Conjoint analysis (CA) provides an indirect way to measure customers preferences by their stated willingness to pay. Manufactures, Gillette in particular, have used CA to refine and extend their product lines. In an application to disposable razors, they used CA to estimate the trade-off between features and price before introducing more blades, which brought a big success to the company. Based on their market research, the following tables provides a short form of their CA stimuli and analysis:

Based on the above tables and charts, answer with relevant explanations to the following questions:

a) Write the predicted ranks corresponding to each row in the table (you need to show the utility levels in parenthesis for each rank).

What would be the most and least preferred razor according the predicted ranks?

b) Calculate importance scores of each attribute.

c) If Gillette was already selling a $5, 3-blade razors, what suggestion would you have for the product team to improve?

Attribute Number of blades Price (per piece) Levels 3,4,5 $3, $4, $5 Hypothetical product Preference ordering 3 Predicted ranks 5 7 1 3-blades, priced $3 3-blades, priced $4 3-blades, priced $5 4-blades, priced $3 4-blades, priced $4 4-blades, priced $5 5-blades, priced $3 5-blades, priced $4 5-blades, priced $5 2 6 4 8 9 Utility from number of blades Utility from price 4.5 4 4 3.5 3.5 3 3 2.5 2.5 2 2 1.5 1.5 $3 $4 $5 3 4 -blades price Attribute Number of blades Price (per piece) Levels 3,4,5 $3, $4, $5 Hypothetical product Preference ordering 3 Predicted ranks 5 7 1 3-blades, priced $3 3-blades, priced $4 3-blades, priced $5 4-blades, priced $3 4-blades, priced $4 4-blades, priced $5 5-blades, priced $3 5-blades, priced $4 5-blades, priced $5 2 6 4 8 9 Utility from number of blades Utility from price 4.5 4 4 3.5 3.5 3 3 2.5 2.5 2 2 1.5 1.5 $3 $4 $5 3 4 -blades price