Beyond Hedonics: Looking at Purchase Intent and Emotions as Criterion Variables

Abstract

We investigated three measures of concept performance for two types of systematically varied concepts, doing so for two products (functional beverage, indulgent beverage). The rating measures were liking, purchase intent, and the selection of an appropriate emotion. Each measure generated utility values for the test elements in the concepts. Utilities for liking and purchase intent correlated highly for the functional beverage. Utilities for liking and purchase intent did not correlate at all for the indulgent beverage. Liking and purchase intent may operate differently. In terms of emotions, the indulgent beverage generates more emotional reactions across elements and deeper amounts of emotion than does the functional beverage. These results suggest that liking and purchase intent depend upon the particular stimulus being evaluated, and may need to become joint evaluative criteria, not just mutual substitutes. For wide-scale, feasible emotion research, we have selected an initial set of emotions that can be further reduced, to be both parsimonious yet sufficient.

Keywords: conjoint analysis, rule driven experimentation, purchase intent