Modelling the willingness to pay for honey: the role of sensory characteristics and EEG neurometrics

It is currently unclear which honey attributes are most important for consumers and, more importantly, from an economic perspective, for which of them consumers are willing to pay for. The aim of this study was to examine the role of sensory attributes in consumers willingness to pay for honey. The study was performed in two steps. First, we ran a behavioural experiment in which 25 participants were asked to blindly taste and evaluate 21 sensory attributes of 7 different flower honey samples. Based on the obtained data, we conducted a factor analysis and aggregated all sensory attributes into 6 factors, which were used in the second part of the study during a neuromarketing experiment. The neuromarketing experiment involved another 25 respondents who also blindly tasted honey, evaluated its 6 sensory characteristics (corresponding to the 6 above-mentioned factors), as well as their willingness to pay, the perceived quality and taste of the samples. While the respondents were evaluating honey samples, their brain activity was recorded using an electroencephalograph (EEG). Based on the obtained data, the willingness to pay was modeled using a linear regression, which has demonstrated that consumers willingness to pay for honey is significantly influenced by the taste of honey, the perceived quality indicated by various sensory characteristics, the male gender, and the brain activity in the frontal areas.