For Rey Writer

Figure 5.2 is a perceptual map of cities in which a large, global hotel company has resorts. 3 The company wants to know more about its customers’ travel needs because they’re trying to redesign some of their vacation packages. The dimensions equivalent to north-south/east-west are perceptions of whether the city is a relatively expensive or inexpensive place to visit, and whether the destinations allow investigations of cultural tourism and related activities, or serve primarily as a place to soak up sun and decompress.

FIGURE 5.2 Positioning via Perceptual Maps

This perceptual map tells us about the positioning of these cities vis-à-vis the dimensions of expense and activity. Paris and Rome are seen as places that have lots to see and do, but they’re relatively expensive. Nassau and Tampa are perceived as beach trips that are relatively affordable.

Given that these maps capture perceptions, one question in the mind of a marketer is always, Is my brand optimally positioned? Or, is my intended position the one that customers perceive? For example, this hotel company had spent a lot of money on an advertising campaign trying to make potential travelers aware of the many cultural offerings of Nassau. That is, the company was trying to move the Nassau position farther to the right. It doesn’t look like they were too persuasive.

The map also identifies two customer segments. This survey was conducted on the company’s typical traveler, and the sample was obtained from visitors to all its hotels. That is, the perceptions are those of their current customers, not of their potential customers, who might belong to a different segment. The hotel is known for being “reasonable” in its rates, and so it tends to attract younger crowds who don’t have quite the deep pockets of older travelers. As you might imagine, the hotel likes having a youthful appeal (or position!) but realizes that it’s somewhat unfortunate that it’s also drawing people with less money. Probably older, wealthier travelers would agree that Paris is more expensive than Tampa, but they could afford it and would travel there nevertheless. The hotel’s repositioning might also consider an ad campaign that emphasized its reasonable rates even in destinations known to be more expensive.

The customer segments on the perceptual map offer another diagnostic to the company about what’s going on in the marketplace. The first customer segment is very well served: They are looking for beaches and cheap trips, and the company has hotels in both Nassau and Tampa to cater to those tourists. The second customer segment, however, is seeking more to do on their holiday, yet still hoping for reasonable rates. The company has less to offer them, although perhaps they can play up Washington, D.C.

Figure 5.3 offers a different kind of perceptual map. It contains descriptors for a single service provider, a health club. Patrons have rated the gym on a number of qualities: the convenience of the location, the variety of the machines it offers, having enough new machines so that there’s never a long wait, and finally whether the staff is helpful, friendly, and trained to give good workout instructions. Customers have also given their judgments on the importance of each of the qualities when choosing a gym.

Branding to China

Companies from Danish shoemaker ECCO to American designer Ralph Lauren want to sell more in China. (Makes sense—talk about market size!)

· Branding is still relatively new to China. Brands coming from China tend to carry the stigma of low quality (and low price). Chinese manufacturers are also learning that they can charge higher prices if their brands are viewed as having higher quality. Hence, many companies are trying to reposition their brands.

· Brands that have been sold primarily through Hong Kong are reaching out in branding (to compete with Prada and Armani) and distribution (more retail in Shanghai and Beijing).

· Coors nearly doubled its sales volume when it looked at a positioning map and found two markets without existing competitors in premium beers: Kunming and Lhasa.

· IKEA tried to enter China as a high-end brand, but sales took off when it modified its positioning to emphasize its contemporary and popular designs and their affordability.

· With a growing middle class, aspiration brands are thriving in China. GM’s Buicks are selling like crazy. The cars symbolize the drivers’ having achieved a better, richer life, co-opting the “American” dream and happiness. GM succeeded in part by changing its model names, from Regal to the Chinese for “a king’s might” and from LaCross to “a king’s advancement.”

· KFC noted the popularity of chicken as a cuisine among Chinese and embraced a new tagline: The U.S. Fried Chicken Expert.

The figure tells us that the gym is conveniently located, but people don’t seem to care about that attribute (so we don’t get bonus points for that). The staff isn’t great, but here too people don’t seem to care. More problematic is that the number of machines isn’t huge, and that’s more important to the gym rats.

This type of perceptual map may be modified for a competitive analysis, as in Figure 5.4 . This figure allows us to determine the perceived strengths and weaknesses of our gym (1) compared with our competition (gyms 2 and 3). This map is not great news. Gym 1 is seen as relatively expensive or at least no better than gym 3, where gym 2 provides better value. Then, on the attribute of machines, both our competitors dominate us. Something’s got to give, unless customers value some other attribute at which we excel and that’s not represented in this plot. Part of the problem with the plot in Figure 5.4 is that we can only look at two attributes at a time, so we’d have to look at many plots.

FIGURE 5.3 Perceptual Map: Strengths and Weaknesses of Gym 1

Figure 5.5 doesn’t look like a map per se, but it’s definitely still expressing the competitors’ profiles of perceptual data. Here, more attributes may be presented, with these three (or more) gyms for comparative purposes.

FIGURE 5.4 Perceptual Map: Competition

FIGURE 5.5 Competitor Analysis