Howard R. Moskowitz & Sebastiano Porretta 
Concept Research in Food Product Design and Development 

Concepts are critical for the development and marketing of products
and services. They constitute the blueprint for these products and
services, albeit at the level of consumers rather than at the
technical level. A good product concept can help make the product a
success by guiding developers and advertising in the right
direction. Yet, there is a dearth of both practical and scientific
information about how to create and evaluate concepts. There has
been little or no focus on establishing knowledge bases for
concepts. Concept development is too often relegated to the
so-called ‘fuzzy front end.’

Concept Research in Food Product Design and Development
remedies this inattention to product concepts by providing a unique
treatment of concepts for the business professional as well as for
research scientists. The book begins with simple principles of
concepts, moves forward to methods for testing concepts, and then
on to more substantive areas such as establishing validity, testing
internationally and with children, creating databases, and selling
in new methods for concept testing. The book combines a ‘how
to’ business book with a detailed treatment of the different
facets of concept research. As such, the book represents a unique
contribution to business applications in food, and consumer
research methods. The book is positioned specifically for foods, to
maintain a focus on a coherent set of topics.

Concept Research in Food Product Design and Development
appeals to a wide variety of audiences: R&D, marketing, sensory
analysts, and universities alike. Corporate R&D professionals
will learn how to create strong concepts. Marketers will recognize
how concepts are at the heart of their business. Sensory analysts
will find the book a natural extension of their interest in product
features. University students will understand how concept research
is a critical part of the ‘consumer-connection.’
Concept Research in Food Product Design and Development is
the definitive, innovative text in describing how to create,
analyze, and capitalize upon new product concepts.

Tabela de Conteúdo

1. The Business Environment and the Role of Concept Research in
that Environment.

Part I: Nuts & Bolts, Raw Materials & Ratings.

2. Single Benefits Screening (promise testing) and more Complex
Concept Testing.

3. Ideation Strategies & Their Deployment in Concept
Development.

4. From Questions and Scales to Respondents and Field
Execution.

Part II: Experimental Designs, Graphics, Segments and
Markets.

5. Systematic Variation of Concept Elements and the Conjoint
Analysis Approach.

6. Concepts as a Combination of Graphics.

7. Segmentation Results and the Differential Importance of
Categories.

8. International Research and Transnational Segmentation
(Chapter written by Bert Krieger).

Part III : Advanced Analytics.

9. Believing the Results: Reliability and Validity.

10. Response time as a Dependent Variable in Concept
Research.

11. Children Compared with Adults.

12. Pricing Issues in Early-stage Concept Research.

13. Analyzing a Study: Casual-dining Restaurant.

14. Creating Products from Concepts and Vice Versa.

15. Exploratory Modeling and Mapping, Simulating New
Combinations, Data Mining.

Part IV: Putting the Approaches to Work.

16. Developing from the Ground up: Self-authoring Systems for
Text and Package Concepts (Chapter written by Alex Gofman).

17. Deconstruction and competitive intelligence.

18. Bottom-up Innovation: Creating Product Concepts from First
Principles (Chapter written by Roberto Cappuccio).

19. Creating a Cyberspace Innovation Machine (Chapter written by
Laurent Flores and Andrea Maier).

Part V: Databasing.

20. Creating an Integrated Database from Concept Research
– The It! Studies (Chapter written by Hollis Ashman and
Jacqueline Beckley).

21. Highlights and insights from The It! Studies: Crave It! and
Eurocrave (Chapter written by Tracy Luckow).

22. Highlights and Insights from the Drink It!® Study
(Chapter written by Angus Hughson).

23. Understanding Brand Names in Concepts.

24. Emotion in concepts (Chapter written with the help of Hollis
Ashman).

Part VI: The Grand Overview.

25. Concept Development and the Consumer-insights Business
(Chapter with the help of Jeffrey Ewald).

26. Scientific & Business Realpolitik: Insights from selling
new ideas for Concept Research.

27. Two Views of the future: Structured Informatics and
Research.

Index

Sobre o autor

Howard R. Moskowitz, Ph.D. is president and CEO of Moskowitz
Jacobs Inc., White Plains, NY, a firm he founded in 1981. Moskowitz
is a well-known experimental psychologist in the field of
psychophysics (the study of perception and its relation to physical
stimuli), and an inventor of world-class market research
technology. Among his important contributions to market research is
his 1975 introduction of psychophysical scaling and product
optimization for consumer product development. A Fellow of the
Institute of Food Technologists and member of numerous other
professional societies, he has written/edited twelve books,
published well over 250 articles, and serves on the editorial board
of major journals. With colleague E.P. Koster, Moskowitz co-founded
the journal Chemical Senses and Flavor, now called
Chemical Senses, the leading journal in the field.

Sebastiano Porretta, Ph.D. is a senior researcher of the
Italian Ministry of Industry at the Experimental Station for the
Food Preservation Industry in Parma, Italy. He is well known for
his research devoted to the study of the quality, and particularly
the development of techniques, for a more accurate quality
evaluation considering the relationships between the
physico-chemical and sensory properties of food. He contributes to
the Sensory and Consumer Evaluation of Food and Food Market
with original approaches: the interactions between foods and the
consumers. Great work was done to evaluate the effect of
ingredients on food quality and consumer acceptability.

Currently, Porretta’s Professor of Food Processing at the Catholic
University of Piacenza, Professor of Sensory and Consumer Science
at the University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo, and
President of the Italian Association of Food Technology (AITA),
since 1997. Additionally, Porretta is the Author/Editor of sixteen
books and papers in scientific journals and a member of several
boards of international peer reviewed journals.

Matthias Silcher, M.A. is assistant project director at
Moskowitz Jacobs Inc. and has a background in empirical
communication research, sociology and political science from the
University of Berlin, Germany. His thesis, Survey by Short
Messaging Service was the first academic paper on this subject.
He has consulted for Kienbaum Consultants and advised as a
political researcher for NFO Infratest.