Abstract:

The purpose of the exercise is to determine: 1. What are the gaps, the unfulfilled needs existing in a specific market which a new product could fulfil; 2. What the features of this new product should be; 3. To what segment of the market this new product should be directed; 4. Which of the competitors this new product would attack the most efficiently; 5. What the probable market share of the new product would be. The methods used for carrying out this research comprised: a) a multidimensional analysis aiming at segmentation the brands b) a clustering of the population c) a microanalytical SIMULATION model. The same type of research has been carried out simultaneously in two Western European countries. The results obtained enabled the launching of a new product which is presently an actual market test and whose achievements are very near to those foreseen by researchers.