A Multiple Criteria Decision Model for Repeated Choice Situations

The role of multiple attributes in consumer choice has received much attention from marketers. This literature, however, is essenti ally deterministic. Yet, in regard to predictive accuracy, these mod els have not performed as well as expected. Bass, Pessemier, and Lehmann (1972), in particular, have stressed the extent to which brand switching is observed in individual behavior. Bass (1974) and Herniter (1972) have proposed a model of stochastic preference to account for brand-switching behavior. In this paper, we relate these contributions to the multiattributed consumer choice models. A general framework of analysis is proposed to model multiattributed consumer preference. It is then shown that the origin of the brand-switching phenomenon is to be found in the interaction of the multiplicity of evaluative dimensions for the choice alternatives and the consumer uncertainty over salient attributes and alternative performance on these attributes. Finally, the applicability of this methodology to other existing multiattribute choice models is briefly discussed.