Typically, consumer flavour testing is conducted using a structured questionnaire. In general, Asian consumers tend to be relatively reserved and polite in their responses in some countries. We therefore collaborated in a neuro-physiological study making use of EEG, heart rate, and skin conductance, to evaluate consumers' flavour preferences more objectively for flavour development. The study was conducted among female consumers in Jakarta and physiological measurement has helped to reveal the underlying emotional responses of the consumers for two of the most preferred test flavours. This research demonstrates that we can further sensitively measure how different flavours elicit different emotions, providing further insights on how to optimise flavours to maximise consumer preference.
This webinar will detail the sources and the scope of previous research and then summarise how to build the perfect survey from the feet up. You will learn best practice elements of taking an objective-led approach to questionnaires, all within in a framework to ensure data quality. Secondly, we'll look at how and the best way to incentivise respondents for digital surveys and then we'll move to survey design with a particular focus on mobile optimisation.
Optimisation techniques using preference mapping are highly effective in product development However, the consumer testing procedure is less than ideal for fine fragrances. An alternative methodology, developed for other applications but particularly suited to fine fragrance research is proposed. Parallel trials of the traditional and new methods applied to fine fragrance research have been conducted and their results are reported.
This paper discusses in practical terms the problems which can affect research in the area of product optimisation and flavour development, as viewed from the standpoint of an agency researcher specialising in food and drink research. The conventional approach to product development tends to rely on consumer tests, such as product placement or taste tests, to identify perceived strengths and weaknesses of the product via rating scales and spontaneous comments. This information is used by technical personnel to guide product development, and one or two new formulations are subsequently tested and, if 'better', they are progressed. At best this approach will identify a possible product improvement, but at its worst it can be unproductive as technical personnel struggle to achieve viable improvements. The weakness underlying this approach is that it assumes a direct relationship between a product formulation and the consumer response to it: there is no such relationship. I will go on to explain why this is so. I argue, therefore, that the use of consumer opinions, as expressed via rating scales and spontaneous comments, to guide product reformulation, is unsatisfactory. We should instead ask the consumers to do only what they are really competent to do: to say how much they like something, and perhaps to say which product they prefer. This determines that we must identify the factors to assess in the research and to test these systematically and in a controlled way. I will go on to give examples of how this can be done. It should be noted that I will not attempt to discuss specific aspects of product testing, such as the difference between blind and branded tests, nor the merits of various types of semantic rating scales. The argument I present is concerned with product development and as such does not touch on other types of research such as concept and placement tests - within these limits, however, I feel the ideas I present are valid across a range of product types and situations, and do not depend on very specific aspects of detail research design.
Product designing and pricing are two of the most important marketing decisions. Test marketing is one strategy to get better informations to evaluate the referent alternatives. Pre-test marketing evaluation is another research strategy which becomes more and more popular due to its favourable cost-time-accuracy profile. Still less expensive and time consuming are laboratory simulations based on conjoint and other decision analysis approaches such as information display matrix treatments A powerful new package of an interactive decision analysis system (IDAS) is presented. This approach amalgamates a realistic display matrix elaboration, a completely individualised conjoint analysis and some validity checks. The system develops understandable trade-offs of product features and prices on an individual level and offers opportunities for benefit segmentation. The system is interactive; within a researcher module the product area, the attributes and the levels to be analysed may be defined, within the respondent module one works through a sequence of tasks, thus delivering to the researcher the informations required. These informations allow to optimise the product features and price.
This paper summaries the authors' experience in estimating the sales impact of product quality improvements, made to new products. The paper describes the manner in which a particular forecasting technique takes account of product evaluation in its estimation process, and clarifies the specific components of sales affected by product quality. Case history material is shown to demonstrate the sales impact of product improvement. Four specific points are highlighted. First, the importance of high product quality in launching new brands. Second, the impact on sales that variance in product quality can have. Third, that the sales impact generated by product improvements can be estimated pre-launch. Fourth, that pre-test market systems can, and should, be used as diagnostic tools to evaluate product change.
This analysis wants to provide the foundations for a modification of SCHONER WOHNEN's editorial concept and a clear demarcation from competitive publications in the Home Magazines market.
In Germany two continuous research services are available measurement the relative readership of the editorial elements in 30 major medical magazines. One service is private, the other one is part of the syndicated audience research organisation LA-MED. Both services apply, broadly speaking, the same method: The doctors are asked to mark, while reading, every editorial matter they look at in the magazine. The copies are mailed to the research institute where they are analysed. The editing house Medical Tribune, Wiesbaden, has been using the results of this research since 1976 in order to improve the quality of their publications. The editorial staff is regularly confronted to the research findings and practical consequences are drawn. The improvements mainly concern the formulation of headlines, the choice of pictures, the order in which articles are positioned through the book and, finally, the mix of topics to be treated. It has been possible over the years to draw some general conclusions out of the experiences gathered in applying this type of research to every-day-journalism.
In this paper, I shall discuss an alternative approach which, although developed in the early fifties, has only recently been applied for the development of consumer goods and which is based on Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and the use of Magnitude Estimation Scales (MES).
This paper introduces - necessarily briefly - OPAS, a system to optimise products and assortments. Basically, two parts can be distinguished. The first part consists of all models related to data collection and conjoint measurement, resulting in an array of values (called utilities) for each attribute level. Starting with traditional conjoint measurement, problems for applications are summarised. For a significant part of these, solutions have been formulated and the implications for the models are shortly indicated. Thus, it is possible to include a large number of attributes and to apply this system to taste-testing. The second part contains models for prediction (including a set of probabilistic choice models) and the routines for optimisation. Since the latter can include constraints (e.g. costs, number of products) a large amount of practically relevant questions can be answered. This is illustrated by a sample of the situations where OPAS has been successfully applied, which is followed by a concluding section on limitations and future extensions.