This week, I started my research by Googling “what percentage of new products fail”. The featured snippets in search showed 80%. In other words, if you launch a new product, it will most likely fail. Some flops are now part of pop culture (Crystal Pepsi), some were just too “avant garde” (McDonald’s Arch Deluxe), others were painfully annoying (Windows Vista), and others just plain out dangerous (Samsung’s Galaxy s7). As it turns out, lack of preparation, speedy research & development to launch early and even sabotage from a competitor are all factors that contributes to most products failures. Good market research has always been a way to help with the preparation of a successful product launch. Nowadays, social media can replace old school focus groups in most companies and reduce the number of missed product launch, turn around quickly to avoid a disaster – or become Internet famous for the wrong reason.

A powerful component of social media from a business perspective is the ability to listen to what consumers are saying. Social listening technologies are available to track conversations around specific phrases, words or brands. As a result, companies are able to identifying new opportunities that may not have been on their radar, and many are responding with innovative product development or design. Twenty-five years ago, it would have been costly and time consuming to gather focus groups in order to gain feedback. But today, this valuable market information can be gathered in a matter of minutes—assuming of course that people are in fact talking about your brand. The food industry is a specific sector where product development is critical to success. There are a number of reasons why this specific industry is constantly creating new products or innovating existing ones. I chatted with my colleague, Karen Proper, who is a technical manager in the product and process development department at NSF International to gain more insight on this topic. Karen and her team work with clients in the food and beverage industry to help bring a product concept to life, overcome production challenges or to innovate an existing one. When asked why product development is so integral to business, especially in the food industry, Karen replied, “Product development keeps companies competitive in the marketplace, compliant to regulations, able to react to ingredient and manufacturing process changes, and also responsive to trends and consumer demands—all of which are critical to success in the food industry today.”