SensoGram 16: It's all in the Metric   When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science. Lord Kelvin (1824-1907)     This scientific quotation comes from the famous 19th Century physicist, Lord Kelvin, who devoted most of his career to developing a scale to measure temperature. He realised that until temperature could be measured like other physical dimensions (eg length and weight), progress in physics would be stymied.   And he was right. History shows that it was only when physical scales of measurement were ratified that science and technology really accelerated. We take these scales for granted today, but all of our material progress depends on measurement. Man did not make it to the moon on a wing and a prayer; this feat required measurement, the precision of which was - literally - astronomical.   Measurement in marketing and consumer science today is where temperature measurement was last century.  We have only recently developed true scales of sensory perception that are akin to the scale on a thermometer.  We know when a product is `hot' and when it is not - and we can specify all the gradations in between. Fundamentally, this capability inspired the name `SensoMetrics' - a sensory metric.  SensoMetrics provides you with a metric, a yardstick, for things that were not precisely measurable before.    For instance, it is only when you know precisely the consumer response to your product that you can predict the reaction in the marketplace. Remember that repeat purchase largely depends on how well your product satisfies the first time around.   And it is not just a question of how your product stacks up against a competitor's; the real question is, how good is your product in an absolute sense?   Suppose you do a simple paired-preference test, and you find that your product beats the competitor's, 70% to 30%. You take comfort in this, and wait to reap the benefit in sales. But this doesn't happen! Why? A simple SensoMetrics test shows you why: on the SensoMetrics scale your product comes in as lukewarm, while your competitor is below satisfactory. So, sure, you outperform your competitor but it's a case of a second rate product outperforming a third rate product. And the consumer is never excited by second rate products.   The advantages of a proper metric are manifold. Just as we can use a temperature scale anywhere - 28°C this week is the same as 28°C last year - so a proper metric allows you to compare products across different studies, because they are all measured on the same scale.   For real progress in consumer science, it's all in the metric.