5.8.2 Consumers in marketing and production design

There can be some involvement of consumers with production as production builds up the product qualities for the production specifications, at the same time as they are involved in marketing design (Earle and Earle, 2000), as shown in Fig. 5.14.

The marketing design includes, together with the product:

     market information - market research and analysis, particularly the targets
        to be set for the launch and post-launch and the methods to monitor these;

     market channels and distribution - choice, control and development of
        market channels, transportation, storage;

     pricing - price range, relation of price to demand, margins,
        discounts, specialling;

     promotion - retailer and consumer promotion, advertising, public relations;

     sales - methods of selling, terms of sale, sales reporting, analysis
        and forecasting.

Consumers can be involved in several of these marketing decisions. There could be consumer surveys to predict the buying of the product, and from these the prediction of sales for the sales targets. The market channel must make the product available to the consumer at the right place, the right time, the right price and the right quality, so there is research on where the consumer buys the product, how often, and how they store the product and for how long. They can be involved in retail surveys and also in shelf-life trials.

Lack of shelf-life testing with consumers may show up as unwanted deterioration of the bought product in the household refrigerator. Shelf-life testing is usually done by a trained sensory panel using descriptive sensory analysis. The critical product attributes are measured over time and the changes in the retail outlet and the home storage are measured. The consumers set the acceptance levels of stored products and these tolerance limits are used as a guideline by the trained panel.

Often consumers are involved in promotional design, particularly in development of the visual material for sales promotion and the video/film for TV advertising. Focus groups or promotional consumers take part in developing the product image, slogans and educational material. Promotional material is tested with consumers to compare the various designs using measures for awareness and persuasion to try, and also to examine the clarity of the information about the product.