Amazing changes in the retail marketplace over the last 15 years has created new, different obstacles to successfully launch a new product. Marketing romantics muse glowingly about the old days when there were supposedly multiple placement opportunities in every level of retail. True, there were. But on closer inspection, there are as many options now, if not more.

People and organizations are not usually open to change. Change is hard, requires a different thought process, imagination, flexibility. In the 1980