cachet.