5. Conclusions
These results present a new way of looking at consumer preference: While traditionally it is considered that consumers tend to have a preference intensity (Da Silva et al., 2013 and Meilgaard et al., 2007) for categories of stimuli (e.g. red color category, yellow color category), it may in fact be that in addition to having a preference intensity, consumers may also exhibit a range of tolerance for variations on the stimulus.
In the present study it was determined that consumers have a high tolerance for a variety of shades of certain color categories of roses, such as red, however other color categories have one or two star performing colors with a very narrow range of shade tolerance. This suggests that some rose color categories are a higher risk pursuit than others.
While this study focused only on rose color preferences, it may be that this concept of shade tolerances may apply to other sensory dimensions. Future work could examine the range of consumer tolerance to “shades” of flavors (e.g. strawberry flavor variations, pineapple flavor variations). If it is determined that the concept of shade tolerance applies to other sensory dimensions, it can inform product developers and category managers about the risks involved in pursuing different types of colors, flavors or sensations.