Commentary

Conjoint analysis has achieved widespread acceptance and use among applied market researchers as a tool for forecasting and diagnosing the market performance of new and existing products. Given our reliance on the procedure, those of us who use it are highly receptive to suggestions on how to increase its effectiveness. Hagerty's (Hagerty, M. R. 1986. The cost of simplifying preference models. Marketing Sci.5 298–319.) paper offers us some provocative new ideas which should force any user of conjoint analysis to reflect upon the models he or she is using and to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to dictate a change.