The identification of product attributes and features that are essential for a benefit to exist is critical to new product development and formulation. Some attributes are benefit enabling in the sense that their presence indicates that an offering is responsive to a need, and their absence points out that the product is not responsive. Not all agricultural products, for example, are seen as having safety advantages, and specific organic certification such as the USDA organic label may be needed for some consumers to consider an offering as providing a benefit of reducing the level of health risks. Benefit formation hinges on these critical attributes being present, while other attributes may only enhance a benefit that has already been formed. Benefit-forming attributes therefore create a specific form of interaction among product attributes that may be heterogeneously distributed in the population. We develop a model to identify benefit-forming attributes and apply it to three conjoint datasets where we provide evidence of their interactive effects on preferences. The counter-factual exercises across three datasets highlight the importance of benefit-forming attributes in product design as well as in preference segments.

中文翻译：

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利益形成与增强

识别产品属性和功能对于获得益处至关重要，这对新产品开发和配方至关重要。从某种意义上说，某些属性可以带来好处，即它们的存在表明产品对需求做出了响应，而它们的缺失表明产品没有响应。例如，并非所有农产品都被视为具有安全优势，某些消费者可能需要特定的有机认证，例如USDA有机标签，才能将产品视为具有降低健康风险水平的好处。利益形成取决于所存在的这些关键属性，而其他属性可能只会增强已经形成的利益。因此，形成利益的属性会在产品属性之间创建一种特定形式的交互，这些属性可能会在人群中异质分布。我们开发了一个模型来识别形成利益的属性，并将其应用于三个联合数据集，在此我们提供了它们对偏好的互动影响的证据。跨越三个数据集的反事实演习凸显了在产品设计以及偏好细分中形成利益的属性的重要性。