Marketing Research

CHAPTER - 4
PERCEPTUAL MAPPING
APPLICATION IN MARKET RESEARCH
 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.
 What is a Perceptual Map

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
 Perceptual Map of Beer Market
(This slide shows only the products)

Old Milwaukee
•
Budweiser
• Beck’s •
Meister Brau • Heineken
• Miller •
•
• Coors
Stroh’s

• Michelob
• Coors
Miller • Light
Lite
•
Old
Milwaukee Light
 Perceptual Map of Beer Market (cont’d)
(This slide shows only the attributes)
Heavy Popular
Full Bodied Heavy with Men

Special
Occasions
Blue Collar Premium
Good Value Dining Out

Budget Premium

Popular
Pale Color with
Women
On a
Budget Less Filling
Light Light
 Perceptual Map of Beer Market (cont’d)
(This slide shows both products &
attributes)
Heavy Popular
Heavy with Men
Old Milwaukee
Full Bodied
•
Budweiser
• Beck’s •
Meister Brau Special • Heineken
• Miller • Occasions
Premium
Good Value Blue Collar
• Dining Out
• Coors
Stroh’s
Budget Premium
• Michelob
• Coors Popular
Pale Color
Miller • Light with
Lite
On a
• Women
Old
Budget Milwaukee Light Light Light Less Filling
 Perceptual Mapping Process

• 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)

 Method 1: Attribute Rating Method
Example: Evaluation of a New Laptop concept.

•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.

 Perceptual Mapping

 Data Matrix = 4 (products) X 6 (attributes) X 300 (respondents).

Consumers
A1 A2 A3 A4
P1
P2
P3
Submit data P4
to factor analysis

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 Factor Analysis Perceptual map

 Factor Analysis: Key Concepts

• 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
Example Plot of Attributes of Laptops on a
2D Perceptual Map
Common

Toshiba 1960CT
Easy setup
Slow

Performance

Light
Value
C
“Butterfly”

Elegant

Look/Styling
The six attributes were measured on semantic differential scales: 1) Slow–Fast operation, 2)
Plain–Elegant,
3) Easy–Difficult setup, 4) Poor–Excellent value, 5) Light–Heavy, and 6) Common–
Distinctive.
 Example Plot of Attributes of
Laptops on a 2D Perceptual Map
(Plain)

Common

Toshiba 1960CT
Easy setup
Slow

Performance

Light
Good
C Value
“Butterfly”

Elegant

Looks
 Guidelines for Interpreting
Perceptual Maps (Laptop)
• 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?
 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).
 Uses of Perceptual Maps

• Customer Analysis and Competitive Analysis

– Understand the competitive market structure as perceived by
customers.
• Position relative to competition
• Select the set of competitors to compete against
– 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.
 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
THANK YOU