The idea grid helps to determine a product’s potential market by placing it in a coordinate system. The quadrants of the coordinate system query aspects such as price as well as thinking and feeling.
We tend to see a complex entity as a whole or unity. We talk about a “good business” or “stable market” and overlook the fact that it is actually a mesh of individual aspects.
It is necessary to decompose the individual processes in order to understand their relationship to each other. The idea grid is perfect for this.
Richard Vaughn, director of research at advertising firm Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB) developed the FCB grid in 1978. The parameters he established are: high engagement (expensive products), low engagement (inexpensive/ordinary products), thinking (products with rational/numerical connotations), and feeling (products that satisfy emotional needs).
The four FCB grid quadrants of this coordinate system are…
Top left: high commitment/thinking
Bottom left: low engagement/thinking
Top right: high engagement/feeling
Bottom right: low engagement/feeling
Place your product on the grid by researching both the product itself and its potential market. For example, life insurance would be placed on the top/left, while insect venom could be displayed on the bottom/left and carnival costumes on the bottom/right.
Once the product is placed, you have a good foundation for generating new ideas. The figurative language of such a classification in the grid is immediately intuitively understood.
The FCB Grid allows you to,
– Identify “niches” in the existing market for your product
– discover a new need
– design an advertising strategy
– Reposition your product
