Conjoint Analysis in Marketing Research

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Communications - Public Relations Advertising Marketing Social Media grade: 13 AKAD University of Applied Sciences Stuttgart language: English abstract: Conjoint analysis has become one of today's most widelyused marketing research tools.It goes beyond simple surveys providing a more realistic approach to understanding customers attitudes opinions and behaviors.(Orme 2010 p. 7)The author Orme (2010 p. 7) emphasises in his book the growing popularity of conjoint analysis in marketing research. According to Orme (2010 p. 1) the consumer preferences are changing constantly with an increasing speed. Therefore many marketing managers ask themselves how they could asses client preferences? Which product characteristics are most important to the customer and what price brings the maximum profit?From Wilcox's (2003 p. 1) point of view conjoint analysis gives answers to these most critical questions of marketing research. The conjoint analysis is a marketing research technique designed to help managers determine the value system of clients and potential customers (Wilcox 2003 p. 1). Introduced as a fundamental measurement method by the mathematical psychologists Luce and Tukey (1964 p. 1) more than forty years ago conjoint analysis presents combination of features in product profiles and ask people to rank or make choice among of them. Finally the results can be used for new product design targeting pricing and market segmentation (Dolan 1990 p. 1).However there arises the question what is conjoint analysis really and why it has become so popular in contrast to other marketing research techniques? In order to answer these questions section 2.1 defines the terms marketing and market research and outlines the contrast between them. Section 2.2 gives an overview of different preference measurement techniques before it deals with the conjoint analysis itself. Chapter 3 presents the main chapte