UT Dallas Marketing Practitioners Conference 2010: Dr Brian Ratchford on NPD

Dr Brian T. Ratchford on Incorporating Subjective Characteristics in Product Design and Evaluations: Dr. Brian Ratchford, a Charles and Nancy Davidson Professor of Marketing at University of Texas at Dallas, shared his research on methods product developers may use to increase the likelihood of new product success. Consumers often use both objective and subjective criteria to evaluate a product. For example, power tool users may evaluate a power tool on the basis of not only its objective attributes, such as price and switch type, but also its subjective characteristics, such as ease of use and feel of the tool.

Dr. Ratchford explained how to incorporate subjective characteristics in new product design. The model has the form of a hierarchical Bayesian structural equation model, in which the subjective characteristics are treated as latent constructs. Ratchford described how the results suggest that by collecting additional information about consumers' perceptions of subjective characteristics, the proposed model can provide the product designer with a better understanding and a more accurate prediction of consumers' product preferences than the traditional conjoint models.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• NPD
• conjoint
• utdallas
• dr ratchford