ABSTRACT “Our product is 5 times more effective at reducing malodor than Brand X!” is a ratio statement with powerful consumer take-away. More generally, a ratio claim involves any statement meant to indicate that one product is superior to another by a multiplicative factor. The statement given above and a statement such as “Shown...
ABSTRACT The process from bench testing to national roll-out of consumer products is expensive and time-consuming, sometimes resulting in market-place disappointment. A resource-intensive component of new product development is the cost of consumer evaluation of product alternatives. The incremental process of improvement, that usually characterizes the product development activity, can be significantly enhanced by...
ABSTRACT Responses from many procedures used in market, survey, and sensory research are categorical. Familiar examples include rating category responses on rating scales to measure sensory intensity or liking as words, symbols, or numbers on a scale. Other examples are choices made among alternatives in difference or preference tests. Descriptive analysis can also be...
ABSTRACT “If we make this change only 10% of our consumers will be able to detect it”, may be a very appealing statement to managers in consumer products companies. These managers are often faced with the need to make product changes and substitutions to change ingredients, lower costs, switch to more stable sources of...
ABSTRACT Many products have multiple uses. Some products in a category may be more suitable for particular uses than other products in the same category. One way of looking at this problem is to consider that each consumer has multiple ideal points, one for each type of usage occasion and it would be useful...
ABSTRACT Product changes in manufacturing and storage are often time-dependent. Sometimes these changes are linear, sometimes cyclical and at other times chaotic. It is often not obvious that a time-dependent change is in fact occurring in some variable of interest. In this report we discuss methods for studying whether a trend exists and, if...
ABSTRACT The recently reissued ASTM Claims Guide provides a useful classification of types of claims and recommendations concerning appropriate product testing. Figure 1 is a schematic summary of the claims discussed in that document. There are comparative and non-comparative claims. The comparative group includes superiority and parity claims. The guide separates parity claims into...
ABSTRACT Discrimination methodologies are used to investigate similarities and differences among variants of manufactured products. Applications typically involve cost savings, storage and product improvements. A researcher often requires more information than a simple test of significance which can be readily changed by simply altering the sample size used. In many cases, estimation of the...
ABSTRACT When making product comparisons, it is sometimes useful to be able to substantiate ratio statements. The purpose of this report is to consider how this might be accomplished using standard rating and difference testing methods. In everyday experience, such as finding out what the time or temperature is, we often use interval scales. When...
ABSTRACT To achieve and maintain market dominance, it is necessary to see the market from the consumers’ perspective, to track how that market changes over time, and to understand how you and your competitors are competing for limited consumer interest. In this report, you will observe an interaction between competitors vying for share in...