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Essay / The Importance of Consumer Behavior - 728
With the emergence of online shopping, individuals no longer need to leave the comfort of their homes to shop. A simple click of the mouse and a package is delivered without any problem. To remain competitive, businesses must understand consumer behavior, be prepared to adapt to consumer changes, and align their products to meet the customer's needs. For example, consumers have become health conscious over the years in an effort to meet changing consumer demand for healthy products. Fast food chains such as McDonald's have rebranded their product and use real meat instead of GMO meat. Similarly, Subway suffered bad publicity when it was announced that it would remove the ingredient azodicarbonamide from its bread. It is the same ingredient found in the yoga mat (CBSNews, 2014). Subway's image has been tarnished since they were marketed as a healthy choice with their "eat fresh" slogan. Also, because we live in an age of technology bombarded by social media and various watchdog groups. Marketers face the daily challenge of maintaining a positive image in the public eye. An article in the Harvard Business Review identified some challenges marketers face today. One of the challenges identified is that the market must “be at the forefront of substantive or transformational innovation”, meaning that the company faces the challenge of identifying new products. They believe