What are your customers looking for?

Marketing managers often face decisions related to the introduction of a new product: what should the product look like to gain the potential consumer’s preference?, should a new product be adapted to the needs and preferences of specific consumer segments?, and, if so, to what extent? what is the importance of certain characteristics or features of the new product to the acceptability of the product by the target consumers?, and so on. Most of these questions can be answered, or an attempt to assist the decision process can be made, by establishing the importance of various product characteristics to consumer segments of the market for the particular product. This is the essence of a ‘conjoint measurement’, or ‘conjoint analysis’, a procedure that is increasingly finding its way into the practice of marketing management. This article outlines various ways in which this technique can be applied to develop an understanding of consumer preferences and price perception. The approaches are illustrated using a study for a Belgian travel agent who wanted to find out what type of cruise appeals to a student population.