This blog is for the ones who slept till late on the 30th august and missed the first class of Business Analytics(me being one of them). So I thought it will be a good idea to catch up on what perceptual mapping(because I didn’t want to impose on the class’s time in the subsequent lectures) was about and blog about it too.
Product or perceptual mapping refers to the methods to analyze and understand consumer perceptions of products. The products can be anything from toothpastes to movies from hospitals to political candidates. Product mapping produces a map or a picture of a market. The map shows how products are perceived on specific features or attributes like reputation, price quality etc.
Product mapping shows which products compete in people’s minds and suggests how a product can be positioned to maximize preference and sales.
Product maps has many applications for instance it can provide a clear description of the structure of a market and suggests a possible segmentation strategies. It can also identify weaknesses on attributes and suggest new advertising and/or positioning strategies. In case a company is planning to launch a new product the new product concepts can be developed and evaluated by how they stack upagainst existing products.
Product maps are easy to interpret and convey a tremendous amount of information in a single picture.
The above map shows which brands are perceived as being similar and compete against each other. Tylenol and Motrin occupy very close positions on the map and are competing brands in the eyes of the consumer. Panadol , Bayer and private label aspirin are not positioned close to any other brand and have less direct competition. Another important piece of information conveyed by the map is it identifies how every brand is perceived on each attribute. For instance Tylenol is seen as a being a very gentle brand because it is the furthest from the origin on the gentle line. Excedrin is perceived as being the most effective as it is furthest on the effective line and Bayer on the other hand is seen as the most ineffective pain reliever because it’s the furthest away from the end of the effective line.
This map shows that, overall pain relievers are distinguished in two major ways gentleness and effectiveness. So the consumers can easily distinguish between the brands on these two attributes. This map also shows that Anacin and Excedrin are perceived as being very similar, so there will be likely brand switching between these two brands. A possible strategy for Anacin would be to undertake an advertising campaign to try to reposition itself slightly right on the map. It is generally recommended that brands found near the origin adopt a marketing strategy to promote one or more key selling features.
Author: Kush Adesara (13085)
Finance _ Group 5
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