Invited Lecture OPTIMIZATION OF PRODUCTS' SENSORY AND CONCEPTUAL FEATURES FOR DIVERSE CONSUMERS AND USES

An optimised brand has physical and symbolic qualities that meet consumers' expectations during end uses. Currently, sensory analysis and market research each collect their own data and lump individuals into a group before modelling preferences. Yet the issue is how the effects of the brand's measured characteristics interact in the mind of each customer to influence choices at the points of purchase and use. Such personal cognitive integration can be diagnosed by normed discrimination scaling of the joint impact of independently varied sensory and conceptual features on rated choice in a test session mimicking a particular use. Such analysis yields each individual customer’s ideal range for each sensory and conceptual feature tested in the session. The peak preference for instrumental measurements and marketed concepts can be aggregated across a panel representing the target demography, purchase contexts and end uses, to give jointly technical and marketing specifications of the most profitable branded product and set of subbrands feasible for a particular company.