Development of A Consumer-Relevant Lexicon for Testing Kitchen Cleansers Considering Different Product Usage Stages

Abstract

Determining critical attributes associated with consumer perceived benefit and choice is essential for the fast moving consumer goods industry. The goals of the present study were to develop a lexicon specific to usage process for kitchen cleansers using a novel consumer test and to test usage stage-dependency of the lexicon. Holistic usage process of kitchen cleansers was classified into purchase moment, during use and completion point. For a series of projective interviews, a semantic/language library, a collection of attributes relevant to kitchen cleansers was used as response options. Ethnographic observations/interviews were also incorporated into the consumer test to evoke consumers' natural usage process. Comparisons of the developed lexicon revealed differences of consumers' evaluation processes across different usage stages. At the purchase moment, attributes associated with Convenience and Functionality categories were found to be more important, whereas at completion point, attributes associated with Sensory Quality and Sentimental Consequence were more important. Practical Applications: In sensory science literature, lexicon development for use in descriptive analysis of sensory characterization has been focused on the sensory attributes of various food products including appearance, taste, aroma, flavor, texture and aftertaste of foods. These are important not only for sensory characterization but also for communication between consumers and the people in industry, who are in charge of product development, quality control, marketing, etc. To improve communication with consumers on household cleaning products, the development of a lexicon describing consumers' holistic product experiences, as well as investigation of the usage stage-dependency of the developed consumer attributes is required. This article introduces a new method to develop a lexicon representing consumer-relevant product attributes across different product usage stages for commercial kitchen cleanser trigger spray products and provides the lexicon associated with the product benefits of such products. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.