Notes for Final Exam Kim s Model of the Forecasting Process Ch 8 Consumer Research Brannon Consumer Anthropology o Methods originally used by anthropologists to study primitive tribes or subcultures have been adapted to study consumers and buying behavior o Research helps companies understand motivators within a product category or the more specific motivators to buy a particular brand o Researchers interview teens in their rooms and look through their closets to understand individual taste o Install a video camera in the store o Researchers with a clipboard observe in store shopping behavior and may track how much time a person spends looking at displays scanning tracks or reading labels o Interested in establishing patterns Mall Intercept Research shoppers in a mall who satisfy the requirement Market research conducted for a client using consumers recruited from o Intercept customers in the mall Ask preliminary questions o Malls sometimes include a consumer research facility where studies are conducted for The study sponsor identifies particular characteristics for participants usually demographic categories such as gender age and income o Takes several weeks to design study negotiate with study site distribute the research companies materials o Participants usually offered a small incentive o Gain insight into customer preferences and how they differ according to location Qualitative Research Quantitative Research researcher conducts surveys or experiments with a group of consumers researcher listens to consumer talk or observes consumers in natural settings and reports findings as descriptions of consumer types or categories of behavior the sample in hopes of understanding something about a larger group the population with similar characteristics and reports such in numerical data Showcase or Laboratory Stores stores where mega niche and lifestyle brands can present their entire line as a billboard for the brand an educational environment for retailers on the latest in visual merchandising and a research site for gathering intelligence about what consumers want which products in the line are heating up and which cooling down and which packaging and promotional initiatives are most effective o Type of in store testing o Designers and manufacturers create showcase or laboratory stores that are museums to the product and offer a chance to present their entire line Test Store specialty store chains selling store labels designate certain stores as test sites o The test store is cleared of merchandise and reset with test merchandise o Business continues as usual Consumers are completely unaware that a test is underway o Type of in store testing less extensive approach than a test store is to plant test groups of Test Merchandise Group merchandise with ordinary merchandise o Type of in store testing Style Testing Pretesting styles with consumers to identify winners and losers early enough in the product development cycle to enable styles with low consumer interest to be eliminated from further development o Consumers sit in front of a computer screen and are asked to indicate preferred color styles etc o Speed Random Notes I found Important o Every forecast begins with the customer o Traditional product development is a Push System manufacturers and retailers push product toward the consumer production driven New styles introduced seasonally What doesn t sell is marked down Consumers chose from the abundance of available products and only participate by o Alternative product development is a Pull System consumers became more demanding Requires a continuous flow of consumer information to shape product consumer making a selection and independent driven o Demand activated product development by the late 1980s a strategy that uses information and manufacturing technology to efficiently product goods with maximum differentiation with low cost production selections with those of thousands of others on the Web a person makes selections Software matches person s o Collaborative Filtering Consumer receives customized recommendation that reduce search time The company learns about customer s preferences Ch 5 Consumers and Industry Fashion Innovation and Diffusion Accelerators Kim Blogs Web sites or parts of sites that contain ongoing commentary on products or topics contributed by a recognized or self proclaimed expert rather than by advertisers o Provide consumer created product information and advice Co design Mass Customization o Mass Customization hybrid of mass production and customization and is defined as the mass production of individually customized goods and services Permits customer involvement in both the design process and the manufacturing process Example Nike allowing you to design your own shoe High cost o Co Design variation on mass customization A product s design is based on the customer s sections from a range of design feature offerings The customer generally creates an individualized product design from a company s style fabric color surface design and size alternatives a growing economic class in which creativity is a key factor in professional roles Creative Class o Designers artists musicians writers scholars scientists entrepreneurs computer scientists engineers o Reflects the more confident consumer o Gives increased value to self expression individuality and creativity instead of conformity o This class has the desire and money to buy innovations Customer Made Movement experiences in close cooperation with experienced and creative consumers tapping into their intellectual capital and in exchange giving them direct say in and rewarding them for what actually gets produced manufactured developed and designed the phenomenon of corporations creating goods services and o May be totally new designs or modifications to current products such as the new flavors colors flavor names and graphics created in the Mountain Dew campaign or creating a new Lay s chips flavor Pluralistic Aesthetic simultaneously expressed styles accepted by the culture personal style is determined by the individual resulting in an array of o This pluralistic aesthetic helps drive innovation but at the same time it creates challenges for fashion forecasters because there is no single clear trend Rich Media images to simulate or surpass actual experience with the product consists of Web site features that enable creation and manipulation of product o Consumers can feel as if they re creating a