The lifeblood of many successful juvenile product companies is the regular introduction of innovative new products. Products have life cycles. At some point, whether because of new competitive entries or changing consumer tastes, sales of running items will start to tail off. So, if you want your sales to keep growing, and you’ve reached full distribution of your current line, you probably need to keep introducing new products to replace the tired old ones. Also, as I mentioned in an earlier post, it’s always safer to have a “diversified portfolio” of products rather than banking on just a few. Imagine then how much more successful your company could be if you could consistently generate a steady stream of great new product ideas year after year.

Many juvenile companies, even some larger players, rely heavily on submissions from outside sources or getting the US distribution rights for products found overseas. These are workable tactics and you certainly can be successful with those approaches. But, what if you didn’t have to depend on outsiders for great ideas? What if you could eliminate expensive royalties and limiting distribution contracts?

New product development is very much a numbers game. The more good ideas you can pour into the wide front end of the product development funnel, the more successful new product introductions will come out the other end. For consistency of quality and quantity year after year, you need a proactive idea generation process that keeps that funnel full of promising concepts. Here are some activities that could be part of your process to control your own new product destiny: 

·         Start with an understanding of your “corporate competitive advantage”. Before doing anything else, make sure you have a unique “superiority theme” that will run through all your products. For example, it might be exceptional durability, contemporary design excellence, superior facilitation of child development, state of the art technology, extended use for older ages, unparalleled convenience, or some other attribute that you can broadly apply. Having and consistently utilizing such a theme will both help you generate new ideas and help ensure their success in the marketplace.

·         Look for interesting products in the juvenile marketplace that would be even better if you put your stamp on them. This is one of the easiest and surest ways to generate new product ideas. If you have a sufficiently strong “superiority theme” (aka brand identity) of your own, you can succeed just by applying your secret sauce to a concept that already has shown traction with consumers. If you’re the “design aesthetics excellence” company, you could successfully compete by doing knock-em dead design versions of existing products. I’m not talking about “knock-offs”. That’s typically not a viable strategy. I’m talking about leveraging your unique brand strengths to create a product that is far more appealing to your target market than what the competition is offering. The reality is that often the company that first introduces a product concept is not the one that ultimately has the most success with it. What would be your brand’s version of that product is the actionable question.    

·         Immerse yourself in the consumers’ world and find ways to make their lives better. Every juvenile product company is in business for one purpose—to make the lives of new parents and their children better in some way. Parents perform multiple “processes” in their roles as caretakers—nurturing, feeding, bathing, grooming, educating, transporting, and so on. What if you approached new product idea generation as an exercise in parenting process improvement? What if you or your staff routinely observed how parents are performing these processes now and routinely looked for ways that they could do it with less stress, with more enjoyment, in less time, for less cost? Again, make sure you always look at things through your “superiority theme” lens. You’re bound to find ideas you can add to your list.

·         Proactively scan other marketplaces for new concepts that have juvenile product applications. One day a number of years ago, my wife came home from the supermarket with a new product for storing leftovers called GladWare. As you will recall, this Tupperware-like product was appealing because of its low cost and “semi-disposability”. Since my company was in the business of making cups, bowls, dishes, and utensils for toddlers, it occurred to me that there might be an application for this thin-wall injection molding technology in juvenile products. The Take and Toss line of products we developed quickly became by far our highest volume product group and is still highly successful today. Of course, it’s not necessary or desirable for you to wait for your wife, husband, or partner to bring home the stimulus for your next great creation. You and your staff could make a practice of doing periodic scans of new ideas and technologies in other fields. 

If developing successful new products year after year is important to you, you need to decide which techniques your company can best use to “mine for gold” and then apply them on a consistent basis. At The First Years, our marketing and design folks collaborated on idea generation using techniques like these as a part of their overall responsibilities. But, everyone in the company was encouraged to submit new product ideas and was recognized for it when they did. In future posts, I’ll be talking about how you can screen and enhance these ideas as they move through the product development process.   

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