CHIEF SCIENTIFIC OFFICER

Product Concepts Before Their Time: An Intellectual Capital Asset?

Those of us in the consumer business have seen product concepts come and go often to be rediscovered by new brand managers. The time value of a concept has a fast-eroding value. Most advice in articulating new product concepts is to ignore the technical and regulatory barriers to entry and let your imagination fly. Yet another source of new ideas comes from imagining how technology might be adapted to a business or brand. The latter comes not from the consumer or marketer, but from those with a leg into current technology. In either case acceptance and investment into new products requires further at-risk development to meet consumer need and financial opportunity. But what if technology has not yet arrived or has evolved to underpin a great marketing concept? You might call this the “technology gap”. In my experience in consumer healthcare, I can recall three examples of such gaps. In all 3 cases as technology became available each of these concepts became actionable, albeit decades later.