A comparison of five elicitation techniques for elicitation of attributes of low involvement products

The critical first step for most instruments used in analysing consumer cho ice and motivation is the identification of product attributes which are im portant to the consumer and for which there are differences among the avail able product alternatives. A number of techniques, ranging from the complex elicitation of idiosyncratic attributes or simpler picking procedures, hav e been developed to elicitate such attributes. The purpose of the study pre sented here is to compare attributes of a low involvement product, viz, veg etable oil, elicited by five different techniques on a number of dimensions directed from theories of consumer buying behaviour. Although a number of differences between the techniques are identified in the study, the main fi ndings are that the robustness of the different techniques for attribute el icitation is considerable. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserv ed. PsycINFO classification: 2260; 3920 JEL classification: C80; M30.