ACBC Testimonial: Robert Goodwin

Lifetime Products is a vertically integrated manufacturer of consumer products constructed primarily of blow-molded polyethylene resin and powder-coated steel. Over the past three years, the company has begun to use conjoint analysis and other quantitative marketing tools internally to better inform product development and marketing decisions.

Lifetime

As Lifetime progressed (over a three-year period) from conventional conjoint to choice-based conjoint and then to partial-profile CBC, it became apparent that we needed another solution to accommodate the large attribute/level designs necessary to study our product lines effectively.

We needed the flexibility of adaptive conjoint, the realism of choice-based conjoint, and the task simplification of partial-profile CBC, all with "reasonable" sample sizes. We found that solution - and more - in Sawtooth Software's Adaptive Choice (ACBC).

In late 2008, we completed our first ACBC beta-test study using the Lifetime outdoor storage shed product line. The internal client had a long "wish list" of shed features to study, which we whittled down to 16 attributes and a maximum of 8 levels (in the Brand attribute). Using constructed-list methodology in ACBC, we were able to administer a 10-attribute / 5-level maximum ACBC survey to a sample of 400 shed owners and prospects. The client and other top management were especially impressed that we could ask the entire market to consider all 16 attributes, but simplify the conjoint tasks so that each respondent focused only on the most relevant ones (his/her "top 10" attributes). (Management was even more delighted by my ability to cut the sample size - and resulting out-of-pocket research costs - almost in half, compared with our previous partial-profile CBC designs!)

Robert J. (Bob) Goodwin, M.B.A.
Lifetime Products, Inc.
www.lifetime.com