The history of innovation has shown time and again that new entrants can emerge and take meaningful share away from leader companies that do not adapt and evolve. We believe the auto industry is on the cusp of great change.

We know innovation is important. But how can you best incorporate it to help your company? And how you can you design innovative products and services for the Millennials?

Design Thinking is a process in which various steps are knitted together to help guide innovation in virtually any area of discipline. That is, the process helps develop new products and services, new advertising or promotions, new package functionality or presentation, etc.

So what do we do to help ensure new products are truly worth their weight in gold?

So how does a new product truly break through? Here are some thoughts on five factors that improve a new product’s chances for success.

Is That New Product a Cannibal? The best way to identify if a new product is a cannibal is to assess potential performance using historical data analysis, primary research, and/or test markets.

In the example above, our client embraced a multi-step innovation process with an unwavering commitment to multiple research steps.

This is an article about how to think like a squirrel; or squirrels’ annoying behaviors are based on thought processes that are worthy of aping.

At Decision Analyst, we have had the pleasure of working on innovation with many of our clients and with the Imaginators, our highly creative consumer community.

From a research perspective, there are several ways to engage with potential customers to help guide the innovation process. We’ll address three broad research tactics that many companies use to accomplish their goals.

Whether your primary shoppers are using mostly System 1 or System 2 Thinking, you can diagnose the issues that are holding your product or brand back and course-correct them. Then, it will be a matter of tracking your progress over time to see how these modifications are working in the marketplace.

We frequently look to unmet needs for inspiration, but an often-overlooked source for innovative ideas can come from addressing pain points.

One way to keep new products flowing to market during tough times is to rely on hypercreatives and idea-centric creativity. This is the creativity of innovative individuals with relevant product category experience, they can help generate hundreds of new product ideas.

Choice modeling makes it possible to simulate the decision-making process so a new product's sales revenue can be predicted. Choice modeling helps marketers understand the many variables that underlie that forecast.

Marketing Research Article: The contrast between successful 'new products' companies, and those that don't succeed, provides some valuable lessons for any company that aspires to improve its new product efforts.

A Brand or Product name has to fit the strategy and the human vision that defines its destiny. Some Advice on Brand Name Research.

To reduce the risks of new products, forecasting of year-one sales has become an established practice. This article discusses the methods used to derive year-1 sales forecasts for new consumer packaged goods.

While many quantitative methods are utilized in package design research, sometimes we overlook the importance qualitative techniques. Here are some basic ideas and best practices for the use of qualitative research as a component in the package-design research plan.

The magic of idea-centric creativity offers a new way for corporations to re-invigorate their new product development programs using consumers who are exceptionally creative individuals who posess idea-centric creativity

Marketing Research Article: We propose a six-question framework that helps companies gain a clearer picture up front of what factors they must consider to make their new product development efforts success.

Blogs on Marketing Research, Consulting and Analytics: Decision Analyst