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Perceptual Maps
Perceptual Maps
Perceptual Maps
Ganesh Iyer
Perceptual Maps
To gain competitive advantage, a firm must correctly position itself, its products, or services against competitive offerings. Need to develop a Mental Map of how our product is perceived by consumers relative to the different competing products in the marketplace.
Linking Segmentation and Positioning.
Techniques that help us to construct such mental or Perceptual Maps are called Multidimensional Scaling and Factor Analysis.
Ganesh Iyer
A perceptual map is a visual representation of how target customers view the competing alternatives in a Euclidean space which represents the market The map has the following characteristics:
Pair-wise distances between product alternatives directly indicate how close or far apart the products are in the minds of customers A vector on the map indicates both magnitude and direction in the Euclidean space. Vectors are usually used to geometrically denote attributes of the perceptual maps The axes of the map are a special set of vectors suggesting the underlying dimensions that best characterize how customers differentiate between alternatives
Ganesh Iyer
Perceptual Map of Beer Market (This slide shows only the products)
Old Milwaukee
Meister Brau
Budweiser Becks
Strohs
Miller
Coors
Heineken
Michelob
Miller Lite
Coors Light
Ganesh Iyer
Perceptual Map of Beer Market (contd) (This slide shows only the attributes) Heavy
Full Bodied Heavy Popular with Men
Premium
Budget
Premium
Popular with Women Light Less Filling
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Light
Perceptual Map of Beer Market (contd) (This slide shows both products & attributes) Heavy
Full Bodied Old Milwaukee Heavy Popular with Men Becks
Meister Brau
Budweiser
Premium
Miller
Heineken
Dining Out
Budget
Premium
Michelob
Pale Color Miller Lite Light
Coors Light
On a Budget
Ganesh Iyer
Light
Less Filling
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Specify the "Relevant" Objects or Products. Relevance means that the set of products chosen must be the set of competitive products that are relevant for managerial decision-making. Two possible methodologies to collect information on consumers perception of products:
Method 1: Attribute based method (Factor Analysis). Method 2: Similarity-Based method (Multi-Dimensional Scaling)
Ganesh Iyer
Select a set of laptop computers of interest to be the target group including the new concept(say 4 products) Decide on the set of relevant attributes on which to capture consumer perceptions (6 attributes)
Prior quantitative or qualitative research that elicits important attributes for the target consumers.
Ensure that consumers are familiar with the laptops that are to be evaluated (e.g., through video presentation, or actual prototypes) Respondents (target customers) evaluate / rank or rate products.
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Ganesh Iyer
Perceptual Mapping
Data Matrix = 4 (products) X 6 (attributes) X 300 (respondents).
Consumers
A1 P1 P2 P3 P4
Submit data to factor analysis
A2
A3
A4
Interpret the underlying key dimensions (factors) using the directions of the individual attributes Explore the implications of how consumers view the competing products
Data Matrix
Ganesh Iyer
Factor Analysis
Perceptual map
It is difficult to get a clear picture of the market when dealing with so many attributes and products. All the data/dimensions might not be necessary to capture consumer perceptions. Why? Highly correlated attributes
Create linear combination of the measures to get a single new dimension of the original attributes.
Take out attributes on which all computers are rated about the same. Factor analysis output:
Say 70% of the information contained in the original attributes can be represented by creating just 2 new dimensions. These dimensions are called factors. Analysis done using commercial software SPSS or SAS
Ganesh Iyer
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Slow
Easy setup
yToshiba 1960CT
Performance
Light Value
y -&1C
Butterfly
Elegant
Look/Styling
The six attributes were measured on semantic differential scales: 1) SlowFast operation, 2) PlainElegant, 3) EasyDifficult setup, 4) PoorExcellent value, 5) LightHeavy, and 6) CommonDistinctive.
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Slow
Easy setup
yToshiba 1960CT
Performance
y -&1C
Butterfly Good Value Light
Elegant
Looks
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The arrow indicates the direction in which that attribute is increasing. Length of the line from the origin to the arrow is an indicator of the variance of that attribute explained by the 2D map. The longer this line, the greater is the importance of that attribute in capturing variance. Attribute that are both relatively important (i.e., long vector) and close to the horizontal (vertical) axis help interpret the meaning of axis. To represent a laptop on each attribute, draw an imaginary perpendicular line from the location of the laptop onto that attribute. (These are shown by dashed lines on the map). What practical uses can you now put this map to at this stage?
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Ganesh Iyer
Limitations
Researcher should be able to clearly conceptualize the attributes No perception gap between intended and actual perception of the attributes. Works well for hard or functional attributes, (price, product features).
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ED Market
Cialis
Levitra Cialis
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ED Market
Cialis
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5.5
6 2
What more would you like to know?
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Multidimensional Scaling
With 3 products, I can perfectly represent the information in two dimensions With more products to be represented in two dimensions
information loss
Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is a mathematical technique that helps implement this analysis of similarity perceptions with minimum information loss. What are advantages/disadvantages of MDS
Allows you to map products and simultaneously infer attributes. Better for softer attributes which we do not verbalize very well (feel, aesthetics) Impractical when the number of products are large.
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Represent customers perceptions in a manner that aids communication and discussion within the organization
Product
Perceptions of a new product concept in the context of existing brands in the market Finding the gap in the market to position the product.
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Learning
Perceptual maps are about How our product is perceived by consumers relative to competition?
Link Segmentation and Positioning
Segmentation, Positioning and Perceptual mapping involve careful and sophisticated quantitative analysis and not vague managerial intuition. Two important methods to develop perceptual maps
Attribute rating Similarity rating
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