Ipsos Laddering

Understanding psychological needs is an important step in the new product development process.

If you understand how psychological needs are met by current product attributes, you can generate ideas that meet these needs through new product attributes or new consequences of product attributes.

At Ipsos, we can create new paths, often called ladders, to meet consumers’ psychological needs. Ipsos laddering is unique because we use the Internet to ladder from concrete attributes to psychological needs. We can use of the technique to provide guidance for new product development. And you get data rich in consumer’s “lingo” with larger bases than traditional focus groups.

How laddering works

At Ipsos, we use online survey capabilities. Respondents are first asked which brand they used most often, then asked to come up with two advantages of buying the brand they used most often.

These responses are then piped to the second level. In the second level, respondents are asked why each of the advantages they listed was important to them (consequences). These responses are then piped to the third level. In the third level, respondents are asked why each of the consequences was important to them (values).

Respondents’ verbatim answers are coded and we develop laddering maps for each brand.

Read more about Laddering:

Ipsos Ideas: Making Products Psychologically Fulfilling