Kern, Martin 1; Willging, Gabi 1; Braun, Iris 2; Hampshire, Jörg 2

1) SAM ASAP Sensory and Marketing Germany,
2) University of Applied Sciences, Fulda, Germany

Consumer’s acceptance can be influenced by several effects. Besides methodological differences in the test set up (e.g. chosen method or used test design), other important aspects should be considered: the target group definition, the test environment, the used scale, the questionnaire design or the test location/region. Another important aspect is the extent of product information given to the consumers via the product description.

The authors did a broad research on this subject and carried out an exemplary study to investigate the impact of the product description. This was done by a consumer acceptance blind test for biscuits with different levels of product information.

Three groups of consumers evaluated 3 biscuits. All three groups evaluated a standard, very simple cookie without any additional description as the first product in order to allow a methodological comparison of the three different groups, the second and third products were more complex. The three consumer groups differed in the given information about these two products. One group was only told that the products are biscuits. The second group got a slightly more detailed product description (flavour) and the third group got a very extensive description that used marketing aspects.

The study shows similarities and differences between the three consumer groups regarding the consumers’ acceptance. The hypothesis can be proven that the extent of the description has an influence on the acceptance. The more detailed the description is, the higher the acceptance.