Tobacco Documents Online

0 CONFERENCE OBJECT IVE L : • To BRING KEY MARKETING AND PRODUCT APPLICATIONS THINKERS TOGETHER IN A SITUATION WHICH IS SUFFICIENTLY CREATIVE TO STIMULATE GENUINELY INNOVATIVE'PRODUCT BASED PROJECT IDEASs .BUT SUFFICIENTLY STRUCTURED TO EXAMINE THESE IDEAS AGAINST REALISTIC TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY AND RARKETABILITY CONSTRAINTS- C~ P~ C~ CO ClibPDF - www.fastio.com

L]ST OF PARTICIPANTS BOB BEXON TED PARRACK IAH ROSS MIKE SCOTT IMPERIAL TOBACCO LIMITED, CANADA BROWN.AND WILLIAMSON, U~A SUOMEN TUPAKKA, FINLAND B-A-T. UK Z E, ENGLAND (} MAURICIO WURMSER GEOFF BROOKS TABACANARIA, CANARY ISLES MARKETING DEPARTMENT, MILLBANK DAVID CREIGHTON ROB FERRIS (CONVENOR) PRODUCT APPLICATIONS GROUP, GR & DC PRODUCT APPLICATIONS GROUP, GR Z DC COLIN GREIG : PRODUCT APPLICATIONS GROUP, GR & DC TAJ HIRJI PRODUCT APPLICATIONS GROUP, GR & DC I i • -,--=..lb; {:}-w .c~ r,.,,l • f,,j ClibPDF - www.fastio.com

. !" .I 0 • BACKGROUND AND CONFEHENCE STRUCTURE |ha~ are ~he distinguishing features of & commercially applicable product project? It is generally accepted that, given any set of potentially Lpplic&ble projects, decision makers are capable of prioretising such a set against the crl%erion of 'degree of commercial applicability'. What is less well understood is the nature of Judgements taken into account when making ~hat prioretisation. A good illus~ra~ion of this problem can he seen in RLD m I cultures. Any R~D culture generates & large portfolio of ! • projects, each of which exhibits a life cycle running from origination as & 'source' project generating information and fundamental understEnding of principles, through to deploymenE as an 'applied' project exploiting such information in product applications. The problem for R&D decision makers committed to the &ppllca~ion of H&D innovatlons to the product lies in reli&bly distinguishing 'applied' from 'source' projects and understanding the basis on which such dis~inctlons are made. GR&DC have attempted to resolve some of these problems by developing a systematic approach to evaluating projects and isol&tlng and defining the Judgements used in such evaluatlons. The method is called 'Strategic Project Selection' and was developed in late 1983. In this approach every discrete proJec~ within the R&D portfolio (70 projects in all) was subjected to a standardised examination of strategic objectives, anticipated constraints, criteria of success, anticipated applications etc. YollowlnE ~hls, several of the projects thus described were used in interviews with a small group of selected decision ma~ers wi~hln GR&DC. The interviews followed an established p~ycholo~ical approach in which suocesslve pairln~ of projects are compared and conErasted, with a view to drawing ou~ ~he implicit se~ of Judgements whlch ~he interviewee is usln~ ~o Justify & more global Judgement (i.e. that one proJec~ is ClibPDF - www.fastio.com

C~ perceived more commercially applicable than another). Typically it is found that ~he Judgement of commercial applicability for any one individual seems to res~ on a e~ructure of about 8 'sub Judgements' on average. These personal Judgement sets typically show quite a high degree of overlap within any team of decision makers. This establishes a foundation of consensus for the next stage of the method, in which the interviewees are brought together in a group session where ~he individual Judgement sets are reconciled to a commonly agreed &nd operationally defined set of Judgements all of which are agreed to con~ribuZe to the overall perception of 'commercial applicability*. The GR~DC Judgemental set appears as Appendix I~ illustrating the types of Judgement which were isolated in this particular application. The judeements are isolated as hi-polar dimensions, which means that they can subsequently be used as scales against which projects can be ranked or scored. In the final stage of the method all the projects constituting the GR&DC project portfolio were scaled by the group agains~ their agreed set of Judgemental criteria. This quantitative data was then analysed uslnE the principal components method familiar to DELTA evaluations. This technique had the advantage of illustrating: a) The contribution of particular 'sub Judgements' to the overall perception of 'commercial applicability'. b) The prioretisation of projects relative to this s~ruc~ure of Judgement. and in terms of perceived difference/similarity to one another. The utillty of this technique within the GR~DC context has been in the identification of product applications projects. The conference reported here represents an ex~ension of the technique to support a joint R&D/Marketing approach to: 0 Cr~ CXD C~ U~ i C l i b P DF~I ~'Y'~'[ to. Co'm

a) Generation of innovative product project propositions. ¢ D T b) Identification of a Jointly agreed set of Judgemental criteria reiating to perceived commercial applicability. e) Evaluation of the innovative propositions aEalnst the commercial applicability criteria. The conference represents a siEnificant further step in the commitment ~o get the most out of the R&D/Marke~inE interface, "particularly in terms of providing marketing relevant leads for R&D project activity. An obvious approach to uniting R&D/MarketinE thinking on the generation and evaluation of project leads is to brine selected HaD and MarketinE professionals together in discussion. The conference was therefore based on six iDternationally selected Marke~inE professionals and four members of GR~DC Produc~ Applications Eroup. Ell too often however, 'creativity' sessions fail throuEh lack of structured outcome, therefore GRaDC's experience with StrateEic Project Selection was incorporated into the structure of ~he three day conference. ( ! i r l I 0 CO CY~ C I JbPD'P"~- ~:,',? ~:/,~ ~:,~21 flq~s~ti"o ."Co~ll

