Project Detail
Adobe: New Product Validation
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“Ed provided a cohesive set of research results that added insight into some key business decisions we made. He did so with professionalism, enthusiasm and with minimal management overhead.” —Thomas DeMeo Group Product Manager, Adobe |
Background
Adobe is the leading provider of products that help people and businesses communicate via digital imaging, design, and document technology. It recently launched Creative Suite, integrating Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, InDesign, and GoLive into a single install, to great success in the marketplace.
Business Problem
In early 2005, following this initial success, Adobe was looking to roll out follow-on versions of Creative Suite incorporating additional features and functionality. Adobe was at an early development stage for its second-generation follow-on product, and wanted to better understand the points of pain felt by key market segments and prioritize features to address those points of pain.
Solution
Adobe asked Callan Consulting to interview decision makers in organizations that fit a certain profile within five different segments of the creative professional market:
- In-house (corporate) design teams
- Ad agencies/design studios
- Magazine publishers
- Newspaper publishers
- Book publishers
Ed worked with Adobe’s new product development and research teams to more fully understand the research objectives, then drafted an interview guide for Adobe’s review and approval. Working with a combination of phone lists provided by Adobe and generated through his own means, Ed was able to complete in-depth interviews with 27 decision makers evenly distributed throughout the target segments.
Results
Based on the market understanding gained through these interviews, Ed created a final presentation that he delivered to Adobe’s senior product development and research teams. This presentation included a detailed characterization of the points of pain felt by these segments, the importance of creative professional software relative to other points of pain, and interest in new features to address these points of pain. The findings provided Adobe with important new insights into some of its key segments, and inspired Adobe to reprioritize some of the features it had been considering for the new offering.
© Ed Callan. All rights reserved. Client quotes used by permission.