The Decision-Based RDE MethodologyCustomer insights from hundreds of individuals over a day or two for less than the cost of a focus group!

© 2011 Judy Willis Marketing, LLC

RDE is a systematized, solution-oriented business process that designs, tests, and modifies alternative ideas, packages, products, or services in a disciplined way using experimental design, to discover what appeals to the customer, even if the customer can’t articulate the need, much less the solution.

Rule Developing Experimentation (RDE)

What is RDE ?

• RDE was developed by three professors at The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

• Aspects of RDE have previously been used during the past 25 years for the design and optimization of physical products, product development concepts, marketing communications, as well as packaging.

• RDE is the foundation for the new science of MindGenomics modeled on the emerging science of genomics and the technology of informatics.

• RDE has been effectively utilized over the years by many of Fortune 500 companies around the world.

Rule Developing Experimentation

What is RDE ?

The three roots of RDE:

1. Experimental Psychology - RDE is founded on the realization that perception and behavior are linked in a two-way exchange. RDE uses a variation of conjoint analysis as its statistical basis.

2. Driving Power of Business – A need to create new products and services that people like, doing so fast and inexpensively

3. The World-View of Social Science - RDE is related to a field called adaptive experimentation (AE), or adaptive management.

Rule Developing Experimentation (RDE)

What is RDE ?

Behavioral Segmentation- Product Usage- Brand Loyalty- AttitudesPsychological Segmentation- Lifestyle Type- Personality Type- Social ClassDemographic Segmentation- Age- Gender- Income

The Decision-Based RDE Methodology• Via the Internet, RDE tests systematically varied concepts as a

means to quantify the impact of the individual statements that make up the concepts.

• RDE analysis also focuses on the performance of each of the elements as well as the synergies between the elements. Elements that are related are arranged in groups of buckets called “categories.”

Cuts across traditional segmentation & decodes hidden preferences

What is RDE ?

• Utilizing the RDE optimization methodology, customers will evaluate a wide array of product features and benefits available to the client and establish a hierarchy of market impact.

The Decision-Based RDE Methodology

• RDE is a methodology executed via the Internet thattests concepts as a means of evaluating their systematically varied components (elements.) Rather than focusing on the performance of the full concepts, RDE analysis focuses on the performance of each of the elements.

• This is possible because any given element appears as a "free agent" within numerous concepts allowing the evaluation of each element (positive, negative or neutral) independently of all other elements.

What is RDE ?

IdeaMap® • Our flagship brand for concept testing, IdeaMap uncovers

what to say and how to say it - consumer “Hot Buttons.”

• Designed to help Clients identify the most compelling messages that drive consumer interest, purchase intent, etc.

• IdeaMap can evaluate up to 150 different elements including visuals, brand names, slogans, reasons to believe, etc.

• Develops a strategic understanding of what motivates all of your customers.– Identify what to say to current and potential customers

• Segments the consumer base using both demographics and attitudinal responses.

RDE Suite of Decision Tools

StyleMap®.Net• StyleMap is a proprietary research tool, which helps clients

distinguish their products and enhance its appeal with cost-effective packaging and advertising solutions.

• The technology identifies the characteristics that are most appealing to consumers and optimizes graphics in a user-friendly functionality

• A cost efficient way to manipulate physical product features before investing development time/resources, StyleMap uses computer based graphics as a basis for evaluation.

• It combines visual representation with verbal communication

RDE Suite of Decision Tools

ChoiceMap®.Net• This tool allows clients to place their

products and messages side-by-side with their competitive set to determine what pulls consumers in and what might inadvertently push them to the competitors.

• Essentially, it supplies the marketer with the ‘arithmetic of the consumer mind’, so targeted offers / messages can be rapidly and efficiently created that have a good chance to be chosen above competitors.

RDE Suite of Decision Tools

Technology Industry:

Issue: “What should we put into our products to make consumers

want to buy them?”Situation:• Competition was heating up – low cost Asian and

American competitors• HP’s culture was perceived as “outdated”

• HP faced sustained erosion of its position in the market despite the fact that its products were comparable, or even superior, to the products of its rivals

A Few Case Studies

Technology Industry:

How RDE Helped:• RDE pushed HP to see what was important

(What to say) and the right language to use (How to say it)

• RDE allowed HP to test and then optimize newmarketing and advertising promotions

• RDE “dissected” the consumer feedback on the relative value of the different elements of the value proposition

• RDE helped HP institute a rapid and inexpensive way to understand their customers’ minds

A Few Case Studies

Technology Industry:

Results:• HP used RDE to re-engineer its marketing

in terms of pricing, structured offers, and

rebate programs, and to rework its advertising and marketing

materials to appeal to a younger customer

• RDE provided a new focus for HP’s consumer marketing resulting in HP making two out of three PC World’s top-rated laptops

A Few Case Studies

Food & Beverage Industry:

Issue: “How do we create an authentic Italian pasta sauce in America?”

