Chapter 16

Consumer Behavior and

Product Strategy

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2005 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Product Affect and Cognition
• Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction
– Consumer satisfaction is a critical concept in
marketing thought and consumer research
– The most current formulation to studying
satisfaction is the expectancy disconfirmation
with performance approach
• The degree to which a product’s performance
exceeds the consumers’ expectations

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Product Affect and Cognition cont.

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Product Affect and Cognition cont.
– Prepurchase expectations
– Postpurchase expectations
– Disconfirmation
• Positive
• Negative
– Dissatisfaction
• Neutral
– Balancing paradigm alternative

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 Product Behavior
• Product contact
– Types of occurrences
• Brand loyalty/variety seeking
– Four categories of consumer purchasing
patterns based on the degree of cognitive
commitment and number of brands purchased
in a particular period

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Product Behavior cont.

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 Product Behavior cont.
– Brand loyalty is an intrinsic commitment to
repeatedly purchase a particular brand
– Distinguished from repeat purchase behavior
– Variety seeking is a cognitive commitment to
purchase different brands because of such
things as
• Stimulation involved in trying different things
• Curiosity
• Novelty
• Overcoming boredom with the same old thing

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 Product Behavior cont.
– Differentiating variety seeking from derived
varied behavior
• The degree to which consumers are brand
loyal or seek variety can be viewed as a
continuum
• Marketers need to be concerned with the
usage rate of particular products by various
target markets and consumers

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 Product Behavior cont.
• Attracting brand-loyal customers is most valuable
when the consumers are also heavy users

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 The Product Environment
• Product-related stimuli that are attended to
and comprehended by consumers
• Product attributes
– Major stimuli that influence consumer affect,
cognition, and behavior
• Packaging
– Should protect the product as it moves through
the channel to the consumer

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The Product Environment cont.
– Should be economical and not add undue cost
to the product
– Should allow convenient storage and use of the
product by the consumer
– Can be used effectively to promote the product
to the consumer
– In some cases, packaging can obtain a relative
advantage for a product

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The Product Environment cont.
– Package sizes
• Can influence not only which brands are chosen, but
also how much of a product is used on particular
occasions
– Package colors
• Has been argued that colors have an important
impact on consumers’ affect, cognition, and behavior
• Has been argued that colors connote meanings to
consumers and can be used strategically
• Reported that consumer perceptions of products may
change with a change in package color

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The Product Environment cont.
– Brand identification and label information
• Simplifies purchase and makes the loyalty
development process possible
• For some products, label information can strongly
influence purchase

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 Product Strategy
• In the short run, new-product strategies are
designed to influence consumers to try the
product
• In the long run, product strategies are
designed to develop brand loyalty and
obtain large market shares

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 Product Strategy cont.
• A critical aspect of designing product
strategies involves analyzing consumer-
product relationships
• Characteristics of consumers
– Vary in their willingness to try new products
– Different types of consumers may adopt a new
product at different times

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Product Strategy cont.

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 Product Strategy cont.
– Five categories of adopters
• Innovators
• Early adopters
• Early majority
• Late majority
• Laggards
– Major focus of consumer research has been to
identify the characteristics of innovators and
their differences from other consumers

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 Product Strategy cont.
– Innovators tend to be heavy users of other
products within a product class
• Characteristics of products
– Compatibility
• Degree to which a product is consistent with
consumers’ current affect, cognition, and behavior

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 Product Strategy cont.
– Trialability
• Degree to which a product can be tried on a limited
basis or divided into small quantities for an
inexpensive trial
– Observability
• Degree to which products or their effects can be
sensed by other consumers
– Speed
• How fast the benefits of the product are experienced

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 Product Strategy cont.
– Simplicity
• Degree to which a product is easy for a consumer to
understand and use
– Competitive advantage
• Degree to which an item has a sustainable
competitive advantage over other product classes,
product forms, and brands

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 Product Strategy cont.
– Relative advantage is a most important product
characteristic not only for obtaining trial, but
also for continued purchase and development of
brand loyalty
– In some cases, a relative advantage may be
obtained through technological developments
– At the brand level it is often difficult to maintain
a technological relative advantage

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 Product Strategy cont.
– Product symbolism
• What the product or brand means to the consumer
and what the consumer experiences in purchasing
and using it
– Marketing strategy
• Quality
• Promotion
• Price
• Distribution

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 Summary
• Investigated some product-related affect,
cognition, behavior, and environmental
factors
• Explored several aspect of product strategy
• Product affect and cognition were discussed
in terms of consumer satisfaction and
dissatisfaction

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 Summary cont.
• Discussed the analysis of behavior in
looking at product contact and brand loyalty
• Emphasized several strategies based on
relationships between brand loyalty and
usage rates
• Product attributes and packing were among
environmental factors examined
• Discussed product strategy

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