New product concept development

The goal of our New Product Concept Development process is to help you create new–to–market products that make sense and that consumers really want. Products that consumers get passionate about and (here’s the key) have a willingness to pay for – even at a premium. Yes, we said passionate. We believe that unless the product ignites an emotional response in a customer, it will remain on the shelf. Think that we can't ignite customer passion in your category? Why that sounds like a challenge that we will gladly accept.

New & Improved’s continually evolving process for name and product concept ideation is called, “OutFirst.” This process combines an exciting blend of innovative inspiration with process guidance to mix with your category wisdom to create exciting product concepts. Consider it a revolutionized early stage of new product development.

The OutFirst process cuts through the fuzzy front end of concept development and provides teams with what they need to take their innovations forward. From years of facilitating product ideation sessions, we’ve learned the simple truth that the quality of a new product or service idea is not the final determinant of whether it survives the development process and makes it to market. Those in the industry know that a product’s success within the development portfolio has just as much to do with the support it receives. That’s why one of our point of differences is that we work with the group to ensure that they have the skills necessary to ensure that the concepts don’t die once people get back to the workplace.

OutFirst goes beyond traditional facilitator–led brainstorming sessions. The infusion of creative talent and outside perspective pumps new life into your NPD processes. Some of the benefits of OutFirst include:

Speed: We take you from zero to breakthrough visual prototypes in under a week
Tangible: You walk away with lots of well–organized ideas, reports, renderings, and prototypes
Needs based: We start with cultural analysts in our market review to assure that ideas are on–target and then shape them against customer and stakeholder requirements
Vision: Our outside perspective allows us to make connections that may have otherwise gone unnoticed
Radical: We provide new– world business concepts and “discontinuous innovations” when appropriate
Impact: We train your participants to become their own innovation champions

We’ve worked with many of the leading businesses to generate innovative product and service concepts in a variety of industries and categories, including fast–food, computer software, consumer products (e.g. food and beverage), medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, financial services, agri–business, human services, and industrial machinery. Fortunately, we don’t confuse the categories. Some of the companies we’ve worked with include:

McDonalds
Binney & Smith
Disney
Texas Instruments
BIC
Kraft
Cadbury-Adams
Smucker’s
Nestle
Lego
James River
Bath & Body Works
Pitney Bowes
Avery Dennison
Olympic Stains
Clorox
Lotus Asia Pacific
Strippit Punch Presses
Acme Electric
Pfizer

So why would a company called "New & Improved" do new product idea generation? You’re joking right? When you get right down to it, it’s a way for us to have lots of fun while using the best of everything that we do in a pressure-cooker laboratory. Sort of a Dr. Frankenstein meets the Wizard of Oz meets Willy Wonka kind of laboratory. The results of our innovation teams are sometimes wacky, sometimes wondrous, generally polarizing and always have the potential for success in the marketplace. And in the process (sort of a "now 33% more free!" style bonus) people who work with us during these sessions learn some new tricks to take back to their lives. To make them new and improved. And hey, that's our middle name, right? Well, you know what we mean.