Using taste tests for consumer brand preferences in the food industry

Taste tests are being increasingly used by marketers to influence consumers to change their preferences toward their brands. Obtaining data via surveys (Stated Preferences) or studying customers' buying behavior (Revealed Preferences) in the case of foodstuff are created bias in the results, because these methods assume that people can separate the quality features from the brand name. In the proposed method, the data was collected with taste tests before and after knowing the brand, and the results were compared. This study aims to present a new approach to measuring consumer preferences toward brands. The case study is stirred yogurt brands. Research data were collected from ۹۲ students living in the dormitory of SANRU. Volunteers' preferences were measured for three famous brands in the country's dairy industry, including: Kalleh, Mihan, and Haraz. Due to the results of this study, after dividing people in terms of brand influence, most of the volunteers chose the brand based on its desirable features. Only less than ۱۰% are in the brand lovers group and they prefer it despite the unfavorable features of the product. In addition, the experimental results showed that the distribution of people from brand net effectiveness is different between different brands. The results also showed that the proposed approach can classify people in terms of brand influence. Also, the results of this approach are completely different from the results of surveys of people's interest in the brand. The output results are suitable for regression modeling such as ordered logistic regression.

کلیدواژه ها:

Brand ، Dairy products ، Iran ، Consumers' Preferences