A key to business success lies in consumer-driven innovation. Rule
developing experimentation (RDE) is a systematized solution-oriented business process
of experimentation, which designs, tests and modifies alternative ideas, packages,
products, or services in a disciplined way using statistical design. RDE uses either
conceptual or physical prototypes. RDE applies to new product development, but can
apply to more general social issues beyond the realm of products. RDE stems from the
consumer-driven proactive approaches to structured experimentation, focusing on
consumer preferences. RDE as implemented on the concept level uses so-called partial
profile conjoint analysis. RDE’s test stimuli often comprise incomplete concepts or
vignettes created according to a specific type of experimental design (isomorphic
permuted experimental designs). RDE uncovers pattern-based latent segments, as well
as revealing the nature and magnitude of explicit and implicit interactions between the
pairs of stimuli that RDE studies (so-called synergism and suppression). RDE traces its
origins to experimental psychology, as enhanced through the driving power of business
and social science. When applied properly, the developer and marketer discover rules
and patterns defining what appeals to the customer, even in situations when the
customer can’t articulate the need, much less the solution.
Keywords: Consumer-driven innovation, consumer preferences, new product
development (NPD), experimentation, rule developing experimentation (RDE),
conjoint analysis, experimental design, regression analysis, fractional experimental
designs, individual designs, dummy variable regression, incomplete concepts,
interactions, pattern-based segmentation.
