International conjoint analysis

For larger multinationals and even for smaller companies operating via the internet across Europe, research and product design has to take in international requirements particularly for businesses in specialist fields such as pharmaceutical or selling products like industrial machines and equipment. Conjoint analysis can be used for multi-country projects enabling both common themes and values to be modelled and valued across the broad market, while allowing for local differences in areas of customisation or service to be assessed and included in product design.

International conjoint research

For many years, conjoint analysis was rarely used in international research because of the need for expensive face-to-face interviews. Most international market research being the preserve of telephone research and conjoint analysis is not suitable for telephone research unless combined with some other methodology (eg post, web). Now with widespread internet research and web-assisted telephone interviewing (WATI), conjoint can be used far more easily in an international context to gather and guage pan-European or pan-Global opinions and so ensure products and services are optimised to the wider market and tuned to local differences.

The principles of conjoint analysis remain the same as with locally-based research in terms of breaking a product into attributes and levels, but there will be local differences that need to be taken into account. For instance, Yoghurt products in the UK are often sold with fruit and for taste and slimming reasons, in Spain some leading brands are sold on aiding the digestion.

Understanding and building in these differences and being able to extract and understand where differences might occur means that care is needed to ensure local conditions are captured and the design of the conjoint itself is sophisticated enough to enable both cross-country and locally based modelling.

The main challenge for international conjoint is in language, and where the conjoint analysis involves prices, then currency and number format changes.

As conjoint is relies on clear definitions of attributes and levels, those attributes and levels need to work in all languages and be defined in the same way in each language. Some simple things like a warranty or a guarantee can be slightly different concepts in different countries for instance, and where products are supplied in different ways - for instance through a long distribution channel in Southern Europe, or sold direct in the US or UK, this can affect elements of the product such as service or apparent pricing.

Language and translation requirements add another layer of complexity to the survey and introduce the potential for error or incompatibility between different questionnaire versions, especially if you have to create a separate questionnaire file for each language. Then, when sending out invites, how do you cope with say Switzerland or Belgium where there are multiple language possibilities. In addition, European data protection laws are typically amongst the most stringent in the world. Are you satisfied you have legal permission to send out invitations? In France, you need to register prize draws, even if they are free. How are you going to incentivise the survey across borders?

For pricing research different countries have different currencies and different tax requirements. Combine this with language issues - for instance Germany is in the Euro, but German speaking Swiss would expect prices in Swiss Francs. In Spain a decimal is specified by a comma, in the UK by a decimal point. Ensuring that the conjoint can cope with the range of variation to make the questions relevant according to the local pricing, currency and languages adds a layer of complexity to projects.

But having dealt with the complexities, conjoint has advantages over scale-based ratings in that results can be directly compared and amalgamated across countries. With scale-based ratings there are often cultural factors between different countries that affect how the scales are used. For instance in France there is a tendency to give lower ratings than in Germany say, or for the Spanish to be a little less careful with consistency of answers.

Because conjoint involves understanding choices and looking at choices directly, these cultural aspects play a much lower part in answers, though issues such as differences in channels and differences in the expectations of service do become apparent, but by reducing the impact of cultural norms, the research can be used to assess which products and services best meet international needs.

In some markets it may still be necessary to use a telephone interview (eg business-to-business) but it is now possible to combine conjoint and telephone through a web-assisted telephone conjoint project. Our software allows an interviewer to telephone and recruit a respondent and then enables the interviewer and respondent to see the same web-page so the interviewer can lead the respondent through a web-based survey. As conjoint requires that choices vary by respondent, the web-pages are fully unique and tailored to the respondent enabling a full dynamic trade-off interview to take place while talking to the interviewer on the phone.

Conjoint design

Conjoint flavours

For help and advice on carrying out conjoint analysis projects contact info@dobney.com