 Hi, welcome. My name is Dr. Marcy Stone, and this is Unit 1, Introduction to Consumer Behavior of your Consumer Behavior Course. This course has 10 units. So the first unit is Introduction to Consumer Behavior. These are the Unit 1 learning outcomes. Explain how consumer behavior is a process. Assess how consumers use products to help them define their identities in various situations. Identify why marketers need to understand the once needs and desires of different consumer segments. Explain why the design of a product is a key driver of its success or failure. Why are learning outcomes so important? So every learning outcome ties back to the course materials and your content. And this includes your assessments and also your test preparation. Here are the Unit 1 overview topics. We have the consumer behavior process, defining consumer identities, understanding once needs and desires of the consumer, and we have product design, success and failure. These are the vocabulary terms for this unit that we're going to be talking about in this presentation. All right. So first we have the consumer behavior process. The actions and decisions that a consumer goes through during the buying process is called consumer behavior. And this is one of the foundations of marketing. Understanding the consumer behavior means that you understand your specific target market and why they wanna buy your product. By understanding consumer behavior and a consumer's buying behavior, you can better understand how to market a product or brand. The decision-making process that a buyer undertakes before, during, and after a purchase is called buying behavior. The more aligned marketing is with consumer behavior and buying behavior, the higher customer satisfaction and potentially customer loyalty will be. When a consumer decides they need a product or service to solve a problem, they will begin information processing to determine how to resolve the issue. This is the process of gathering information to make an informed decision. It might include reading reviews, watching review videos about the product or service, or reading information on the brand website. Okay. So this shows the consumer decision-making process. So first they recognize they have a problem that needs to be solved. Then they go through a search to see how to solve that problem and then what products might help to solve that problem. And maybe they have to compare during that. They might have to look at all of the different options that are out there and then try to make a decision. So then you have identification and evaluation of alternatives. So you go through this process and you look at your alternatives and try to see, are they pretty much the same product or are we looking at products that all do the same thing and maybe if you have different features and then do which features are you most concerned with or is the consumer most concerned with? And then they make a purchasing decision and order the product. And then you have your post-purchase behavior which maybe that they're really excited and they review about it or it may be that they returned the item. So that might be another option. So when we're looking at this decision-making process it can either be really complex or really simple. So for less expensive items, it's usually pretty simple. If someone's deciding when I'm hungry, I need food and they know they're gonna spend $10 or $20, it's probably a quick decision. But when you're looking at higher-priced purchases like a car or a home, it becomes a little bit more complex and each one of these stages takes more time. Okay, so how consumers feel about themselves determines their needs and those needs reflect their purchasing decisions. A consumer may believe that a product will help to make their life easier or help them to better define themselves. This will help the consumer to develop their identity and determine who they want to be. So this information is useful when you're developing a marketing strategy for a product, a service or a brand. So for example, some consumers believe that they need to have the latest technology on the market and have the ability to explain features and benefits to their networks of friends and acquaintances. While other consumers are okay with having similar technology that is several years old, the differences between these two consumers may affect how a product is marketed. A consumer who wants the latest technology will be more effective by a commercial that shows new or the latest features by understanding different types of consumers and their identities. You may be able to focus advertising on your specific target market. After the target market has been defined, the marketing process needs to be completed and this includes collecting data about the market, analysis planning and also implementation. In marketing, it's important to understand self-concept and consumer identity before creating a marketing strategy. Self-concept may include a consumer self-image, self-complexity and self-esteem. Consumer identity requires that focus is placed on their needs, their wants and their desires. When a consumer identifies themselves with a product and cannot imagine a time without that product, then it becomes part of who they are and their identity. One such example is when a consumer cannot live without their cell phone. When a cell phone becomes a device that they're constantly connected to, it becomes part of their identity and some marketing may guide the consumer to understand their own needs and wants. Okay, so now we're gonna talk a little bit about product design. So the perpetual process of a consumer may include conducting and organizing research and how they interpret that information. A consumer goes through these stages during the buying process to help them make a more informed decision. Good product design can be seen almost immediately and many consumers will buy a product as a result. This might include a product design that is unusual or has an attractive color or style. When designing a product, the consumer and how they might use the product and how they might be attracted to the product and then the design are all taken into consideration. In marketing, there are also unsuccessful product designs and product fit design failures. And these are more important to consider when you're developing new products. An example of this is the hoverboard which had numerous safety issues and an overwhelming recall that included the product catching fire. These type of design issues can destroy a brand. So before promoting any product, it's important to test it with consumers first. All right, so here are some steps in good product design. So first you're going to evaluate opportunities, select the best product idea, you're going to get feedback to look at how to refine that idea. Then you want to make sure that the product performs and appeals to consumers and that it's something that they may want to buy. And then you look at designing with manufacturing in mind. It's something to consider because depending on how hard it is going to be to manufacture, obviously your costs go up or they can come down depending on how hard, difficult or easy that is. And then you want to build and test any prototypes and then you want to ramp up production and run market tests. Obviously, we just talked about the hoverboard and all of the safety issues that they had may have just been ignored thinking, oh, most people that use this will be fine, which is not what happened at all. But, and then finally, once you've run through you've done all of your tests and you make sure that it is safety, it is a safe thing to sell. And then you make sure that the market tests are out there, you make sure that the consumers that have tested it actually like it or even take into consideration their feedback to make any changes or alterations. And then you would launch the product at that point. All right, so again, here are in conclusion your unit one learning outcomes. So we looked at how consumer behavior is a process. We looked at how consumers use products to define their identity. We also talked about why it's important to understand once needs and desires of different consumer segments. And then we looked at product design as well. All right, what's next? So unit two is on the consumer learning process. My name is Dr. Marcy Stone and I just wanted to say thanks for listening.