4 What advice would you give Monica? ‘Most people see the snack market as dynamic and innovative, but actually it is surprisingly conservative. Most of what passes for product innovation is in fact tinkering with our marketing approach, things like special offers, promotion tie-ins and so on. We occasionally put new packs round our existing products and even more occasionally we introduce new flavors in existing product ranges. Rarely though does anyone in this industry introduce something radically different. That is why project Orlando is both exciting and scary.’

Monica Allen, Technical Vice-President of PJT’s snack division, was commenting on a new product to be marketed under PJT’s best-known brand ‘Dreddo Dan’s Surfer Snacks’. The Dreddo Dan’s brand made use of surfing and outdoor ‘action-oriented youth’

imagery, but in fact was aimed at a slightly older generation who, although aspiring to such a lifestyle, had more discretionary spend for the premium snacks in which the brand specialized. Current products marketed under the brand included both fried and baked snacks in a range of exotic flavours. The project, internally known as Project Orlando, was a baked product that had been ‘in development’ for almost three years but had hitherto been seen very much as a long-term development, with no guarantee of ever making it through to market launch. PJT had several of these long-term projects running at any one time. They were allocated a development budget, but usually no dedicated resources were associated with the project. Less than half of these long-term projects ever even reached the stage of being test marketed. Around 20 per cent never got past the concept stage, and fewer than 20 per cent ever went into production. However, the company viewed the development effort put into these ‘failed’

products as being worthwhile because it often led to

‘spin-off’ developments and ideas that could be used elsewhere. Up till this point ‘Orlando’ had been seen as unlikely ever to reach the test marketing stage, but that had now changed dramatically.