Team 2- Permap

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, product line, brand, or company is displayed relative to their competition.

It is of the visual technique designed to show how the average target market consumer understands the positioning of the competing products in the marketplace. In other words, it is a tool that attempts to map the consumer’s perceptions and understandings in a diagram.

The word ‘perceptual’ comes from the word ‘perception’, which basically refers to the consumers’ understanding of the competing products and their associated attributes. (Note: In some textbooks, perceptual maps are referred to as positioning maps, but for our purposes they essentially have the same meaning.)

The most common presentation format for a perceptual map is to use two determinant attributes as the X and Y axes of a graph, however there are also other formats that are sometimes used.

Perpetual Maps in Brand Research

Multidimensional Scaling refers to a family of models where the structure in a set of data is represented graphically by the relationships between a set of points in a space. MDS can be used on a variety of data, using different models and allowing different assumptions about the level of measurement. In MDS "Permap" is new resource base.

Use of Permaps in Brand Research

Limitations of approaches used for Perceptual Mapping

There are many kinds of techniques under perceptual mapping. But, these techniques can be widely categorized as

-1. Attribute free perceptual mapping approach

-2. Attribute based perceptual mapping approach

1. Attribute free perceptual mapping approach would typically associate with the Multi-dimensional Scaling(MDS) where in the respondents would provide the inputs and thus an evaluation chart for each brand is prepared which is used to derive the spatial positions in a multidimensional space. This represents the reflection of the perceptions.

2. Attribute based perceptual mapping approach would typically employ several techniques which include multiple variables that require respondents to provide evaluations of specific attributes, which are used to derive an overall evaluation of the brands and spatial dimensions along which the brands are positioned.

Advantages and Disadvantages of the approaches:

-Attribute free perceptual mapping approach

Advantages

• The attributes are not specified during the evaluation and respondents give their perception of the brand without the attributes
• They can be developed at individual or aggregate level

Disadvantages

• No objective basis based on which the respondents evaluate the brands. There is very little guidance for these actions
• Only general guidelines and prior beliefs are used to define the dimensions of the perpetual maps

-Attribute based perceptual mapping approach

Advantages

• Based on many attributes, the respondents give their inputs for each brand and this provides an explicit description of the dimensions in the perceptual map
• Both brands and attributes can be represented on a single map which is useful for competitive analysis

Disadvantages

• Brand evaluations are limited to the attributes by the respondents
• There is an assumption made on the method used for combining the attributes to obtain the overall measure
• Results are usually available in aggregate form

Helpful link -

http://www.relevantinsights.com/tag/perceptual-map

- Group 5

Team3: Perceptual mapping by Excel

From two days we are discussing on perceptual mapping in the class which helps to find hidden perceptions of the products or persons according to data we have learnt a new software called permap for perceptual mapping but with the excel sheet we can do perceptual mapping  in seven simple steps by manually or with the template

Step1: Enter title of Permap

Step2: Enter label of horizontal axis attributes

Step3: Enter label of vertical axis attributes

Step4: Entering variables

Step5: Selection of attributes for mapping

Step6: Changing size of circle

Step7: Final perceptual map

visit below link for template file of perceptual map:

http://www.perceptualmaps.com/make-a-perceptual-map/free-download/

This can be done in two approaches one by downloading template or by manually in excel

See video link: http://youtu.be/bxm4s4wxqu8

Source: http://www.perceptualmaps.com/

Team 2 (20th september' 2014)

The fundamental purpose of Permap is to uncover hidden structure that might be residing in a complex data set. it is an interactive computer program which offers metric (ratio and interval) and non metric (ordinal, ratio+bounds and intervals+bounds) MDS techniques. PERMAP takes object-to-object proximity values (also called similarities, dissimilarities, correlations, distances, interactions, psychological distances, dependencies,  preferences, joint or conditional probabilities, etc.), or up to 30 object attribute values which can be used to calculate one of the forgoing types of proximities, and uses multidimensional scaling (MDS) to make a map that shows the relationships between the objects. PERMAP gives you more real-time control over your solution than any other MDS program. 

The map which is produced has the following characteristics:

• How far or close the objects are present is shown.
• A vector on the map indicates both magnitude and direction.

Team 6 - Multidimensional scaling

MDS is a statistical technique used to find the relationship between preferences, perceptions and various attributes and representing them on a visual grid called perpetual maps .
Multidimensional scaling is also used in B2B industries because the common complaint they got is market respondents tell them that there is a little difference between the product and suppliers . And in this case MDS is used. For example ,we may have five chemical companies and we want to find out in what way they are considered different . In the questionnaire aimed at buyers of chemicals. Each of the five companies would be paired with one another and respondents are asked , on a scale how similar they believe them to be on a variety of questions such as

1.How similar is their quality? 

2.How similar is their technical service? 

3.How similar are their prices?

We then use a statistical program to map the companies and the factors that have been tested to see how different or similar they are. These perceptual maps are extremely useful in brand analysis for determining if there is a need to work on the positioning of a brand to make it more distinctive.

Team 3:

The class was started with multidimensional thinking. it is nothing but thinking from many different perspectives on a subject matter, an essential skill to developing Critical Thinking capacity.it helps us to learn new things ,  solving high-value complex business problems.

Multidimensional scaling (MDS)

MDS is the technique that allows you to relate objects with each other and allows you to see is there any relationship between them in the form of map. Through this we can easily-assimilable graphic visualization of all sorts of data and we can measure how well or badly the data is.

PERMAP is a free, Windows-based program that uses multidimensional scaling (MDS) to reduce multiple pair wise relationships to 2-D pictures, commonly called perceptual maps. Such as product maps, strategic maps, sociograms, sociometric maps, psychometric maps, stimulus-response maps, relationship maps, concept maps, etc.).Its fundamental purpose is to uncover any "hidden structure" that might be residing in a complex data set.it must have at least 3 objects.

Purpose of PERMAP.

1.  PERMAP is to provide a particularly convenient method of producing perceptual maps by which we can reduce number of common mistakes.
2. PERMAP takes object-to-object proximity values (also called similarities, dissimilarities, correlations, distances, interactions, psychological distances, dependencies, confusability, preferences, joint or conditional probabilities, etc.), or up to 30 object attribute values which can be used to calculate one of the forgoing types of proximities, and uses (MDS) to make a map that shows the relationships between the objects.
3. PERMAP has been specifically designed to expose problems associated with local minima.

http://root5systemics.com/2013/07/multidimensional-thinking-leadership/

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140612044326-3594235-leadership-and-multi-dimensional-thinking

Team:4

Perceptual Mapping

The main discussion in today's class was about multi dimensional thinking, how well can things be compared and in how many possible attributes can one use to compare two or more things. It can be the distance between two things, similarity between two things, comparision of two products in business sense., e.t.c. This is all about one's perception and the way it is leading towards dimensional thinking. There was a good amount of learning.
We were introduced to a new software Permap(Perceptual Mapping).

Perceptual mapping is a diagrammatic technique used by marketers that attempts to visually display the perceptions of customers or potential customers. Typically the position of a product, 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.
Marketing research technique in which consumer's views about a product are traced or plotted (mapped) on a chart. Respondents are asked questions about their experience with the product in terms of its performance, packaging, price, size, etc. Theses qualitative answers are transferred to a chart (called a perceptual map) using a suitable scale (such as the Likert scale), and the results are employed in improving the product or in developing a new one

Source: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/perceptual-mapping.html#ixzz3DmkcgvDg