Perceptual Mapping Group:D -Vinod Joshi

Perceptual Mapping 

Perceptual Mapping is a diagrammatic technique used by asset marketers that attempts to visually display the perceptions of customers or potential customers. Typically the position of a product, line, brand, or company is displayed relative to their competition.

Perceptual maps can have any number of dimensions but the most common is two dimensions. The first perceptual map below shows consumer perceptions of various automobiles on the two dimensions of sportiness/conservative and classy/affordable. This sample of consumers felt Ferrari was the sportiest and classiest of the cars in the study (top right corner). They felt Plymouth was most practical and conservative (bottom left corner).

Source: wikipedia

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 consumer’s perception of products:

  Method 1: Attribute based method (Factor Analysis).

        Method 2: Similarity-Based method (Multi-Dimensional Scaling)

Above is an example of such a perceptual map generated from a discriminate analysis. Teenagers were asked to rate various drinks (milk, lemonade, sodas, etc.) on various attribute (good value for the money, popular, nourishing, healthfulness, etc.).

Attributes are shown with a dotted arrow. The length of the arrow indicates how important the attribute is in differentiating between the types of drinks. The longer the arrow, the more important it is. Lines that are close together indicate that the attributes are similar. For example, fizzy and good-value-for- the-money are important attributes. Nourishing and healthfulness are very similar.

Drawing perpendicular lines from a drink to an attribute allows comparison of the drinks. For example, a new product, flavoured milk, is considered more modern than regular milk. Coke®, Fanta® and lemonade are similar in the minds of the teenagers because they are near each other on the plot.

A map like this allows comparison of multiple attributes and multiple companies/brands/ products at the same time. It allows you to see if your product occupies the space in the customer’s mind that you intended. It also allows you to identify white space opportunities. In the map above, there are areas that no drink occupies. If the areas are associated with attributes that are important to customers (as determined by your survey) these are white space opportunities for you to explore.

Perceptual mapping is a very useful tool for understanding your company’s position in the minds of customers relative to competitors. This is crucial to staking out a valuable place that provides long- term competitive advantage for your company and its products.