Conjoint Analysis (marketing) - Types of Conjoint Analysis

Types of Conjoint Analysis

The earliest forms of conjoint analysis were what are known as Full Profile studies, in which a small set of attributes (typically 4 to 5) are used to create profiles that are shown to respondents, often on individual cards. Respondents then rank or rate these profiles. Using relatively simple dummy variable regression analysis the implicit utilities for the levels can be calculated.

Two drawbacks were seen in these early designs. Firstly, the number of attributes in use was heavily restricted. With large numbers of attributes, the consideration task for respondents becomes too large and even with fractional factorial designs the number of profiles for evaluation can increase rapidly.

In order to use more attributes (up to 30), hybrid conjoint techniques were developed. The main alternative was to do some form of self-explication before the conjoint tasks and some form of adaptive computer-aided choice over the profiles to be shown.

The second drawback was that the task itself was unrealistic and did not link directly to behavioural theory. In real-life situations, the task would be some form of actual choice between alternatives rather than the more artificial ranking and rating originally used. Jordan Louviere pioneered an approach that used only a choice task which became the basic of choice-based conjoint and discrete choice analysis. This stated preference research is linked to econometric modeling and can be linked revealed preference where choice models are calibrated on the basis of real rather than survey data. Originally choice-based conjoint analysis was unable to provide individual level utilities as it aggregated choices across a market. This made it unsuitable for market segmentation studies. With newer hierarchical Bayesian analysis techniques, individual level utilities can be imputed back to provide individual level data.