Preliminary Idea Evaluation
Market Survey-
When told that we had to survey 15 people that have ties to children snacking about our 10 ideas, thoughts ran through my head like “Do I even know 15 people total?” and “I’ll probably just sleep at Target for a couple days and try to get people to take my survey”, until I realized that my mom was an elementary school teacher, with friends who could all take my survey, and would all be willing to reach out to their friends to take the survey as well. All this ran through my head until a minute later we were told if we needed to we could also use mechanical turk and survey people. Being the nerd that I am, when we learned about mechanical turk in my computer science class I was beyond interested in what the whole idea behind it was and how exactly it worked. So obviously I had to go with the idea of using mechanical turk, and let me tell you, the results were very interesting. Everyone I surveyed gave sufficient results, so in return they were all paid $.05, but if they hadn’t given sufficient results I had the option not to pay them. Also, it only took about 2 hours to gather data from 15 people that were surveyed, which I thought was very quick and efficient. Okay, enough of my newfound obsession with mechanical turk, here are the questions that I posed in my survey along with the link to my google survey that I attached on mechanical turk with a statement letting people know that they had to be parents with children between ages 5–15 to take my survey. I am not exactly sure how mechanical turk works, but I also put that in my description for HITs (the people who take the survey), so I’m assuming that they actually had to fit into the qualities I had to take the survey.
Would you purchase the Puzzle Piece crackers if they were on the market? If yes, put the amount of money you would pay for an average sized snack bag of them, if no just put “no” in the answer box.
Would you purchase the School Of Fishies pull apart fruit snacks if they were on the market? If yes, put the amount of money you would pay for an average sized snack bag of them, if no just put “no” in the answer box.
Would you purchase the Circle of Goldfish that are stackable like Pringles if they were on the market? If yes, put the amount of money you would pay for an average sized snack bag of them, if no just put “no” in the answer box.
Would you purchase the Goldfish and Juicebox all in one if they were on the market? If yes, put the amount of money you would pay for an average sized snack bag of them, if no just put “no” in the answer box.
Would you purchase the 50 States Pasta if they were on the market? If yes, put the amount of money you would pay for an average sized snack bag of them, if no just put “no” in the answer box.
Would you purchase the Vegetable Building Playground Set if they were on the market? If yes, put the amount of money you would pay for an average sized snack bag of them, if no just put “no” in the answer box.
Would you purchase the Gopher Shaped Cheese Snacks if they were on the market? If yes, put the amount of money you would pay for an average sized snack bag of them, if no just put “no” in the answer box.
Would you purchase the Fruit by the Foot Tape Dispenser if they were on the market? If yes, put the amount of money you would pay for an average sized snack bag of them, if no just put “no” in the answer box.
Would you purchase the new Goldfish container if they were on the market? If yes, put the amount of money you would pay for an average sized snack bag of them, if no just put “no” in the answer box.
Would you purchase the squeeze carmel fork for apples if they were on the market? If yes, put the amount of money you would pay for an average sized snack bag of them, if no just put “no” in the answer box.
Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1urxVQv_Kwd4cDAexwks4XKGaBrS3waQsoySFE3ehAGk/viewform?usp=send_form
Market Survey Data:
For the data, I decided to make two graphs. One showing how many people said they would buy a certain product, and another showing how much they would pay for an averaged size bag of them. For the second graph, I only used the result if they said yes, meaning they indicated a price they would pay for the product. What I mean by that, is that if the person said “no” to buying the product, I didn’t put that they would pay $0, rather I just didn’t include that part of the data in my second graph because the fact that they weren’t going to buy it would be shown in the first graph. Here are my results:
Top 5 ideas:
When deciding which 5 top ideas to choose I had to take into consideration both the amount that people would pay for them if they were a product, and the willingness to buy the product. After weighing the options, I finally decided on the top 5, basing my decision off of the top two picked for the first graph, the first one picked for the second graph, and the last two based off of a combination of the two graphs, picking ones that didn’t have great results, but still pretty good results, in both of the graphs. These are the top 5 ideas:
Benchmarking 2X2s and Patent Search:
Squeeze Caramel Fork:
The most relevant patent I found on the Squeeze Caramel Fork was a Caramel Squeeze Bottle in which the nozzle and chamber is designed to take into account the pressure of the user’s hand, but also use gravity and the pressure in the chamber to help make caramel come out of the nozzle which makes it so that the user doesn’t have to apply too much pressure to the bottle. This is relevant for the caramel squeeze bottle part of the Squeeze Caramel Fork.
School of Fishies Fruit Snacks:
The most relevant patent I found was how to mold fruit snacks using a vacuum and fruit juice concentrate. This patent is related to the School of Fishies Fruit Snacks in that it molds fruit snacks in a healthy way, and this would be a good way to mold all the fruit snacks together.
50 States Pasta:
The most relevant patent I found was a patent related to cutting pasta into all the same size shapes that are identical. This patent would be relevant for the fact that if the 50 States Pasta was invented, then there would need to be some way to mass produce a bunch of state shapes in an easy way that are all accurately shaped.
Gopher Shaped Cheese Snacks:
The most relevant patent I found was a patent related to how to manufacture things to be a certain shape and using a mold. This patent would be relevant so that then the Gopher Shaped Cheese Snacks wouldn’t only have the gopher shape, but could also be “etched” in with the face of the gopher.
Puzzle Piece Crackers:
The most relevant patent I found was a patent related to making a puzzle out of fruit snack pieces. The pieces are starch molded which makes them so that they are so exact in how they are shaped. This patent is relevant to the idea in the fact that it is a way to snack and also a puzzle, similar to the Puzzle Piece Crackers.
Feasibility Concerns:
The Squeeze Carmel Fork could have some issues with stickiness, since carmel can be very sticky. However, if the carmel package was removable and replaceable, then this problem could be solved.
The School of Fishies Fruit Snacks could have some issues with getting stuck to each other when they are put in a package. This could be solved if they put it in a package that was straight.
A concern with the 50 States Pasta is how exactly pasta could be made into state-like shapes, and still stay in that shape when they are cooked.
The Gopher shaped cheese snacks might be banned in states like Wisconsin and Iowa, but that’s okay because Gopher fans would love them!
The Puzzle Piece Crackers could have some issues if the packaging was bags because if they cracked and/or broke, then the puzzle wouldn’t be completed.
Personal Statement:
Squeeze Carmel Fork would be an interesting and new product for Annie’s. It would be able to be healthy since kids would eat it with apples and other fruits, but it would also be a slightly different direction than Annie’s normally takes, which would bring some new customers in since they would be interested in this novel way of putting carmel on an apple and other fruits.
The School of Fishies fruit snacks is the perfect fit to Annie’s mission, using healthy ingredients and making snack time fun and also not messy.
The 50 States Pasta would be idea for Annie’s users because not only would it be a fun shape of pasta that could be made with healthy ingredients, but also an educational way for children to review their 50 states if they wanted to.
The Gopher Shaped Snacks would be ideal for Annie’s users especially in Minnesota! They would be fun and shaped, and would also be easily made with healthy ingredients.
The Puzzle Piece Crackers would work well for Annie’s users because they could be made with the same healthy ingredients most Annie’s products are made with, but they would make children happier because they would be more fun to play with.
