May/June 2009, Marketing Management
Innovate with Balance; With the Right Mixture of Your Company’s and Consumers’ Needs, Everyone Wins
Today’s economic environment is the perfect stimulus to refocus marketing resources on the priorities with the highest potential. Referring to proprietary research, Barry Curewitz explains current business dynamics with regard to new product identification and development and offers simple suggestions to improve the process.....Read more.....
April 2009, BETTER MANAGEMENT Webinar
Stop Spinning Your Wheels and Wasting Resources!
Strategic Focus, Innovation and Prioritization are Critical for Success. Marketers in today's economy and business environment face steep challenges. Just a few years ago marketers were directed by management to "double the business" in the next five years. Now, we're all just trying to stay afloat and maintain where we were last year. The problem is, not only is the external environment making it a challenge, but the internal, corporate world each of us operates in adds an increased level of complexity to our day-to-day management of the business....View webcast....
April 2009, Inventors Digest
5 Questions with Barry Curewitz
Barry Curewitz discusses his philosophy to new product development, why product concepts should “tell” a story rather than “sell”, the recession’s impact on innovation, what he views as the most promising areas of innovation and the growth potential behind “open innovation”.....Read more....
January 2009, Chief Marketer
Consumer Loyalty is Still Every Marketer’s Goal
Relying on proprietary consumer research involving nearly 700 respondents, Barry Curewitz demonstrates how filling consumer needs with a unique product can result in business growth with a loyal following. Splenda, the low-calorie sweetener from Johnson & Johnson, is the perfect case study of how to enter a mature category and quickly become the dominant player.....Read more...
November 2008, Advertising Age, CMO Strategy
You Call That Innovation? New Survey Shows Consumers Value Unique Products — Not Just Line Extensions
As reported in Advertising Age....”It’s comforting to think that we and our competitors can just hunker down to ride out this economic tsunami and land roughly where we were when it began. But as everyone struggles just to stay above water, now is exactly the time to redistribute resources to develop unique products.....”Read more….
December 2007, MarketingProfs
New Products: The Real Challenge is in Execution, Not Strategy
Every marketer envisions their own new product success stories. And, we fuel these stories with the accurate belief that we know strategically how to get there. So why aren’t we being interviewed by the Wall Street Journal? Executional issues are preventing us from becoming media darlings like the Swiffer or iPod. Read more….
October 2007, Advertising Age, CMO STRATEGY
Want New Products That Get Noticed? Change Your Approach:
Adding Creativity to the Process Will Lead to Differentiation
Today’s marketers have clearly defined strategies for achieving their brand goals. But, how they develop new products is hindering their achievement. Whole-Brain’s industry survey, “Creativity in New Products, A Reality Check” proves this out. Read more….
November 2006, MarketingProfs
The Power of a Great New Product:
How LeBron James Rescued the NBA Brand
In this recounting of real-life scenarios, Whole-Brain partner Alan Sharavsky draws a relevant comparison between the NBA’s latest new product success and how CPG marketers can learn from this example. Read more…
November 2006, Marketing Daily, On New Products
In the Fall of ’06, Whole-Brain partners Barry Curewitz and Alan Sharavsky were invited to write a series of articles focused on emerging trends in new product development. A total of four installments were submitted.
Creativity - David Bowie. Annie Lennox. Jim Morrison. Prince… When thinking about these disparate artists as brands whose styles and identities created millions of loyal fans (consumers), there’s a core commonality. They realized for their work to be heard, their music and performing personas had to be different. Not just good or polished, but distinctive. Read more…
Manage Expectations - If you’re having trouble achieving new product success, it may be time to stop looking to the marketplace for the rationale. When making plans for next year’s introductions, consider instead some lessons learned by other companies before committing to specific volume and share objectives. Read more…
Expand Brand Scope - As marketers assigned to a brand, we are but ambassadors of its equity. We don’t “own” the brand. We are charged with molding it, so it becomes more valuable to the corporation. Take a look at how P & G has grown their Pampers business and what you could do differently. Read more…
Making Big Leaps - Nowadays, companies are moving their research inside consumers’ homes, attempting to better understand how existing products fail to deliver the best experience possible. This practice is called ethnography, and it is here with a vengeance. Here’s how companies are discovering truly disruptive product ideas. Read more…
September 2006, Chief Marketer
How to Improve Your Product Concepts – and Your Concept Tests
Development and testing of product concepts is an integral part of the new product development and launch process. The Whole-Brain team explains how to develop better concepts and improve testing methodology. Read more…
May 2006, BRANDWEEK
Brand Expansion and the Art of War: What Marketers at Bazooka Joe and Junior Mints can Learn from Chinese Philosophy
Smaller brands are shown how they can “out flank” major behemoths through proprietary research completed by Whole-Brain specifically focused on the candy industry. Read more….
WHOLE-BRAIN HEAD-LINES
Periodically, we publish newsletters providing commentary on assorted business and brand development topics. Feel free to download those of interest:
Rich Consumer Insights Can Drive Growth, Getting Them is the Challenge. Read more…
New Product Success – It’s the Recipe and the Chef; Successful New Products Result from the Right Ingredients and the Right Touch. Read more…
Good Things Come in Small Packages; David uses Innovation to Compete with Goliath. Read more…
Innovation is Everyone’s Business; A Report from the Fortune Innovation Conference. Read more…
your new product efforts?
Barry@wbbe.biz (215) 752-3757