Abstract:

We send our children to less than ideal schools, we drive less than optimal cars (for longer than we care to admit), we can always think of a neighborhood that we would prefer to live in, and we consume foods that, based purely on their sensory effects, we would prefer to forego. It may be said as a general rule that people do not choose consumer products that maximize their satisfaction from the sensory effects of the products themselves. In making consumer product choices, people make tradeoffs and pay penalties to consume the products and services that they choose. While these ideas may not be particularly novel, it is interesting to consider how one might measure the hedonic penalties paid to consume typical consumer products. Companies invest largely in product performance optimization for consumer products and services, and it is worth thinking about how to use this information and how to interpret it to achieve better market performance in the context of sensory penalties.