The document reports on a blind taste test of Smirnoff vodka and two new test blends conducted with 760 participants across five cities. The primary objective was to determine if consumers preferred one of the test blends over the control Smirnoff blend. Statistical analysis found no significant differences in ratings based on demographics or test conditions. Taste and mouthfeel were the most important attributes while aftertaste was least important. Neither test blend was rated significantly higher than Smirnoff. The analysis recommends not replacing Smirnoff but focusing on taste, mouthfeel, and throat feel for future product development.

1. Submitted By:
11/6/2014
Amarjeet Singh
Koushik Rakshit
Namita Pandey
Roma Agrawal
1

2.  Background
 Objective
 Research Design
 Sample Size and Data Description
 Feedback
 Analysis
 Summary
 Questions
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3.  R & D team of Smirnoff has prepared two new blends
of Vodka; Test Blend 1 and Test Blend 2
 Marketing team want to do Blind test of the two new
blends Vs. Smirnoff (Control Blend)
 Any of the Test Blends if found to be better than
Smirnoff then it will be replaced by that new Test
Blend.
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4.  Primary Objective
 To test whether drinkers have liked the new test blends of vodka
or not.
 To decide whether current blend should be replaced by any of
the new test blends or not (at 90% and 95% Confidence level)
 Secondary Objective
 To find the important attributes that drive overall preference of
vodka and to what extent they are responsible for overall
likability of the blend.
 To reduce the correlated attributes into factors and to see their
effect on overall likeability
 To predict the purchase intentions by evaluating the ratings on
attributes.
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5.  One to one interview was conducted in 5 large cities – Delhi,
Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai
 The Research was conducted with sequential monadic
exposure – 3 blends were given one after the another and
feedback was taken
 Consumers were given neutralizer after each blend to remove
bias
 Target Group
Males/Females in the age group of 25 – 35 yrs.
Consuming vodka at least twice a week
Regular consumer of any one of the three brands –
Smirnoff, Fuel or Magic Moments
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6. 760, each will be given 3 blends of Vodka
Total = 760*3 = 2280 observations
 Each person will be given a unique a “unique response no”
and they have to response for each of 3 blends, i.e., 3 rows
for each persons.

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PANEL
PANEL1
(where Test
Product 1 is
first blend)
PANEL1
(where Control
Product is first
blend)
PANEL1
(where Test
Product 2 is
first blend)

7.  Age- Recorded as number of yrs., ranging from 25 to 35
 Ages – Recorded as two bands of Age
1 – Age between 25–30yrs & 2 – Age between 31–35yrs
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30
25
20
15
10
7
12.93
24.33
6.08
2.66 2.66
6.46
13.69
9.13
6.08
7.98 7.98
14.4
18.4
6.8
4
1.2
5.6
11.2
12
3.2
11.2
12
14.57
14.57
6.88
7.69
3.64
3.64
14.17
9.72
4.86
12.96
7.29
5
0
25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35
P
E
R
C
E
N
T
A
G
E
AGE (YR)
PANEL1
PANEL2
PANEL3
At 95%, there is no significant difference among age and age
groups

8.  Study was done in 5 centers:
22
21
20
19
18
17
 Placement Order and Product goes together–
1 – First-placed blend
2 – Second-placed blend
3 – Third-placed blend
Product beside this specifies which blend is first, second or third.
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20.91
20.53
19.77
18.25
20.53
18
19.6
20.4
20.8
21.2
19.03 19.43
19.84
21.46
20.24
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DELHI MUMBAI KOLKATA BANGALORE CHENNAI
P
E
R
C
E
N
T
A
G
E
PANEL1
PANEL2
PANEL3
At 95%, there is no significant difference among centers as
well

9.  Each attribute was ranked on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being
the max and 0 means that it is not all being liked by the
drinker)
 Strength of different attribute was taken on 5 point likert
scale:
 Intention to buy
1-Yes and 2-No
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1 (too weak) 2 (little weak) 3 (just right) 4 (too strong) 5 (too strong)

10. 11/6/2014
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Analysis
Starts

11.  Attributes in the order of their importance:
Taste -> Mouth Feel -> Aroma -> Smoothness ->
Throat Feel -> Flavor -> After Taste
 “After taste” was not adding any value so Ignored that
attribute in predicting the overall likeability
 Regression Equation:
 This equation explains 77.4 % variability in Overall
Likeability
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[Overall Likeability] = 0.589 + 0.174[Aroma] + 0.300[Taste] +
0.118[Smoothness] + 0.089[Flavour] + 0.101[Throat Feel] +
0.206[Mouth Feel]

