Heather Crawford's Blog

When companies are looking to market a new product, they aren’t just only looking at the industry but also consumer behaviour as well.  If you think of a consumer market as a pizza you have different sizes of slices and flavours of pizza.  For instance, these pizzas can be represented as age, gender, or a combination of the two groups.  However consumer behaviour is affected by more then just age and gender, it is also impacted by cultural factors, social factors, and personal factors.  Consumer needs are also heavily influenced when formulating a new product because different people have different needs.  Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is a perfect example that ranks peoples’ needs in a pyramid system (physiological, safety, social, esteem, self-actualization).  Producers need to make sure they are meeting the factors and needs of their consumer pizza, otherwise their products could “flop” and won’t succeed in the market.