Multi-response approaches in product-focused investigations: Methodological variations across three case studies

Area of Science:

• Consumer Behavior
• Sensory Science
• Food Product Development

Background:

• Traditional consumer research often focuses narrowly on acceptability and sensory perception.
• There's a growing need for holistic consumer experience evaluation.
• Existing methodologies may not capture the full spectrum of consumer responses.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and demonstrate a versatile multi-response approach for product research.
• To explore the combined utility of attitudinal, conceptual, emotional, situational, and sensory evaluations.
• To provide methodological insights into consumer product experience research.

Main Methods:

• Conducted three case studies on fruit/vegetable beverages, seafood, and chocolate.
• Utilized diverse consumer groups from New Zealand, India (in NZ), and China.
• Employed a multi-response methodology with various scaling formats (e.g., CATA, yes/no, rating scales) in central location tests (CLT) and home-use tests (HUT).

Main Results:

• The multi-response approach successfully integrated diverse evaluation types, yielding greater insights than single-response methods.
• Both tasted foods and written stimuli (food names) proved effective.
• Situational appropriateness (item-by-use responses) consistently provided unique insights, while facial emojis for emotion association were less effective than conceptualization tasks.

Conclusions:

• The combination of multiple response types significantly enhances understanding of consumer product experiences.
• The demonstrated multi-response approach is versatile and applicable across different product categories and consumer groups.
• This research supports the adoption of comprehensive, multi-faceted methodologies in future product research.