What is U&A research?
The consumers will form a stable consumer behavior and attitude during the long-term product using period. And in return it will have important influence on consumers’ purchase behavior in the future. U&A research is a study on the behavior and attitude formed in the long-term product using period.
What kind of problems can be solved by U&A research?
U&A research covers the whole life circle of the product, from the stage of product concept, product improvement, to the stage of product development and perfection. But the problems can be solved for the enterprise and the content of the research are different in each stage.
Product concept stage: The enterprise has entered into certain area and sold brand product in the market. He should consolidate the current market while looking for new market opportunities. For instance, increase the opportunities of using the product, increase the opportunities of purchasing the product, extract the selling point of new product, etc.. Through U&A research, we will know users’ potential needs on the products
Product improvement stage: The product has already been in the market. Data is needed to know the market performance of the product and users’ feeling of using the product so as to improve the product and make it more suitable to the market demand. The products involving the interaction between people and machine need product innovation research to find out the improvement space of the product.
Product development stage: The product has been in the market for a period of time and the brand occupies certain amount of market share. U&A research can help to monitor the change of the market data, have an idea of users’ product using habits, brand selection habits, purchase habits and so on and make comparison with the past data as well, and understand the reason of the change of consumer behavior and attitude, so as to provide data support to expand the market share of the brand.
Case:
In late 80’s and early 90’s, P&G brought market research into China at the same time when he entered into Chinese market. In P&G, all the products and promotion strategies must be verified by market research, listening to the consumers’ opinion before launching into the market. We can say that the innovation of P&G started from market research and accurate market research made all the P&G products a success.
P&G is very discreet when launching every new product with several detailed market research and interaction with the consumers. The process are as follows: find out demand－product creativity－first time survey（analyze the reason why the existing alike products don’t sell well）－product testing（understand consumers’ using feeling and obtain their feedback）－second time product testing（product functions are accepted by the market while the price and quality still need to be improved.）－product trial selling－second time survey（product is accepted by the market while the price still needs to lower）－price inquiry（make sure the reasonable pricing）－further lower the cost and improve the production ability－formally launch the product－make success. P&G takes over 5 years to carry out several detailed surveys. From each consumer survey, he can get some conclusions to guide the next task so that the task in each stage carried out closely based on the market demand with clear aims, which lower the blindness and uncertainty of developing the product
How to conduct U&A research?
U&A research includes:
