Concept Development
This article covers meaning & overview of Concept Development from marketing perspective.
What is Concept Development?
Concept development is one of the steps in the new product development. After idea generation and screening, concept development is the detail version of idea, explained keeping in mind consumers’ needs. Which section of customers can be targeted, who will buy this, etc. are some basis for concept development. It is a process to ensure how you want the customers to perceive your product or service in the market.
Whenever a company wants to introduce new product in the market, it goes through the process of new product development. There are eight stages in a new product development: Idea generation; Idea Screening, Concept development and testing, marketing strategy development, product development, test marketing, technical implementation and commercialization
There can be many concepts for the product. One need to find out the best one which can strike customers’ mind. The concept should be simple, well-articulated and impressive enough to convince consumers to buy it. The whole purpose of concept development is to provide a convincing answer to the question – Why should I buy this?
A good example is Subway. There is a perception that subway food is healthy and fresh. Their tagline says ‘Eat Fresh’. So the concept developed was of healthy food which is quite successful.
Another example where concept development backfired is Tata Nano. It was presented as the cheapest car in the world. Although it gained initial hype for being the cheapest but it couldn’t convert into as much sales probably because of being ‘The cheapest car’ in Indian market where cars are also seen as a part of status symbol.
Product concept should not be confused with the product image. Concept is what the marketers what the customers to think about the product while image refers to what the consumers actually think about the product. There can be a gap between the two.
Hence, this concludes the definition of Concept Development along with its overview.
Browse the definition and meaning of more similar terms. The Management Dictionary covers over 1800 business concepts from 5 categories.
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