Overview
Successful development of products is an important cornerstone for the success of any firm. Thus, there exist significant incentives for the firms to introduce new and viable products to markets. Also, the payoff regarding financial success can help enhance a firm’s profitability and growth that is not achievable with existing services and products that could be nearing the maturity stage in their cycle. Finally, development of new products can be a source of important economies of scale for a firm (Rajiv and Naresh, 2008). In that view, Apple considers extending its product line and seeks to conduct a market research on the suitable product in a specific market. With that, this report presents a summary of the marketing research proposal. The report begins by identifying the suitable target segment followed by the proposed product. It then outlines questions the key research questions that could guide the marketing strategies. Further, the report presents a summary of the suitable research methods to answer the questions. Finally, the report summarizes the product development stages that would be followed.
Target market’s choice and description
Given the need for Apple to launch a new product line, the target market would be the youthful segment in a high-income country. With that, the business will target people aged between 25 and 40 years in Luxembourg. The choice for the youthful segment owes to the segment’s quality of being technologically savvy and having a preference for fashionable devices that suit their busy life. On the other hand, the target of Luxembourg owes to the country’s high-income level as well as living standards that make it a prospective market for premium products (OECD, 2016; CIA, 2016). In that respect, the traits of the target segment for the new Apple’s product are summarized as follows.
Aged 25 to 40 and living in Luxembourg
Living in urban centers.
Technologically savvy.
Socially conscious.
Busy with an active lifestyle.
High-income earners.
Willing to pay a premium price for added features in an iPhone and a computer.
Product proposal
The proposed product is a pocket size supercomputer that has the following features
Designed as a Smartphone.
Pocket sized.
Have all functional features of a computer.
With that, the super computer will not have a physical keyboard or USB port and will have added features that could enable users to make calls, take notes and type faster than with the current iPhone. With that, the computer will be combining the features of a Smartphone and a computer. Also, the product would be suited for the youthful segment that does not like being held in office and would prefer completing tasks on the go while making and taking calls without having to use multiple devices (Evans, 2016).
Questions for characteristics of the target market
Demographic
What is your age?
What is your income per year?
Geographic
Do you live in an urban or rural area of Luxembourg?
Psychographic
What is the highest price you can pay for an advanced iPhone?
Do you use online platforms for your shopping?
Behavioral
What do your peers like most in iPhones and personal computers?
Describe your lifestyle?
Proposed market research methods and the choice rationale
Experiential interviews
Historically some organizations have depended on the focus groups in providing valuable insights for development of new products. In some situations, the focus groups are a source of important and valuable customer’s data, particularly when the social interaction among the participants of the focus group is important. However, a focus group can communicate thoughts of two or only one participant who is outspoken instead of all the subjects who are participating. Due to this, Apple would opt for experiential interviews by which the customers’ desires and needs are evaluated in an interview where individual customers are given the chance to describe their experiences with the proposed product class in detail. The interview would allow for probing the underlying issues, which Apple’s customers could be willing to have addressed.
Besides exploring the stated needs of the Apple’s customers, the product development team will try to understand the customers’ values and meaning. With that, focusing on the reasons the customers have certain needs would reveal additional ideas to the design of the product (Rajiv and Naresh, 2008).
User observation and empathic design
Apple realizes that regardless of how research methodologies may be refined and despite the amount of data collected, some of the insights may only be gotten through observing the natural habits of the customers. Particularly this is true when the needs are not obvious or hard to verbalize. With that view, there would be the application of the Empathetic design as well as user observation. The empathetic design technique requires the design team members to put themselves in customers’ environment to observe the users’ feelings and problems. That would help the design team experience customer issues and problems with the current computers and Smartphone. Particularly the empathic method would be effective in finding the product’s ergonomic aspects. A select product’s groups, especially the high-touch durables that Apple focuses on are purchased mainly due to emotional responses which they evoke as well as the functionality that they provide. With such product, the need to determine the attitude of the customers toward a potential design, particularly their feel and look may be invaluable.
Product development process
Idea generation
The idea generation stage is where the opportunities of new product are identified, and ideas generated considering unmet customers’ needs. While the consumers are the major source of the needs, Apple cannot ignore its major suppliers and employees as key sources of valuable ideas. Further, the stage will help capture the views of the suppliers, customers as well as employees regarding the market issues and communicating the same to the product development team (Kotler and Keller, 2009).
Concept development
Once Apple’s product development team identifies customers’ needs and groups them, it will generate the concept on how the needs can be addressed. That is key to the succeeding stages of developing a new product, which involves engineering and designing the concept, which requires effective methods such as the Quality Functional Development. The more the different spaces will get explored, the more the possibility that the team’s ideas will position Apple to satisfy the needs of customers in creative and new ways. With that, various ideation techniques have been suggested, including, incentive-compatible and brainstorming ideation, forced relationships, morphological analysis, archival analysis and varied perspectives as well as systems approaches (Rajiv and Naresh, 2008).
Concept testing
At the stage, more product ideas and opportunities will be introduced as viable commercial offerings. Here, the concepts will be screened with the potential customers with the application of both qualitative and quantitative research techniques. That will involve evaluations on measures including consumer relevance, dissatisfaction with the current products and the overall market’s purchase interest. With that, the business will be able to prioritize products’ evaluation as well as funding.
Product designing and engineering
Once the team focuses on relatively few concepts that are potential, they will be engineered and designed to address the needs of customers at a profitable cost. With that value engineering and conjoint analysis are among the techniques to be used in designing as well as engineering of the new product (Kotler and Keller, 2009).
Developing and testing the prototype
In this stage, the aim will be evaluating the engineered concept and the design so that the launch may be successful. Having taken input from the potential customers for the desirable features and having determine the engineering aspects, some prototypes will be developed to be tested. That will involve Rapid Prototyping, which involves automatically generating several technical solutions concerning the product’s theme and concept. Further, marketing will play a key role of testing several designs with the customers. Also, the team will seek to create product acceptance within the market, where the sales are likely to be affected by the marketing variables including advertising and the sales force (Rajiv and Naresh, 2008).
Commercialization
At this phase, the new product development will have already become mainstream and consumers would be purchasing it as the technical team monitors the progress consistently. With that, keeping the distribution pipeline always loaded with the products will be an integral stage of the progress. Also, refreshing advertisements will help keep the product`s name well known to the market (Kotler and Keller, 2009).
References
CIA. (2016). World Factbook: Luxembourg. Retrieved 08 June 2016 from, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/print/country/countrypdf_lu.pdf
Evans, J. (2016). Apple accidentally shows its future plans with iPhone SE. Computer World Apr 1, 2016. Retrieved 08June 2016 from, http://www.computerworld.com/article/3050974/apple-ios/oops-apple-accidentally-shows-its-future-plans-with-iphone-se.html
Kotler, P. and Keller, K. (2009). Marketing Management. 13th Ed. London: Pearson Education International.
OECD. (2016). Level of GDP per Capita and Productivity. Retrieved 08June 2016 from, http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV#
Rajiv G. and Naresh K. M. (2008). Marketing Management: Essential Marketing Knowledge and Practice. Ohio: McGraw Hill, Inc.
