Abstract:

 

CPG companies invest a vast amount of their resources in understanding consumer wants and needs.  Whether they focus on the food and beverage, personal care, or cosmetic product categories, such understanding requires consumer-focused investigations to uncover drivers of acceptability and address opportunities with improvements of current brands or introductions of new offerings.

This type of research generally relies on blind sample evaluations to study the samples’ intrinsic sensory value and performance characteristics. In this webinar, we will outline the power of expanding blind testing with an equivalent branded evaluation phase that has the potential of delivering findings that will multiply the value of these essential, and often extensive, pieces of research.

In this presentation, we will review the general design recommendations to organize and optimize a blind/branded project.  Then, using examples, including some based on actual client work, we will illustrate how adding a branded component to category appraisal research can generate valuable insights in terms of brand equity, identify areas of improvement that go beyond sensory and technical characteristics, and represent how the consumer opinion evolves when going from a blind to branded context.  This research can also settle internal arguments on whether a brand’s success or lackluster performance is driven by its intrinsic sensory and perceived performances or by extrinsic branding/imagery/advertising components, or a combination of both.

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This webinar is intended for a general audience of sensory professionals and graduate students. No detailed technical knowledge is assumed.

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A digital recording of this webinar is available for purchase ($289).