JOURNAL 2

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Chapter 18
Market Testing

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What Is Market Testing?

  • Market testing is not test marketing!
  • Test marketing is a form of market testing — others include simulated test market, informal sale, minimarket, rollout.
  • Test marketing is less common now due to cost, time, and other drawbacks.

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Where We Are Today in Market Testing

  • Scanner systems allow real time product sales data.
  • Mathematical sales forecasting models can run on limited data.
  • We are “building quality in,” testing the marketing components of the product at early stages (ads, selling visuals, service contracts, package designs, etc.) vs. testing everything at the end.
  • Increased competition puts greater pressure on managers to accelerate product cycle time.
  • Market testing is a team issue, not solely in the province of the market research department.

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Market Tests Must Have Teeth

  • Managers must be willing to take action based on market test results.
  • Negative market test results cannot be ignored just because the team is reluctant to kill the CEO’s pet project!
  • Insights gained at this stage include:
  • Solid sales forecasts with greater accuracy.
  • Diagnostic information to revise or refine any aspect of the launch.
  • To gather this information and not use it is asking for trouble!

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Decision Matrix on When to Market Test

Cost and Time

Savings

High

Low

Stages of the product development cycle

High

Low

Scope of Learning

and Accuracy

Figure 18.1

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How Market Testing Relates to the
Other Testing Steps

Figure 18.2

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Two Key Values Obtained from Market Testing

  • Solid forecasts of dollar and unit sales volume.
  • Diagnostic information to allow for revising and refining any aspect of the launch.

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Deciding Whether to Market Test

  • Any special twists on the launch? (limited time or budget, need to make high volume quickly)
  • What information is needed? (expected sales volumes, unknowns in manufacturing process, etc.)
  • Costs (direct cost of test, cost of launch, lost revenue that an immediate national launch would have brought)
  • Nature of marketplace (competitive retaliation, customer demand)
  • Capability of testing methodologies (do they fit the managerial situation at hand)

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Types of Information That May Be Lacking

  • Manufacturing process: can we ramp-up from pilot production to full scale easily?
  • Vendors and resellers: will they do as they have promised in supporting the launch?
  • Servicing infrastructure: adequate?
  • Customers: will they buy and use the product as expected?
  • Cannibalization: what will be the extent?

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Methods of Market Testing, and Where Used

Figure 18.3

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Speculative Sale

  • Often used in business-to-business and consumer durables, similar to concept and product use tests.
  • Give full pitch on product, answer questions, discuss pricing, and ask:
  • “If we make this product available as I have described it, would you buy it?”
  • Often conducted by regular salespeople calling on real target customers.

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Conditions for Speculative Sale

  • B2B firms have close downstream relationships with key buyers.
  • New products are technical, within a firm's expertise, and little market testing is needed for decisions.
  • Where the venture has low risk, and costlier methods are attractive.
  • Where the item is significantly innovative (e.g., new material, a new product segment) and key diagnostics such as potential buyer interest, fit, feedback are gathered.

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Simulated Test Market (STM)

  • Create a closed, controlled buying simulation to observe customer interest and purchase behavior.
  • repeat sales metrics possible.
  • Often used for consumer nondurables.

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Simulated Test Market Procedure

  • Mall intercept.
  • Self-administered questionnaire.
  • Real advertising stimuli.
  • Mini-store shopping experience.
  • Post-exposure questionnaire.
  • Receive trial package.
  • Phone follow up and offer to sell more.

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Possible Drawbacks to STMs

  • Mathematical complexity
  • Inaccurate data for distribution, sampling, advertising effects, etc.
  • May not be applicable to totally new-to-the-market products, since no prior segment data available.
  • Does not test channel member response to the new product, only the final consumer.

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Controlled Sale by Informal Selling

  • Used for business-to-business products, also consumer products sold directly to end users.
  • Train salespeople, give them the product and the selling materials, and have them make calls (in the field, or at trade shows).
  • Real presentations, and real sales, take place.

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Controlled Sale by Direct Marketing

More secrecy than by any other controlled sale method.

The feedback is almost instant.

Positioning and image development are easier because more information can be sent and more variations can be tested easily.

It is cheaper than the other techniques.

