Question

Woo Audio is a small company in New York that makes high-quality headphone amplifiers. The company makes each amplifier by hand using premium audio components and vacuum tubes. Recently, the owner of the company noticed a trend in the headphone community toward using portable, high-quality headphone amplifiers. These new units combine a digital-to-analog converter with a high-power amplifier in a package small enough to put in a pocket.

Review the three-phase, eight-stage, new product development process:

• Phase I: Generating and Screening Ideas
  Stage 1: Generating New Product Ideas
  Stage 2: Screening Product Ideas
  Stage 3: Concept Development and Testing
• Phase II: Developing New Products
  Stage 4: Business Case Analysis
  Stage 5: Technical and Marketing Development
• Phase III: Commercializing New Product
  Stage 6: Test Marketing and Validation
  Stage 7: Launch
  Stage 8: Evaluation

Select one of the phases and explain how Woo Audio would proceed through that phase to develop a conceptual new product that will generate excitement in the headphone community.

Answer 1

Answer: Phase III Commercializing New Product

A) Test marketing and Validation: before launching a new product a testing is very much required by every business to debug the production process and in order to determine the actual cost of the product. Therefore, Woo should target the young audience of metro cities who falls in age between 16-40 as this group of audience use the product at most. the audience can be a music fan (musicians), gamer or i.t. guy ( who is interested in gaming and requires more high quality sound etc.). In testing process WOO should put more focus on the additional benefits the customer get by using this particular product instead of others. take the feedback from the customers and try to understand what they are requiring in their product. try to apply those results on the product, whether it is related to design, packaging, sound quality, the price etc.

B) Launch: launching of the product can be done on various platforms like facebook, twitter, instagram etc. the company can use various techniques to launch its product for example:

1 behind the scenes: the company can use some behind the scene videos and can upload it on its websites or on facebook, instagram, linkedin to create excitement and buzz for the product

2 Blog writing: the company can write some blogs about the product, its features, its USP to create a good and new customer base

3 Arrange contests: arranging for contests will create a buzz in the market

4 results from testing: you can test the products on some celebrities or media people and they can share their valuable positive feedback which will push the demand for the product

5 special events: use special events to launch your product

C) Evaluation: Evaluation is the most crucial stage. after launching WOO should re-value the products to identify the pros and cons of the product. the company should identify first who has bought the product so it should be clear that whether its target audience bought the product or not. what is the reaction of its competitors are the planning some more innovation or copying the idea, etc.