PEOPLE AND PRODUCTS By examining the interface between consumer behavior and new product development, People and Products: Consumer Behavior and Product Design dem- onstrates the ways in which consumers contribute to product design, enhance product utility, and determine brand identity. With increased connectedness and advances in technology, consumers and mar- keters are more closely connected than ever before. Yet consumer behavior texts often overlook the application of the subject to product design, testing, and success. This is the first book to explore this interface in detail, exploring such issues as: • the attributes and qualities that consumers demand from products and services, and social and cultural forces to be aware of; • design and form and how they facilitate product usage; • technological developments and the ways they have changed how consumers interact with products; • product disposal and sustainability; • emerging and future trends in consumer behavior and product development and design. This exciting volume is relevant to anyone interested in marketing, consumer behavior, product development, technology, engineering, design, and brand management. Allan J. Kimmel is Professor of Marketing at ESCP Europe in Paris, France. He holds MA and PhD degrees in social psychology from Temple University, USA. He has published extensively in the fields of consumer behavior and marketing, including articles in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Psychology & Marketing, Business Horizons, Journal of Marketing Communications, and European Advances in Consumer Research. Kimmel introduces a key strategic alliance for the 21st century: consumer research plus product design. He builds a convincing case for this partnership through a delightful mix of intriguing examples, broad scholarship, and engaging insights. Russell Belk, York University Distinguished Research Professor and Kraft Foods Canada Chair in Marketing At last, a book that lives up to its promised title, People and Products: Consumer Behavior and Product Design, and delivers on it. Today, people drive products, brands and markets more than ever before and it is important that Marketing takes this more seriously. Yet, Marketing can still be, and often is, a “one way street” guised as a “two way” approach. This book draws upon examples to describe each element of the title and the ways these interact. I also like the per- sonalized, often 1st person narrative. This is a refreshing and educative read of modern-day Marketing. Philip Kitchen, Research Professor in Marketing, ESC Rennes School of Business, France PEOPLE AND PRODUCTS Consumer behavior and product design Allan J. Kimmel First published 2015 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Allan J. Kimmel The right of Allan J. Kimmel to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permission to reprint material in this book. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions of this book. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloging in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Kimmel, Allan J. People and products: consumer behavior and product design/Allan J. Kimmel.—First Edition. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Consumer behavior. 2. New products. I. Title. HF5415.32.K56 2015 658.8’342—dc23 2014034747 ISBN: 978-1-138-81224-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-81225-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-74891-7 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo Std by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK CONTENTS Illustrations vi Preface vii 1 People and products in an evolving marketplace 1 2 Technology and innovation in everyday life 50 3 Consumer demands and product usability 97 4 Product design and aesthetics 151 5 Consumers as active participants in the product design process 209 6 The future of things 255 Index 298 ILLUSTRATIONS Figures 1.1 The changing faces of the twenty-first-century consumer 6 2.1 A (somewhat incomplete) timeline of social media 58 2.2 An illustrative model of the new product development (NPD) process 66 3.1 Model of the motivational process 99 3.2 Model of the determinants of usability 105 3.3 The usability/efficiency demand cluster 109 3.4 The utility demand cluster 120 3.5 The desirability demand cluster 134 4.1 The multiple meanings of “design” 155 4.2 The Dyson DC01 cyclonic vacuum cleaner 158 4.3 Product form and life quality 163 4.4 Bloch’s model of consumer response to product form 165 4.5 Natural mapping and stove-top design 166 5.1 Collegene mask by MHOX 243 Tables 1.1 Rituals and associated customs and material artifacts 33 3.1 Millennial demands: research results 108 PREFACE As consumers, we are surrounded by a steadily increasing array of things. In indus- trialized societies, there seems to be more of everything—products, brands, services, companies, retail settings, websites, and advertising. In a world that is rich in objects, the choices are endless, for better or for worse. I’m not the first to point out that the world was not always like this. In order to avoid the obvious cliché, I won’t say that things were a lot tougher back when I was a middle-class child coming of age during the 1950s (a constant refrain of my parents’ generation), but I will say that, in retrospect, the marketplace was a lot simpler and less cluttered. Nonetheless, people seemed pretty content with what they had. I don’t remember anyone saying, “If only there were more brands,” or “Why aren’t there more things for me to spend my money on?,” or “When is the next version of my telephone going to be launched?” The possibility that color was on the horizon for television, and perhaps even a remote control, was enough to fuel wild speculation about how advancing technology