Measuring emotions associated with foods in consumer testing

The EsSense Profile (TM) methodology, presented in 2008 and published in 2010, incorporates both overall acceptability and emotion measures in the consumer test questionnaire. This method provides a detailed list of emotion attributes that consumers associate with the test products. This list can be expanded or edited to account for specific emotions that may be appropriate in specific product categories and in specific applications. Data collection can use either choose all that apply (CATA) or data scaling (e.g., using a five-point scale). Both approaches provide useful information, however, the scaling approach provides more detail specifically when comparing products with small differences. This method has been used to guide product development efforts similar to that provided by traditional consumer tests, to map a product category, and most importantly, to relate the product to the brand essence, which typically conveys an emotional aspect of the product. The relationship between acceptability and emotions has been evaluated for different products and product categories. A few emotion terms relate to acceptability consistently; however, many of the emotions measured do not relate to acceptability. For example, males associated acceptability with two emotions, satisfied and () disgusted, therefore the remaining 37 emotions resulted in new information. Females, on the other hand, associated acceptability with 25 positive emotions, including joyful, good, happy, pleasant and () disgusted, leaving 14 emotions to express other attitudes about the products. This demonstrates that emotions provide additional information not explained by overall acceptability, resulting in a method that provides additional new information about the products. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.