AMF, Inc.
A New-Product-Trial Case

Jane Mosbey sat at her desk wondering what he should say at the department meeting tomorrow. She had just received the market test concerning a new product the firm had recently purchased - Suregrip. The market research group would be making a thorough study of the results, but that wouldn't be ready for weeks. Jane knew everyone would be anxious to hear her preliminary evaluation of the new product.

The Product
Julio Tancredi was a retired chemist who once worked in 3M company's research and development department. His youngest son Mario was a gifted athlete who excelled at football as a wide receiver. Julio took great interest in his son's football career and began working on a substance that could be rubbed on the hands to increase gripping ability. This substance would increase the hand’s friction against leather considerably without being sticky and messy. Mario had used this substance throughout his college football career as well as many of his teammates. Mario commented that he would often make one handed catches that "just weren't possible without Dad's stuff!"

AMF
AMF was a fully integrated manufacturer and distributor of high quality athletic equipment. AMF enjoyed a reputation for having the best and most modern athletic equipment available and achieved distribution directly to school and professional teams as well as high quality sports specialty shops. The salesperson assigned to Mario Tancredi's college team developed an interest in this "Suregrip" product, and soon AMF offered Julio Tancredi an offer he couldn't refuse for the exclusive rights to produce and market Suregrip.

Market Test
As good as the product seemed, AMF didn't want to go national with the product without some testing to help it determine what share of the potential market this product could obtain. AMF was also unsure if it should price the product with traditional stickum substances or should charge a premium for the stick-only-to-leather quality.

A test was conducted for AMF using salespeople to give the product presentation to a number of their teams. The product was then offered at various prices to different teams and sales were recorded. Free samples were offered to other teams. Later the teams given the free samples, as well as those that purchased it, were asked how they liked the product, as well as if they would purchase it again. See Table 1

The Department Meeting
Jane needed a way to analyze this raw data in just a couple of hours so she could give some preliminary results to the department. She remembered something about the Parfitt & Collins model from a discussion with one of the newly hired MBA's and dug out the diskette that the new-hire had given her.