Using choice experiments to find double jeopardy patterns

Double jeopardy is one of the most important empirical patterns of consumer brand purchase behaviour. It asserts that large brands benefit from having more consumers who are also generally more loyal. Traditional methods for detecting double jeopardy patterns in consumer purchasing behaviour rely heavily on the availability of panel data. Although alternative methods have been proposed, these too require large quantities of data, making them costly to implement for many managers and researchers. This study proposes a new method for detecting double jeopardy patterns that requires only small samples of data. Using the instant coffee market in the US to test this new method, it is shown that repeated discrete choice experiments can produce proximate measures to those used as inputs to double jeopardy calculations. This approach gives researchers an economical and easy method to test whether a market conforms to double jeopardy, allowing them to keep managers informed about the properties of consumer purchase behaviour in their markets.