MMR Founder Tackles 'Emotional Terminology'

David Thomson, the founder and Chairman of UK-based agency MMR Research Worldwide, has developed a lexicon of 'emotional terminology', which he believes could form an industry standard for use in emotional research.

Founded in 1989, the firm specialises in the food, drink, personal and household care sectors, has offices in the UK, USA, Singapore and China, and is part of the privately-owned MMR Group.

Thomson's lexicon of 544 terms was developed following initial research with respondents in France, Germany, Italy and the UK, resulting in 55 'feeling clusters' of which 23 were notionally positive and 32 were notionally negative.

In the second phase of the study, 60 standard terms in English were extracted from the previous cluster analysis and subjected to a similarity sorting exercise using 70 UK respondents. This produced 25 lower-order clusters - including touched, lively and charming - and 12 higher-order clusters which are things like caring, excited and sociable.

Explaining the reasons behind the launch, Thomson said: 'Practical procedures are required to help researchers capture the feelings that consumers experience. I realised that before any research tools can get under the skin of consumers' emotions, a robust and focused lexicon was required to set parameters for the words people use on a day-to-day basis, and help researchers use the right words to describe what consumers experience in everyday life.'

Web site: www.mmr-research.com .