The technique matches today's growing technologies of credit card financing, telephone ordering, and database compilation.

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Controlled Sale by Minimarkets

  • Select a limited number of outlets — each store is a minicity or “minimarket.”
  • Do not use regular local TV or newspaper advertising, but controlled outlets can advertise it in its own flyers.
  • Can do shelf displays, demonstrations.
  • Use rebate, mail-in premium, or some other method to get names of purchasers for later follow-up.

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Controlled Sale by Scanner Market Testing

  • Audit sales from grocery stores with scanner systems — over a few markets or national system.
  • Sample uses:
  • Can use the data as a mini-market test.
  • Can compare cities where differing levels of sales support are provided.
  • Can monitor a rollout from one region to the next.

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Minimarkets and Scanner Testing: IRI’s BehaviorScan and InfoScan

  • Cable TV interrupt privileges
  • Full record of what other media (such as magazines) go into each household
  • Family-by-family purchasing
  • Full record of 95 percent of all store sales of tested items from the check-out scanners
  • Immediate stocking/distribution in almost every store is assured by the research firm.

Result: IRI knows almost every stimulus that hits each individual family, and it knows almost every change that takes place in each family's purchase habits.

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The Test Market

  • Several test market cities are selected.
  • Product is sold into those cities in the regular channels and advertised at representative levels in local media.
  • Once used to support the decision whether to launch a product, now more frequently used to determine how best to do so.

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Pros and Cons of Test Marketing

Advantages:

  • Risk Reduction
  • monetary risk
  • channel relationships
  • sales force morale
  • Strategic Improvement
  • marketing mix
  • production facilities

Disadvantages:

  • Cost ($1 mill+)
  • Time (9-12 months+)
  • hurt competitive advantage
  • competitor may monitor test market
  • competitor may go national
  • Competitor can disrupt test market

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  • Kellogg tracked the sale of General Foods' Toast-Ems while they were in test market. Noting they were becoming popular, they went national quickly with Pop-Tarts before the General Foods' test market was over.

  • After having invented freeze-dried coffee, General Foods was test-marketing its own Maxim brand when Nestle bypassed them with Taster's Choice, which went on to be the leading brand.

  • While Procter & Gamble were busy test-marketing their soft chocolate chip cookies, both Nabisco and Keebler rolled out similar cookies nationwide.

  • The same thing happened with P&G’s Brigade toilet-bowl cleaner. It was in test marketing for three years, during which time both Vanish and Ty-D-Bol became established in the market.

  • General Foods' test market results for a new frozen baby food were very encouraging, until it was learned that most of the purchases were being made by competitors Gerber, Libby, and Heinz.

A Risk of Test Marketing:

“Showing Your Hand”

Figure 18.5

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The Current Role of Test Markets

  • Despite the cost and time commitments, traditional test markets still are used, especially if risks and uncertainties are high.
  • Starbucks did traditional test markets for Via instant coffee, as the risks were judged to be high and a failure could hurt overall Starbucks brand equity.
  • Was Via perceived as high-quality and worthy of the Starbucks brand?
  • Were Starbucks taste features delivered by an instant?
  • Were Starbucks customers skeptical of any instant?
  • Did Starbucks customers like the individual packet format?

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The Rollout

  • Select a limited area of the country (one or several cities or states, 25% of the market, etc.) and monitor sales of product there.
  • Starting areas are not necessarily representative
  • The company may be able to get the ball rolling more easily there
  • The company may deliberately choose a hard area to sell in, to learn the pitfalls and what really drives success.
  • Decision point: when to switch to the full national launch.

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Types of Rollout

  • By geography (including international)
  • By application
  • By influence
  • By trade channel

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Patterns of Information Gained
During Rollout

Figure 18.7

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Risks of Rollout

  • May need to invest in full-scale production facility early.
  • Competitors may move fast enough to go national while the rollout is still underway.
  • Problems getting into the distribution channel.
  • Lacks national publicity that a full-scale launch may generate.

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Probable Future for Market Testing Methods

  • Test marketing (“dinosaur”)

  • Pseudo sale (incomplete)

  • Minimarket (flexibility & variety)

  • Rollout (small, fast, flexible)

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