Conjoint analysis with textual external information

In market researche we often need statistical methods able to jointly deal with numerical and textual variables.Particularly in market segmentation, several tools have been proposed for profiling customers, by surveying asample of potential buyers. One of the most common statistical analysis aiming at identifying the “ideal” productfor a target market is Conjoint Analysis (Green et Srinivasan, 1990). This technique considers a good/service asa proper combination of jointly evaluated characteristics. Each customer has to compare those combinations, i.e.the different potential (or actual) goods. The so-called full profile method often used in Conjoint Analysissometimes seems too rigid in its experimental structure. Moreover, we are not always sure about the descriptionsof the different goods, as we can consider only a small number of variables. We propose a procedure aimed atintegrating Conjoint Analysis with textual information achieved by answers to open-ended questions. From amethodological viewpoint, this means introducing external information in the Takane and Shibayama (1991)sense. The proposed procedure improves the understanding of the preference structure and the ideal productdefinition. An empirical analysis on the watch market shows the effectiveness of this proposal.