Temporal drivers of liking by period: A case study on lemon-flavored carbonated alcoholic drinks with consumers in natural settings.

• Liking and sensory temporal data were collected at consumers' home on smartphones. • Drivers of liking were analyzed with and without considering the temporality. • Drivers of liking by period were more informative than usual drivers of liking. • Drivers of liking by period were meaningful for product development and marketing. Key driver analysis has long been used to identify important attributes that could positively or negatively contribute to product liking among target consumers. However, most studies focus only on how a desirable product should or should not be perceived, without considering when these perceptions dynamically occur during consumer interaction with the product. The objective of this study was to investigate drivers of liking with considerations of temporal descriptions collected from consumers having tasted full cans of four lemon-flavored carbonated alcoholic drinks at home. A total of 193 naïve consumers were asked to check all applicable items from a check-all-that-apply list among eight attributes during three periods of perception— "in mouth before swallowing," "immediately after swallowing" and "aftertaste"—for three sips (1st, 4th, and 7th) of each can, using their own smartphones while tasting each drink at home. Drivers of liking were analyzed both with and without considering the temporality of the three periods. The results suggested that taking dynamic perceptions into account enables the capture of not only the drivers of liking at the precise moment of tasting, but also further details. The results also indicated that bitterness perceived in the mouth before swallowing and as an aftertaste negatively contributed to product liking, and that lemon aroma had the greatest positive contribution to product liking in the aftertaste period. These results suggest that "temporal drivers of liking by period" could add greater value for product development and marketing purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]