Product Innovation Toolbox: A Field Guide to Consumer Understanding and Research

Discover how to implement consumer-centric innovation to help create new product development in this latest edition

In recent years, behavioral approaches, social media listening, and other new techniques and technologies―digital techniques, augmented intelligence, machine learning, and advanced biometrics, among others―have been foregrounded in innovation research. A focus on the evolving fields of data science and neuroscience is a driving force for both researchers and the people they study. These digital and mobile technologies have enabled researchers to augment listening, observing and categorizing methods, and to adapt new techniques in attempting to better understand consumers. On the other hand, digitized mobile societies, spurred by faster and cheaper internet access, emphasize an interconnectedness that drastically alters human behaviors and creates borderless influences. Even so, the tenets and approaches to insightful deep learning for consumers and other actors, from discovery through to the launch of successful products, remains an intrinsic part of assessing the market.

Product Innovation Toolbox brings together key thought leaders and seasoned consumer researchers from corporate R&D, academia, and marketing research companies to share their experiences, advanced consumer research tools and practical tips for successful and sustainable product innovation. By offering these leading-edge tools and insights, the book ensures consumer-centric innovation by linking strategy and a designed approach.

The new edition focuses on the integration and connection of all data―both structured and unstructured???for deep learning and activation, rather than a differentiated qualitative―quantitative approach, reflecting the shifting relationships involved in the latest developments in the field.

The second edition of Product Innovation Toolbox also includes:

• Revised material for more than 70% of the manual, with 11 new and extensively updated chapters
• New tools sections on digital technologies to create novel ways to stimulate and elicit insights from participants, such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Digital Augmentation
• Upgraded versions of tools in each updated section, with fresh examples
• New case studies created using the tools from the previous edition, including cases regarding cross-continental marketplaces and cross-cultural societies
• An emphasis on tools with global applications

Product Innovation Toolbox is an essential resource for product developers, marketers, and technologists.

Kannapon Lopetcharat is the Executive Director at Nouveau Centric Co. Ltd. in Bangkok, Thailand. He holds a PhD in sensory science and psychophysics, with a minor in statistics from Oregon State University. He has worked for Unilever and Avon as a consumer science manager, and has extensive experience in applying consumer product and sensory research in product development and innovation.

Dulce Paredes is an experienced ‘consumer navigator’ who works with organizations using consumer insights to develop products and innovation programs. She is the global leader of consumer insights and market research flavor division for Takasago International Corporation (USA). She previously led R&D consumer sciences groups at Avon Products and Kraft Foods. She was a product developer for PepsiCo Inc. after completing her PhD in food science from Cornell University.

Jacqueline H. Beckley is the founder of The Understanding & Insight Group, LLC, in Denville, New Jersey, USA. She is considered one of the early adaptors of face-to-face qualitative understanding. Prior to this, Beckley held positions within industry and consulting, including director of consumer perception at Nabisco, Inc., Vice President at Peryam & Kroll Marketing and Sensory Research, group manager of sensory research and R&D for the Quaker Oats Company, and research scientist for Amoco Chemical Company.