Views from the Hills by R. E. Stevens, GENESIS II (The Second Beginning) E-Mail views@aol.com

Whatever Happened to the "Comparison with Own" Question?

One advantage to old age is that you can look back over your personal history and see the changes that have taken place.  Next year I will complete my first half century in the consumer research business.  It really does seem like only yesterday when the state of the art was the door-to-door placement of the paired comparison blind test.  Interviews were completed using preprinted IBM mark sense cards.  The tabulation utilized the IBM 519 and the 101 Statistical Sorter.  It took almost 9 months from design to report.  I don't know of anyone who looks upon those days as the good old days.  However, during the past week, I pulled out a box of old papers, all written in the 1950s and all pertaining to market and consumer research.  It became quickly obvious that there were things that we paid particular attention to in those days that are not even mentioned today.  Some of the things that appear to be unimportant today but were extremely important in the olden days were ruler/pie markets, alpha/beta risks, comparison with own, preference vs. acceptance, blind vs. identified, etc.

One of the papers I found particularly interesting was one dealing with the comparison of the test product with the consumer's own product.  In the 1950s & 1960s, this was believed to be one of the most important questions asked.  The position behind the paper was that in a saturated market, the preference between two test products or the overall product rating have little relationship to sales potential.  To gain a position in the market, you must replace a brand already there, you must replace the brand the consumer is currently using.

In a growing market, it is the appeal of the product that plays the major role in the success of the brand.  You can gain share without replacing a current brand.  You may be just replacing a product that was used for the task but not really designed for that particular task, such as replacing the use of rags for window cleaning with paper towels, or using a product designed for floor cleaning rather than a laundry detergent in a bucket of water, or cooking bags for use in the oven and replace the elbow grease and detergent used in cleaning the baking pans.

Today, how often do we design our research based on the maturity of the market?  How often does the test design hinge on the objective of the product category?  That is, is there an overall objective in the category such as reducing teeth cavities, or is the category preference based on individual criteria such as ice cream where excellence varies by individual?

In an effort to reduce the 90+% of market failures, should we not be looking to the little things such as what is my new product replacing and how does it compare with that product?  How many consumers would replace their current habits/brand with your new brand?  What advantages does your new brand have over the current state of the art?  Is there any way in which your brand is inferior to the current method/brand?

It is all about learning and understanding the consumer and the market.  It is not just looking at the toplines of a study.  Dig underneath the surface and understand the meanings of the numbers.


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