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Top2 at 95%
CL
Prod1 and
Prod2
Prod3 and
Prod2
Overall
Likeability SAME SAME
Taste SAME SAME
Mouth Feel SAME SAME
Top3 at 95%
CL
Prod1 and
Prod2
Prod3 and
Prod2
Overall
Likeability DIFFERENT SAME
Taste DIFFERENT SAME
Mouth Feel SAME SAME
MainBrand %age
Magic Moments 22.76%
Smirnoff 62.23%
Fuel 15.00%
Neither Blends are better than Control Product (Smirnoff)at 95%
Confidence Level (Taken top 2 rating and top 3 ratings)

13.  Attributes in the order of their importance:
Strength Of Taste -> Strength of Smoothness ->
Strength of After Taste -> Strength of Flavor
 “Strength of Aroma” is not a important factor.
[Overall Likeability] = 8.56 - 0.300[Strength of Taste] + 0.150[Strength of
Smoothness] - 0.093[Strength of Flavour] - 0.117[Strength of After Taste]
 This equation explains 7.1 % variability in Overall Likeability,
We should not consider all these.
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Note: This is not correct to do, as OL is on 10 point scale and rest of the
predictors are on 5 point scale

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Correlation Matrix
Aroma Taste Smoothness Flavor Throat-Feel After-taste Mouth-Feel
Correla
tion
Aroma 1.000
Taste .699 1.000
Smoothness .650 .778 1.000
Flavor .699 .783 .730 1.000
Throat-Feel .644 .749 .784 .743 1.000
After-taste .658 .791 .759 .772 .796 1.000
Mouth-Feel .652 .797 .762 .768 .814 .831 1.000
Huge Correlation and KMO statistics (0.945) > 0.5 hence we can go
for factor Analysis

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Total Variance Explained
Component
Initial Eigenvalues Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings
Total % of Variance
Cumulative
% Total % of Variance
Cumulative
%
1 5.482 78.316 78.316 5.482 78.316 78.316
2 .431 6.156 84.473
3 .276 3.939 88.412
4 .252 3.603 92.015
5 .220 3.146 95.161
6 .179 2.558 97.718
7 .160 2.282 100.000
Total Variance is explained by 1 component only.

16. Structure Matrix
Function
1
Taste .373
Aroma .337
Throat-feel .212
Smoothness .139
Flavor .057
After Taste -.072
Mouth Feel .148
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Considering all attributes
except Overall Likeability
Classification Resultsa,c
Q6_Int_p (Y=1,N=2)
Predicted Group
Membership
1 2 Total
Original Count 1 519 204 723
2 125 1432 1557
% 1 71.8 28.2 100.0
2 8.0 92.0 100.0
Cross-validated
b
Count 1 516 207 723
2 127 1430 1557
% 1 71.4 28.6 100.0
2 8.2 91.8 100.0
a. 85.6% of original grouped cases correctly classified.
b. 85.4% of cross-validated grouped cases correctly classified.

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Standardized Canonical Discriminant
Function Coefficients
Function
1
Taste .477
Aroma .370
Throat-Feel .329
Only considering 3 most
important attributes
Classification Resultsa,c
Q6_Int_p (Y=1,N=2)
Predicted Group
Membership
1 2 Total
Original Count 1 498 225 723
2 129 1428 1557
% 1 68.9 31.1 100.0
2 8.3 91.7 100.0
Cross-validated
b
Count 1 498 225 723
2 129 1428 1557
% 1 68.9 31.1 100.0
2 8.3 91.7 100.0
a. 84.5% of original grouped cases correctly classified.
b. 84.5% of cross-validated grouped cases correctly classified.

18.  There is no difference in samples w.r.t age, ages, market, centers,
panels, products.
 (Chi square test is used to test this)
 Taste and Mouth Feel are most important attributes and After taste
is least important
 (Regression and step-wise regression)
 Seen that there were correlation between many attributes, we
clubbed the correlated attributes into factors and then tried to find
the effect on overall likeability
 (Factor Analysis and Regression)
 We tried to discriminate the two levels of purchase intension on
the basis of attributes
 Important attributes were: Overall likeability, taste, Mouth Feel
 Least Important comes out to be: Flavor and after taste
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19.  Control product should not be replaced by any of the test
products
 Aroma, Taste, Mouth-Feel and Throat feel are most important
attributes that drinkers like.
 After taste is least important
 Main brand of drinkers is Smirnoff only.
 Company should concentrate on these 3 attributes if in future they
want to launch any new products
 We would like to suggest a launch of new product but not with
the replacement of Smirnoff
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