Exploring the use of
consumer collages
in product design
A.I.A. Costa*, D. Schoolmeester,
M. Dekker and W.M.F. Jongen
Product Design & Quality Management,
Wageningen University, PO Box 8129, 6700 EV
Wageningen, The Netherlands
(Tel.: +31-317-482286; fax: +31-317-483669;
e-mail: ana.costa@ift.fdsci.wag-ur.nl)
This paper presents the development, application and eva-
luation of a method for need identification in food product
design, which combines the use of collage techniques and
focus groups. Recent findings in neurobiology and psychol-
ogy have considerable relevance for methodological
improvement in consumer research. Based on these find-
ings, a collage and focus group study aiming to identify
feelings, emotions and experiences of consumers towards
Home Meal Replacements, as well as relevant product
attributes, is developed and performed. Its effectiveness is
compared with that of (strictly) verbo-centric research pre-
viously carried out. Trends in image-based consumer
research for product design are discussed.
# 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
It has been proposed that the success of food product
development processes can be greatly improved if com-
panies focus on creating products that deliver unique
and superior benefits to consumers (Grunert, Baads-
gaard, Larsen, & Madsen, 1996). Such a delivery of
benefits, however, can only take place if companies are
able to optimally exploit their technological capabilities
in order to meet relevant consumer needs. Thus, the
identification of consumer needs, by taking place at the
design stage, becomes one of the earliest and most
crucial steps in a consumer-led product development
process (Dahan & Hauser, 2002; Trijp & Steenkamp,
1998).
In-depth knowledge regarding consumer needs is
essential to product development processes since these
needs:
Reflect how current offer is (or is not) satisfying
consumers;
Set the standards to which new products have to
comply;
Often contribute to generate new, unique and
superior ways of satisfying consumers.
It is therefore not surprizing that a significant part of
consumer research is dedicated to the development of
methods aiming at the identification of consumer needs
and its use in the generation of new concepts (Dahan &
Hauser, 2002). Nevertheless, most of the current
research in need identification is verbo-centric and views
consumers as rational-decision makers, which may not
be totally appropriate in the light of recent develop-
ments in psychology and neurobiology. These develop-
ments point out to a more significant role of emotion
and imagery in the context of consumer behaviour.
There is thus a need for methods that acknowledge both
reason and emotion in decision-making processes, and
enable consumers to represent their emotions, feelings
and experiences towards products in a non-verbal form
(Schiffman & Kanuk, 2000; Zaltman, 1997). We antici-
pate that the development and application of such
methods can help achieve the degree of creativity and
consumer insight essential to successful consumer-led
food product development.
This paper presents the development, application and
evaluation of the combined use of the collage technique
(Marshall, 2001; Schiffman & Kanuk, 2000; Solomon,
Bamossy, & Askegaard, 1999; Havlena & Holak,
1996; Schlackman, 1989) and focus groups discussions
(Marshall, 1997; Schiffman & Kanuk, 2000; Solomon et
al., 1999; Casey & Krueger, 1994) as an appropriate
methodology for need identification in food product
0924-2244/03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0924-2244(02)00242-X
Trends in Food Science & Technology 14 (2003) 17–31
Viewpoint
* Corresponding author.