Getting to know your consumers

Product developers and manufacturers have access to a deeper understanding of how products and prototypes can be differentiated and positioned in the market to optimise consumer appeal, following member subscription-funded research.

We undertook a quantitative consumer sensory central location test on six fruit juices. We used a recently published method (the EsSense™ Profile) to measure consumers' product related emotions. This successfully discriminated two 'groups' of products based on positive and negative emotions.The results were consistent with respondents' liking scores, but the small differences meant that the characterisation of samples in terms of the emotion profile attributes was not always significant.

To see if discrimination in terms of product related emotions could be improved, we segmented the Profile results using an Affect Intensity Index (i.e. a measure of emotional responsiveness).This segmentation showed that consumers with a higher AI discriminated between the samples for many more emotion terms and generally found larger differences between the samples.

Correlating emotions and objective sensory profile data with overall liking can help deliver products that are optimised at an emotional as well as a functional level, and could contribute to increased repeat purchase rates.This research provides a practical and effective tool for eliciting consumers' emotional response to food and beverage products.

Contact: Peter Burgess
+44(0)1386 842122
peter.burgess@campdenbri.co.uk

The effects of environment and emotional factors on perception and liking of products: affect intensity and emotions (RD330)

For a copy of the full report members can send an e-mail to auto@campdenbri.co.uk with the subject line: send RD330