Successfully fixing the problems or difficulties in consuming products inevitably leads to product enhancement. For example, in the case of litter-bin re-design, the designers made use of creative ideas, such as employing a better emptying method or keeping newspapers separate, to improve functional effectiveness. Creative design seems to be more a matter of developing and refining both the formulation of the problem and the ideas for its solution (Dorst and Cross 2001). Bearing this in mind, it would seem that a clear identification and deep understanding of the difficulties in music consumption are essential before practical ideas to solve these problems can be generated. Section 3.4.2 detailed how consumers experience some difficulties when they consume physical music CDs; reduced capacity, short durability and easy damageability have been reported as the major disadvantages of music CDs. Creative ideas for a solution to these difficulties have the potential to improve music CDs’
capabilities and thus to generate a greater functional value. However, it needs to be accepted that, as the CD is a tangible object, there is a limited number of ideas that can provide possible solutions. For example, the difficulty in carrying CDs may be impossible to solve.
Integrating and extending past concepts in overall music consumption practices, consumer-led product development and creation of values has helped to build a definitive framework for music CD development. This framework, presented in Figure 3.11 below, illustrates the procedure, outlined above, that has been followed in this study.
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Figure 3.11: Seminal framework for music CD development
Source: Author
The above framework is comprised of three boxes, namely, Box A, Box B and Box C, each one of which is characterised by the adoption of particular and relevant concepts, as explained below.
1) Box A presents the significant terms that are relevant to the structure of experiential value. The concepts in Box A have been developed from the integration of three concepts, namely, 1) creation of value, 2) consumer-led product development and 3) Olson and Reynolds’s Consumers’ Cognitive Structure Model (1983) (as shown in Figure 3.7).
2) Box B shows the result of the adoption of a new concept of music consumption practices and provides examples of development in various types of product and services (as shown in Table 3.3). It also shows the three main factors that are particularly relevant to the music CD development process. These factors are music consumers and music industry agents as key participants, the five clusters of ideas (i.e.
re-designing and re-packaging, offering complementary items, providing technological
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features, supporting music activities and solving previously experienced difficulties) and concrete and abstract attributes.
3) Box C explains the types of benefits and values, their relationships and the various stages of benefit and value analysis. The concept in Box C is based on several of the perspectives on benefits and values that have been gleaned from relevant studies such as Charter (2006), Kim et al., (2002), Kumar and Noble (2016), Olson and Reynolds (1983), Orth and Marchi (2007), and Smith and Colgate (2007).
In addition, the framework has five rows representing the key terms adopted in a creation of superior experiential value. The identification of each key term is provided in Boxes B and C, horizontally. Firstly, Row 1 is concerned with the input for CD development. The emphasis here is on the input provided by the music industry’s agents and music consumers, input that has itself been derived from their own past experiences. Such input is vital information that has the potential to be used for more effective product development.
Secondly, Row 2 shows the five clusters of ideas, namely, designing and re-packaging, offering complementary items, providing technological features, supporting activities and solving previously experienced difficulties. These ideas have already been adopted for the development of many products and services. Companies use the concept of consumer-led product development to create ideas to enhance their products, making them even more responsive to consumer needs as far as functional and psychological perspectives are concerned. In this study, the five clusters of ideas are also considered to be potentially useful for music CD enhancement.
Lastly, Rows 3, 4 and 5 are based on Olson and Reynolds’s (1983) Consumers’
Cognitive Structure Model showing the linkages between features, benefits and values.
In Row 3, it can be clearly seen that these features are divided into two main types, namely, concrete and abstract attributes. From the perspective of product development, both concrete and abstract attributes can be enhanced, as was discussed in Section 3.6.2.
For example, the complementary items offered can be in both a tangible form, such as concrete merchandise, or an intangible form, such as extra music tracks.
Figure 3.4 (Identification of the benefits derived from music activity participation) and Figure 3.6 (Identification of the benefits derived from music product consumption) have
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been used to develop the concept in Row 4. These figures explain the relationship between the positive consequences, the bundle of advantages and the benefits (including the core benefits and their subsidiaries). This relationship helps to understand from where the benefits are derived. Significantly, it can also be adapted to explain how a properly developed music CDs can deliver benefits to music consumers. Initially, the positive consequences can be listed from the music consumers’ own positive points of view concerning the developed music CD (one that offers enhanced features). This list of positive consequences can in some cases be grouped according to various themes.
The positive consequences are then subsequently classified into a bundle of advantages.
The development of the music CD can then effectively build on and increase the advantages in aspects such as acquirability, usability, possessability, tangibility, collectability and social interactability, as well as taking into consideration people’s consumption of other music products. The advantages may further increase when people participate in music activities, resulting in an improvement in knowledge and musical skills, an enhancement of emotions and feelings and even an amelioration in social skills. From such a bundle of advantages are derived two main types of core benefit, namely, functional and psychological, and from its subsidiaries, self-emotional and social affiliation.
Row 5 gives the formulation of the experiential value resulting from music CD development. This reveals the significant effectiveness of the development process and shows how it can enhance the experiential value. Continuing from Row 4, the assessment of benefits enables the identification of experiential value, which can then be classified into various forms, such as functional value (i.e. utilitarian, educational) and psychological value (i.e. self-emotional ones and their subsidiaries, aesthetic, artistic, obsessional and loyal ones, as well as social affiliation).
3.7. Summary
Consumer-led product development is a central concept for music CD development in this study. In this chapter, music consumption practices are re-conceptualised in order to more fully understand the overall behaviour in music experience in the recent market. The concept has two main dimensions, namely, music product consumption and music activity participation. A typology of music consumers is given, based on an analysis of behavioural consumption, showing that music
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consumers can play roles as both receivers (in relation to aural and visual activity) and creators (in relation to oral, manual and physical activity). A discussion about experiencing overall music consumption practices enables the benefits and values to be clarified in the various forms that consumers perceived them as a result of their individual practices. The advantages and disadvantages of each music product, a significant and critical issue in the music CD development process, are now more apparent. In addition, the examples of products and services development, collected from the relevant studies, have helped to shape ideas, which can now be grouped into five clusters. The input from music industry’s agents and from consumers was assessed as to how it relates to the five clusters of ideas and how it enhances the supremacy of all values (i.e. functional and psychological) for the finished music CD. In the next section, Chapter Four, perspectives on interpretivism, including the methodology for the data collection and data analysis, are provided. These are key aspects of qualitative research and, as such, underpin this study.
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