Assessing user adoption of a new-market disruptive innovation: The LUD (Learning-Use-Deprivation) framework

Innovation can be driven by optimization and improvement through existing product categories and actual market conditions (e.g., sustaining or incremental innovation). However, it can also be driven by a willingness to change the market, namely, the so-called disruptive innovation. While many approaches for the consumer evaluation of incremental and low-end disruptive innovations are available, tools for assessing the product performance and users’ perception and adoption of new-market disruptive innovations are still lacking. The LUD (Learning-Use-Deprivation) framework is a consumer home use test protocol consisting of three stages of time-based product evaluation, used to estimate users’ adoption of a new-market disruptive innovation. The latter is characterized by no clear market reference to compare with (no benchmark) and difficulty in the selection of a consumer target group (as non-consumers are generally targeted). Hence, traditional approaches to evaluation are inadequate and sometimes inappropriate. The LUD framework aims to overcome the limitations of the actual methods in assessing user perception, including sensory, functional, and affective (liking and emotions) aspects, by proposing a repeated exposure (learning and use stages) test, which also includes the evaluation of the product one week after the end of the exposure period (deprivation stage). The present paper describes the LUD approach and its application to a specific cosmetic industry case, a new stick shampoo, to test the effectiveness of the selected metrics (liking, emotions, learning measures, and sensory and functional properties) and to gauge the product's performance and validate its launch in the market. The approach has been found to be effective in testing a potential disruptive innovation, and it could be extended to other product categories (including food), providing information that can be used to validate the product or further optimize it. This information can also be used for communication and marketing purposes.