Situation:• Campbell’s wanted to enter the world of tomato pasta sauces - then

dominated by Ragu• Campbell’s was disappointed by the results on a taste test they ran• The problem was that the Company was not clear as to what customers

wanted in a pasta sauce (which is different than tomato soup!)• Focus groups had found that people would not leave the product intact –

they would make it their own by adding additional ingredients – their “personal interpretation”

A Few Case Studies

Food & Beverage Industry:

How RDE Helped: • Pasta sauce presented a “symphony of

characteristics:– Tomato flavor intensity– Texture– Types of inclusions and their flavor notes– Spiciness– Sweetness– Acidity

• Campbell identified these 6 ingredients as the drivers of “liking”, and RDE created 45 different combos of these ingredients to run in the study

• Ran the RDE study with a taste test in multiple cities with more than 300 participants and identified three clear consumer market segments

A Few Case Studies

Food & Beverage Industry:

How RDE Helped: • RDE determined that of the three consumer

market segments (regular/traditional, spicy, and texture); each could be won over by a sauce that scored 65 or higher on a 100 point scale

• RDE also found that consumers were suggesting “new” pasta sauces with more ingredients

• Prego introduced a line of pasta sauces – not just one – that addressed the three consumer market segments: regular/traditional, spicy and one with texture

• Of the three segments – the last one – Texture – was the most important. At that time there was no extra chunky pasta sauce on the market!

A Few Case Studies

Food & Beverage Industry:

Results:• The chunky pasta sauce category grew

• Ragu watched as Prego invaded its marketterritory – gaining market share as they grew

•Prego’s success “forced” Ragu to broaden their product line from a few pasta sauces to many, just to stay competitive

• RDE fundamentally changes the way the food industry thinks about making you, the customer, happy!

• And, in the original focus groups, no one ever said they wanted an extra chunky sauce – even though at least 1/3 of them, deep in their hearts, actually DID!

• Great example of how RDE decodes what people want, even when they don’t know what they want

A Few Case Studies

Financial Services Industry:

Issue: “How do we identify whatwe can say on a co-branded affinity card to support World Cup Soccer within 2 weeks time?”

Situation: • Market for credit cards is high and growing

• Competition to acquire spending customers is fierceamong card issuers

• Master Card and HSBC had to quickly identify what they could offer and what they could say and

categorize these into “silos” or “buckets” for RDE testing

A Few Case Studies

Financial Services Industry:

How RDE Helped: • RDE tested the final three visual designs

for the infinity card with thousands of customers over a 48 hours period

• RDE combined the visual elements of the card design into short test concepts (mix and match) and instructed customers to rate the different combinations

• RDE identified what each individual element actually contributed to the odds of someone acquiring the card – and at the level of each participant

A Few Case Studies

Financial Services Industry:

Results:• RDE helped MasterCard & HSBC quickly

test potential product attributes with thousands of consumers, combining messages into short test concepts (mix & match) and instructing consumers to rate the different combinations

• Using the results of RDE, the companies launched the co-branded card in one month, achieved year 1 expectations within month 1, and achieved twice as much in customer acquisitions as was originally planned

A Few Case Studies

• A process that reveals customer "hot buttons" to ensure you hit your target the first time.

• Studies that can be executed via on-line in almost any language.

• Top-line analysis and actionableresults that are available 24 hours

after the study concludes.

• Customer insights from hundreds of individuals over a day or two for less than the cost of a focus group!

What Can RDE Provide You?

What Are The Benefits?

You are able to:

• Create prototypes that answer the right questions, fast

• Get at the truths your customers don’t know how to tell you

• Streamline your research, and get actionable answers in just days

• Extend the findings value throughout the enterprise

• Use the fact-based results to inform strategic messaging, corporate communications, product and service development, competitive positioning, investor relations and more….

Want To Know More?

Contact Me:

Judy WillisPresident & CEOJudy Willis Marketing, LLC D: 678-613-2096jswillis2011@live.comwww.judywillismarketing.com

www.linkedin/in/judyswillis