STRUCTURED CREATIVITY : THE PROCESS This technique recognises that there are three stages to the Process of generating project ideas: . DATA ACQUISITION CONSTP~CTIVE CRITIQUE SYSTEUATIC ANALY3IS ATA A ulSITIO. (D Y ,I) Refers to the contributions which the delegates make to initi&te the process of structured creativity. In this case each individual made a formal, one hour presentation to the conference during the first da~. The timing was designed to allow sufflclent discussion time for points of clarification only at this stage. The presentations required considerable pre-work and were used as a means of Eeneratlng a number of concrete project ideas for the conference to subsequently work with. The Instructions tothe delegates, in preparing their presentation, were as follows: "The theme of your presentation must be a personal interpret&tiou of: a) The current tobacco marketing'scenario, it's key constraints, challenges and opportunities; b) A prediction of future market trends, directions, constraints, and opportuni~ies; c) A personal view of the current and future develop- ment of consumer needs, attitudes, and segments; d) Views on current and future product trends, needs and opportunities. The presentation should be structured in such a way as to end with tw__.So fully specified product project pro- pos&Is accompanied with reasonable specifications of product parameters, consumer relevance, market scenario and, ideally, target segment and communication strategy,m O CO Cr~ ClibPDF - www.fastio.com

These form~l presentations are reproduced in full within the volume which accompanies this report. CONSTRUCTIVE CRITIQUE (DAY 2) Refers to the subsequent process in which, after due time to 'incubate' the ideas presented in the papers, each contribution was re-vlslted and constructively examined by the group for technical feasibility, marketing possibilities, and any refinements/alterations to the basic idea° This stage resulted in an agr#ed statement for every project proposition specifying the s~rategic objective, constraints applying to its ~chievement, the product specification, the technical feasibility and the marketing strategy. SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS (DAY 3) Refers to the process of setting up a system of Judgements which can be used to evaluate the final outcome of the first ~wo stages. In thls case individual delegates were Intervlewed during the evenings of the first two days of the conference to systematically draw out the ~ypes'of personal judgement which they made when considering those aspects of projects which they felt contributed most ~o the probability that the proJec~ will succeed in commercial application. On Day 3, ~hese individual Judgement sets were consolida~ed ~hrough group discussion to a consensus se~ which was then used as a Judgemental framework against which the project ideas generated in Days 1 and 2 were evaluated° Eventual analysis was by principal components technique. o CO Cr~ C-I]-bPDF - www.fasti°.c°m

The conference is therefore designed both to generate project ideas, and to develop a system for their evaluation against a criterion of commercial applicability. The conference structure is as follovs:- e DAY ONE DATA ACQUISITION Personal present- atlons of project propositions. DAY ONE (EVE) INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEW8 DAY TWO CONSTRUCT IVE CRITIQUE Development of s=rategic objectives and consideration of feasibility. I DAY T~ (EWE) INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEW3 .-> DAY THREE 3YSTEMATI C ANALYSI S Agreement of a consensus set of Judgements. Scaling of project propositions against the judge- merit set. Analysls of resulZs. r~o cr~ co co ClibPDF - www.fastio.com

C I STRUCTURED CREATIVITY : THE OUTCOME • The Jud~emental Set All delegates were. subjected to a psychological interview conducted by the conference convenor either on the first or second evening of the conference. .These interviews, based on pairwise comparison of proje6t ideas, produced a total of 69 Judgements (an average of 8-9 Judgements per delegate, excluding the convenor and one delegate who had been interviewed on a previous occasion). To illustrate the diversity of Judgements identified as relevant to commercial applicability, this list of judgements is reproduced in full as Appendix II. It should be re-emphasised that these Judgements are 'bi- polar' that is, they represent dimensions with lo~ically opposite ends along which projects could be scaled or ranked to illustrate their relative posStions. It is apparent from Appendix II that there exists a high degree of overlap across individual Judgement sets, which contributed to the relative ease with which the group came to an agreed consensus set of Judgements on the final day of the conference. It is interesting to note that no fundamental differences in Judgemental structure emerged between those delegates with & Marketing, and those with a Product Applications background. The flnally derived set of Judgements was discussed to produce an agreed operational definition of what each term meant. This agreement on definition is mos~ important since any lack of precision at this stage inevitably leads to 'bending' of the Judgemental rules at later states when particular projects are being ev&luated. The Judgement&l set, with associated definitions, was finally a~reed as: cD. C~D ~UD ClibPDF - www.fastio.com

1. High V Low Behaviour&l Validation 'A measure of the evidence which exists to supporz & proposition, i.e. Evidence versus speculation, where hiEh - specific observed consumer beh&viour and low - inferential speculation.' 2. LarEe V Small TarEet Market 'The size of the target markeZ expressed in equation terms as the number of potenti&l markets X the projected size of each affected segment within those marke~s.' 3. Shor~ V LonE Lead Time ~o Manufacturability 'The time required to deslEn the product and develop the necessary technology in anticipation of scale production, There short = < 1 year, and lone - ~ 3 years.' 4. Easy V Hard to Communicate 'Ability to express the claim clearly within the constraints of the Eiven m&rket.' 5. High V Low ExZernal Risk 'The probability of provoking & siEnificant attack from external groups Yhich could undermine ~he ability of ~he company and industry to continue ~o operaZe profitably.' 6. Positive V NeEative Manuf~c~urerCos~ Impact 'A measure of ~he economic benefit ~o the manufacturer conslderlnE variable costs, fixed and semi-variable costs,. and asse~ utilisa~Ion°' w CD Co Cr~ Cr~ ClibPDF - www.fastio.com