This part of the book will present the validation of the Template theory and elaborate on some of its aspects. The presentation of the Templates alone may appear somewhat mystical to readers who may wonder about whether Templates prove superior in a more rigorous empirical examination, beyond the examples presented earlier. Understanding the theoretical grounds and the tests that challenge it should improve ability with and confidence in the implementation of the Templates. The empirical studies reported herein were published in Goldenberg, Mazursky and Solomon [1] and Goldenberg, Lehmann and Mazursky [2]. For readers unfamiliar with the statistical methods we are using who would like to learn more we recommend the following introductory texts:

Hair, J. F., Anderson, R. E., Tatham, R. L. and Black, W. C. (1998) Multivariate Data Analysis. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Lehmann, D. R., Gupta, S. and Steckel, J. H. (1997) Marketing Research. New York: Addison-Wesley. The structure of Part IV is as follows:

1. First we will present the distribution of Template-based ideas in successful new products. It turns out that 70% of successful new products in a variety of categories pertain to one or other of the Templates' structures.

2. Then we present the experiments, which indicated that individuals trained in the Template approach were able to elicit ideas that were superior to those elicited by individuals in various control groups.

3. […]