The launch of a new or altered product comes with both the opportunity for great success and equal chance of abysmal failure. Many firms spend inordinate sums of money on research and development for products, after such significant investment it is unsurprising that products are often launched or changed irrespective of sales projections. Often, a lack of conservative sales projections are over compensated with extensive campaigning.

However, in the words of Bill Bernbach, “A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster.”

The canny product manager now invests in consumer research before launching new products or altering existing ones, and the best way to conduct this is through a form of research known as Discrete Choice Modelling.