Thursday, March 31, 2011
The Elevator speech
by Kathleen Rutledge Edited Thursday, March 31, 2011
I’ve been trying for more than 20 years to explain what I do. It’s fairly easy to explain the consumer research piece because we are always being asked for our opinion on goods and services. But explaining sensory descriptive analysis does not lend itself to the 20 second explanation. It goes something like this:
“What do you do?” the new friend asks.
“I have a company with 30 employees that are trained to evaluate foods and products”
“Oh, what fun!” she says eagerly, “I would love to taste foods. Do you do a lot of chocolate?”
“Well, you see, I don’t care if they like the foods or products. I train them to analyze the different flavors or textures and measure them on scales. They work like calibrated instruments. It’s very focused and intense work”
“Oh, I see”, her interest clearly waning. “I was in one of your consumer tests and thought that was what you people did all day.”
“No, they train for hundreds of hours and measure the sensory characteristics of ingredients, finished foods and support research projects like chickens that have had different diets or processing treatments. They generate data that we analyze and use to track quality, stability over time, competitors’ products or developmental prototypes. ”
“We also do lots of non-food studies”, I continue, “ like flavor and cooling of mouthwashes, the tooth brushing experience, slipperiness of lotions, and odor of diapers in diaper pails.”
“Oh, my,” she says, clearly uncomfortable. “I had no idea!”
“Most everything you see on store shelves,” I answer, “has been tested by a sensory panel. So as you pass the personal hygiene aisle, look over the products and when you see a product claim like ‘better odor protection” you can just bet on it that a sensory panel has tested it.”
As my new acquaintance abruptly departs, I think again, how could I have told her what I do in 20 seconds or less?
