Market Research: Foundations to Practice · Advanced Quantitative Techniques
TURF and Portfolio Optimization
Once individual item preferences are known, a separate and distinct question remains: which combination of items reaches the largest possible share of a market. This chapter covers the technique built for exactly that question.
TURF, short for Total Unduplicated Reach and Frequency, addresses a distinct question from either MaxDiff or conjoint: given a set of candidate items, such as product flavors, features, or marketing messages, which specific combination of a limited number of them reaches the largest possible share of the target market, rather than which individual items are most preferred on average across all respondents [26].
Key Takeaways
- TURF (Total Unduplicated Reach and Frequency) identifies which combination of items reaches the largest share of a market, not which items are individually preferred.
- The individually top-ranked items don't necessarily combine into the optimal portfolio, since similar items can overlap heavily in who they appeal to.
- TURF systematically tests combinations against respondent-level appeal data to maximize total reach, not simply sum individual average appeal scores.
- Common applications include flavor variant selection, campaign message selection, and menu simplification, balancing limited slots against market reach.