Measuring Preferences for Really New Products

Abstract

The goal of this research is to improve preference measurement for really new products. An initial assumption validated in the first study is that consumers have greater uncertainty when estimating the usefulness of really new products than they have with incremental new products. Consumers cope with this uncertainty by using certain inferential techniques that are not well captured by standard preference measurement techniques, such as conjoint. This research examines techniques for incorporating both mental simulation and analogies into an existing preference measurement technique and shows that some methods enhance and other methods hinder predictive accuracy.