Perputual Maps In Marketing

Introduction: The simulation of Thor motorcycles showed that the firm wanted to change its image. The motorcycle was considered by the younger generation as very expensive and a bike that does not fit their trendy image.

"Brand can be positioned against competing brands on a perceptual map. A perceptual map defines the market in terms of the way buyers perceive key characteristics of competing products."

The basic perceptual map that buyers use maps products in terms of their price and quality as illustrated below:

Perceptual and preference mapping techniques has been a basic tool of the applied marketing research profession for the past two decades. These techniques have been used extensively over a large number of applied research studies, and for a wide variety of product and service categories and have been subjected to extensive validations; there are still some issues as to the procedure's applicability and usefulness.

Thor's position in the motorcycle market was one that was high-priced and did not fit the market for youngsters.

Thor started losing its market position since the price was too high and the life style image represented was for the older generation. The competition brands represented cool styles that the younger generation would buy and the prices were low.

The first challenge is to change the image that Thor represented. The product design and style needs to be changed to appeal to the younger generation. The Anzai model manufactured and sold by HaruHiro Daistsu Motorcycles has a durable engine and represents a lifestyle image of and cool and fun. They also offer special services to the dealers. Thor has to change its service offerings and be more open to the dealers.

The market research ratings that the simulation compares Thor with its competitors like Anzai and Espiritique show the advantages that the competing brands have over Thor. There are different parameters taken into consideration to come up with consolidated perceptual map that the customers have on all the motorcycles brands in the market.

The lifestyle image represented by Thor had the highest rating compared to its competition. Price as a parameter for Thor has been rated the worst whereas Espiritique has been rated the best.

Product design and uniqueness for Thor have been rated better than its competition. Service offerings by the other brands have been rated much higher than Thor.

"Positioning is not what you do to the product; it is what you do to the mind of the prospect. It is a new approach to communication and has changed the nature of advertising. It can be of a product, service, company or oneself." By Amar and Vikram

The approach to positioning is not to create something new or different but to manipulate or play with the consumer's mind. The answer to the problems of an over-communicated society is positioning. The origin of positioning comes from two preceding phases:

First the product era, emphasized the importance of the product features and customer benefits. With technology being so easily available the product has no longer a unique selling position.

The image era that came next was built on reputation and image of the company. The product was pushed to the side but many companies came into existence companies started losing advantage of the image

The positioning era that has evolved in recent times, takes into consideration not only the companies own strengths and weaknesses but need to consider the competitors as well. The positioning is to play with the prospect's mind and not just build on image.

Every consumer ranks products of a particular category in his/her mind. For example, in soft drinks some people rank Coke followed by Pepsi followed by Sprite. Thus if a new soft drink is introduced, the company should decide on the way to position the new drink in the consumer's mind.

The whole concept behind this is that to create a perception for the company's brand in the prospect's mind so that the new brand stands apart from the other competing brands and provides the consumer with what they want.

Positioning is a function of:

1) Perception it brings about in the mind of target consumer