Class Certification & Consumer Behavior

Our clients rely on our expertise in consumer decision making to analyze whether standard methods can be used to assess consumers’ understanding of allegedly false claims and to determine whether and to what extent, if any, consumers may have been damaged by these claims. In false advertising cases, for example, we conduct surveys to determine whether consumer perceptions related to the alleged false statements are highly similar or heterogenous, and whether such statements influence consumer purchase behavior.

In addition, we often evaluate different sources of publicly-available information to assess whether proposed class members were likely to notice, understand, and act on allegedly false statements in the same way. Such assessments can be complemented with systematic analyses of user-generated content, such as online reviews, supplemented by interpretations using natural language processing (NLP). We also apply our extensive data analysis skills to analyze company sales data, transactional data, and CRM data to identify groups of consumers who exhibit behavior inconsistent with injury.

Our Methods

Our methods include: 

  • Test/control experiments – We have experience using test/control experimental designs to isolate the causal effect of a particular product characteristic, allegedly false claim, or missing disclosure on purchase decisions or other consumer behavior.
  • Question-and-answer surveys – We have used traditional question-and-answer surveys to aided or unaided consumer awareness of at-issue features and assess consumer perception of a product or service.
  • Archival analysis – Analysis Group experts rely on data science and natural language processing to research records from historical archives of news articles, press releases and other sources to assess contemporaneous attitudes and the “voice of the consumer.” Such analyses may provide evidence of the extent to which putative class members factored the allegedly deceptive conduct or issue into their purchase decision.
  • Purchase funnel – The purchase funnel framework – the examination of each step up to the purchase decision, as well as post-purchase factors such as customer satisfaction – can be critical to the determination of whether all the members of a putative class were aware of and affected by the alleged conduct.
  • Marketplace analysis – By collecting and analyzing large volumes of consumer-facing information and company data – including daily pricing data, discounting, and transaction-level data – our consultants help ascertain exposure and damages.

Our Methods