Transparent methodology
The SZ Institut regularly awards products with the Germany‘s Favourite. A transparent evaluation process, in which end customers take centre stage, ensures maximum credibility.
The “Germany‘s Favourite” project, initiated by the SZ Institut of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and carried out by the market research company INNOFACT, gives companies the opportunity to have their (new) products rated by a representative consumer panel in six categories.
Participation period
- Registration deadline for products is always the 15th calendar day of the month (unless it is a weekend, otherwise the Friday before)
- Consumer survey starts at the beginning of the following month*
- Winners are honoured by the end of the survey month at the latest
Participation period
1. Registration
Companies have the opportunity to submit their products via the registration tool. As part of the registration process, a description, images and the recommended retail price (RRP) of the product are required. After registration, the products submitted will be checked by the SZ Institut and INNOFACT for the feasibility of the assessment.
2. Consumer survey
Once the submitted products have been successfully reviewed, they are embedded in the questionnaire and prepared for the consumer survey.
Each product is assessed by at least 200 consumers according to the criteria of overall appeal, relevance, likelihood of purchase, uniqueness, quality, sustainability, functionality, design and value for money.
Composition of the consumer panel:
- (Co-)decision-makers for major purchasing decisions in the household
- Women and men aged 18 and over (invited to be representative of the population, distributed as evenly as possible by gender and age, but then freely distributed according to category use)
- Category utilisation = panellists only evaluate products from categories that they consider relevant for themselves (category users)
3. Evaluation
The evaluation is based on a 6-point scale analogue to the familiar and learned school grading system and is the basis for the overall grade of each product.
Within the survey, respondents rate the evaluation criteria of uniqueness, quality, sustainability, functionality, design and value for money according to their personal importance. The assessment is based on the images and the description, i.e. the panellists do not have to be familiar with the product. The rating is therefore based entirely on first impressions, including the suggested retail price (SRP) of the product, i.e. how real consumers would rate a product in everyday life as part of a purchasing process.
The average importance of the individual evaluation criteria across all respondents is used as a benchmark for weighting factors. These weighting factors are used to weight the evaluation results of the individual criteria and their influence on the overall score up or down (constant sum method**). The results of the core criteria of overall favourability, purchase probability and relevance are added together to produce an overall score for each product.
4. Award
If this overall score is in the “VERY GOOD” (1.0-1.5) or “GOOD” (1.6-2.5) range, the product receives the “Germany‘s Favourite” award and may use the SZ Institut quality seal. In addition to the product name and brand, the seal also contains the overall score achieved and – when used in communication – provides transparent support for consumers’ purchasing decisions.
INNOFACT AG – Quality of the online panel
With around 120 permanent employees, INNOFACT AG is an owner-managed full-service market research institute based in Duesseldorf with branches in Zurich and Lengerich (Westphalia). The survey participants are recruited from consumer and B2B panels initiated by INNOFACT in Germany. As a first mover, INNOFACT has been launching the most efficient market research online panels in German-speaking countries since 1998. A total of around 350,000 people are now available for market research studies. The panels are ISO certified and are regularly rated as the best German market research panels in independent studies by customers (institute market researchers and company market researchers).
Would you like to register products for the consumer survey?
Click here to go directly to the registration portal.
Do you have any suggestions, questions or need personalised advice?
Write to: institut@sz.de.
*SZ Institut reserves the right to organise the product evaluation at a later date after consultation with the manufacturer. You can find more details in our conditions of participation.
**Explanation of the constant sum method
The constant sum method is used to reliably determine the relevance and attractiveness of various features or criteria of an offer for the target group. If there are a large number of similar attributes, the method is suitable for differentiating features, applications or image aspects.
Description: In order to avoid an inflation of demands (“everything is important”), the respondent is forced to prioritise with this method. The respondent must allocate percentage points per attribute so that the entire battery of properties comes to 100 percent. This allows the respondent to indicate which criteria they consider most important and which they consider least important.
Specifically in this study: the criteria of uniqueness, quality, sustainability, functionality, design and value for money must be scored by the respondents as a percentage and thus ranked.
The results are then later used to weight the criteria.