My Blogs:
Professional Opinions
Deadpan Inc.

If the phrases consumer insight, benefit statement and reason to believe sound familiar, you're clued into the secretive world of new product development. For the past five years I have been honing my skills in the distinctive, highly precise style of writing required for product concepts for consumer testing.

I have written concepts for new house paints, financial products, insect control solutions, beer coolers, breakfast foods, breath mints and more. Unfortunately, non-disclosure agreements prevent me from showing you any samples of my work.

The key to this type of writing is thinking strategically about the key product benefit to be tested and then making sure that every word supports an understanding of how the product delivers that benefit, while zealously avoiding distracting ideas that can skew the results. It's harder than it looks.

While I'm always glad to participate in the ideation sessions, in many cases it's not necessary for writing the concepts. What is essential is sitting in on the final "debrief day" when the clients and moderators pare down the dozens of rough ideas to the 10-15 they want written up for testing. From that point on I will work with the illustrators to make sure the pictures are in sync with the descriptions, create product names and otherwise flesh out the ideas, participate in feedback discussions with the clients and revise the concepts until they're ready for testing.

In lieu of showing you actual projects, I will soon be posting "fake" product concepts that will illustrate my abilities. If you'd like to see those, drop me a line so I can let you know when they have been posted.

I'd like to hear what you think. What are you looking for in a concept writer? What do the good ones do right, and what do many writers often slip up on? Let me know.