TURF Analysis

TURF analysis — Total Unduplicated Reach and Frequency — answers a portfolio question: which limited set of products, flavors, features, or messages reaches the largest number of distinct customers with at least one option they like? The reach-and-frequency idea originated in media planning, where reach is the share of an audience exposed at least once and frequency is the average number of exposures, and was carried into product-line research by Gene Miaoulis and colleagues. The defining word is 'unduplicated': a customer who likes three items in the set is still only one person reached, so TURF rewards complementary, non-overlapping appeal rather than piling up popular-but-redundant items. Daniel Serra formalized the selection problem as binary linear programming, showing it can be solved exactly and efficiently even for large candidate sets instead of relying on exhaustive enumeration. Wedel and Kamakura situate TURF within assortment and segmentation strategy as a tool for choosing a product line that covers a heterogeneous market. The output is a recommended assortment of a chosen size together with its reach curve, guiding line extensions, menu design, and message portfolios.