Can Kansei help new products?
Packaging Magazine
| April 10, 2003 |

NEW consumer products introduced in many market sectors are often not as successful as expected, even though they may be perfectly functional and reliable. Leeds was recently the venue for a seminar which reported on a recent mission to Japan to investigate innovative techniques that improve success rates for new product introductions - in particular new consumer packaging. The Japanese realised earlier than most that their product development methods did not reveal the insights into customers’ feelings that enabled emotional needs to be satisfied. As result they are developing and demonstrating methods and tools to overcome this, supporting the creation of products targeted to meet those aesthetic needs. They call this Kansei Engineering. The mission to Japan, sponsored by the Faraday Packaging Partnership and funded by DTI, aimed to explore these new methods and tools. Experience of the use of Kansei Engineering was sought from real life practitioners, including Asahi Breweries, Toppan Printing, Shiseido, Milbon, Seiko Epson and Mazda Motor, along with three universities - Hiroshima International, Shinshu and Tsukuba. On the trip were UK participants from Unilever, AstraZeneca, Masterfoods, Boots and Sainsbury’s, accompanied by Pira consultant James Colwell and two leading UK academics, Professors Tom Childs and Alan de Pennington