Segmenting consumers based on sensory acceptance tests in sensory labs, immersive environments, and natural consumption settings

Lichters, Marcel; Möslein, Robert; Sarstedt, Marko und Scharf, Andreas (2021): Segmenting consumers based on sensory acceptance tests in sensory labs, immersive environments, and natural consumption settings. In: Food Quality and Preference, Bd. 89, 104138

Abstract

Every year, food manufacturers spend billions of dollars on sensory acceptance tests in new food product development processes. These tests are either carried out in sensory labs or in natural consumption environments (field tests). Both types have merits, but also limitations. Research has started investigating whether tests in immersive consumption environments can combine both settings’ advantages by achieving high levels of generalizability, while also accelerating the product development cycles and reducing their costs. Prior research is of limited help in this regard, since it only considered consumers’ mean acceptance ratings rather than comparing consumer segments as commonly done in industry practice. This disregard of segmentation results is problematic, because consumer segments’ sharp differences in terms of product acceptances are not necessarily manifested in different aggregated mean acceptance scores. We address this concern by presenting the results of six acceptance tests of two product categories, which show that consumer segments derived from an immersive environment overlap more strongly with those derived from a natural consumption environment than those from a sensory lab. We also identify specific sample size thresholds at which immersive consumption environments outperform sensory lab settings for rather context-sensitive and rather context-insensitive products. Our results emphasize the importance of considering an appropriate environment when testing products for sensory acceptance during new food product development. Companies introducing highly context-sensitive products could specifically benefit from immersive test environments.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Keywords: immersive consumption environments, consumer segmentation, consumer segment, consumer segments, natural consumption environment, sensory lab,
• Fakultät: Betriebswirtschaft > Institut für Marketing
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 330 Wirtschaft
• ISSN: 0950-3293
• Sprache: Englisch