was soon going to make our lives better. In the meantime, we toted our transistor radios to the beach, honed our skills at the hula hoop, practiced writing with our typewriters, and spun our 45 r.p.m. vinyl records on our hi-fidelity record players. Fast-forwarding to my years as a graduate student during the 1970s, I shake my head in amazement that I was able to complete my Ph.D. dissertation without owning a personal computer, having access to the Internet, or being able to use more sophisticated statistical tools than the rudimentary computer punch cards I had to tote over to the basement of the converted church/computer lab on the Temple University campus for analyses that were available the next day. The only real connection we had in those last years leading up to the digital revolution was a library card. But that is the way things got done for generations of doctorates that preceded me—and, with the exception of my contemporaries, without the punch cards. These sorts of observations help us recognize that people seem to have an uncanny ability to get by with what they have. viii Preface Needless to say, things are a lot different today. For the contemporary teen, the Internet has always existed, devices have always been portable, mobile phones have always been pervasive, and technology is always evolving. Consumers in general now must tolerate only a short wait for something new and improved to come along that is tastier, healthier, quicker-acting, stronger, cheaper, or longer-lasting than whatever preceded it. More jaded by the narratives devised by advertisers, people rely on their everyday experience with products, or the advice and recommendations of other consumers, to determine the relevance and utility of the things they buy and use. Experience leads to preferences and expectations and, over time, loyalties form and consumer–product relationships evolve. Products now, more than ever, play a central role in consumers’ lives. That said, it seems that people rarely stop to think about their relationships with the things that they cannot do without, how products have altered their lives, what life would be like without the many offerings in the consumer marketplace, why products are designed the way they are, and how simple alterations in design could significantly influence satisfaction with the objects that are acquired and used. For marketers, consumer researchers, product manufacturers, and designers, however, these sorts of considerations provide the grist for their work. Understanding and managing the complex relationship between consumers and products pose fundamental challenges for professionals who service the con- temporary consumer. This book was written in the spirit of those challenges. There are some terrific textbooks on consumer behavior in the academic literature, but what often struck me about their content is how much of the focus is placed on consumers, and how little is discussed about the actual things that people consume and the role of product design in the consumption process. Overall, little attention has been devoted to the dynamic relationship between consumers and the functional and design elements of consumer goods and ser- vices. This book is intended to fill that gap through a consideration of product form and function from a consumer perspective, within the context of an evolv- ing marketplace in which the centrality of the product designer is diminishing in the face of consumer participation, content creation, and sharing. I want to thank Amy Laurens, Commissioning Editor for Marketing Books at Routledge, for her unbridled support for this book and her enthusiasm for what I promised to accomplish in writing it; Editorial Assistant Nicola Cupit, for her diligence in guiding the project to production; Pierre LeJoyeux for serving as a sounding board and sometime counterpoint for some of the ideas explained within; and, as always, my wife, Marie-Ange, for her devotion, inspiration, and patience. Allan J. Kimmel Paris, France 1 PEOPLE AND PRODUCTS IN AN EVOLVING MARKETPLACE By the end of this chapter, you will: • appreciate the centrality of possessions in everyday life; • understand the role of product possessions in creating a self-identity; • gain insight into the nature of materialism, material and virtual possession attachments, and consumer/brand relationships; • recognize the role of material artifacts from cultural and historical perspectives. In contemporary times, the buying and having of material goods, along with a growing array of services, have become as central to people’s sense of being as family and career. “I shop, therefore I am, and I am what I consume” may well be the defining dictum of modern woman and man. Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, commercial selling and buying behavior have repre- sented activities that essentially define successive generations, as fully interwoven within the fabric of industrialized nations as technological, scientific, social, and political developments. Whether it be the clothes we wear, the homes and com- munities where we reside, the types of pets we own, or the color of the earbud headset through which we privately listen to our preferred musicians as we wend our way through public settings, our consumption choices are inseparable from who we are to ourselves and to others. Individuals and societies are inevitably shaped—and in some cases, trans- formed—by the products and services they create and utilize. Consider, for example, mid-twentieth-century scenes of families huddled around radios and televisions, images that are as firmly etched in our collective memories as Nor- man Rockwell paintings, illustrating how these early forms of broadcast media brought intimacy to the consumption of information and entertainment as unified