As promised in my Crowning the Ultimate Halloween Candy with MaxDiff article, we have the results! 136 MaxDiff / Candy enthusiasts responded and the top 10 Halloween Treats are…
The probability scores shown in the table range from 0 to 100 and reflect the likelihood that an item would be selected as "best" compared to the Anchor. The Anchor is a question outside the MaxDiff where we asked respondents to "select all the items that you would actually want to receive as a trick-or-treater". We can use each individual’s answers to this question to draw a line in the sand and say that the items that appear above the anchor are items people actually want to receive and the items below the anchor, they do not.
Here, a score of 50% indicates the item is equal in utility to the Anchor item. A score of 90% means the item has a 90% likelihood of being selected instead of the Anchor item. A score of 10% means the item has a 10% likelihood of being selected instead of the Anchor item.
See the entire set of rankings below. Agree? Disagree? Share your opinions in the comments!
Another great thing we can do with MaxDiff data is run a cluster analysis. This helps us to make sure that we aren’t overlooking the heterogeneity that exists between humans (i.e. we each like different candy options!). Surprisingly though, this year it appears that LinkedIn Users are Chocolate & Peanut Butter fans. No matter which way you slice the data, Reese’s Minis, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Snickers and Twix are in every clusters Top 5 candies! There is only a small group of you (N=32 to be exact) that prefer Skittles to chocolate!
Finally, using this data, we can figure out how to make the neighborhood happy, or in our case, coworkers - by making sure we offer a set of candies where everyone is bound to like at least one option! This is called TURF analysis, or Total Unduplicated Reach and Frequency.
Among our LinkedIn peers, we can reach almost 60% by just offering Reese’s Minis. Add Twix to the basket, and grab another 13%. Make sure to add the Skittles too and you’ll make over 80% of your co-workers happy!
The data doesn’t lie – people love candy on Halloween! So next Halloween, create a MaxDiff survey for your neighborhood or work space and be the favorite house/cubicle on the block.