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MARKETING ENGINEERING FOR EXCEL TUTORIAL VERSION 1.0.10

Tutorial
Positioning
Marketing Engineering for Excel is a Microsoft Excel add-in. The software runs from
within Microsoft Excel and only with data contained in an Excel spreadsheet.
After installing the software, simply open Microsoft Excel. A new menu appears,
called MEXL. This tutorial refers to the MEXL/Positioning submenu.
Overview
Positioning analysis software incorporates several mapping techniques that
enable firms to develop differentiation and positioning strategies for their
products. By using this tool, managers can visualize the competitive structure
of their markets, as perceived by their customers. Typically, data for mapping
include customer perceptions of existing products (and new concepts) along
various attributes, customer preferences for products, and measures of the
behavioral responses of customers toward the products (e.g., current market
shares).
Positioning analysis also uses perceptual mapping and preference mapping
techniques. Perceptual mapping helps firms understand how customers view
their product(s) relative to competitive products. The preference map plots
preference vectors or ideal points for each respondent on a perceptual map.
The ideal point represents the location of the (hypothetical) product that most
appeals to a specific respondent. The preference vector indicates the direction
in which a respondents preference increases. In other words, a respondents
ideal product lies as far up the preference vector as possible. The preference
map starts out with a perceptual map that provides the locations of the
product alternatives. In the second step, it introduces either an ideal brand or
a preference vector for each respondent.
Positioning analysis also helps firms answer such questions as:
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According to customer perceptions, which target segments are the
most attractive?
How should we position our new products with respect to existing
products?
How do our customers view our brand?
What product name is most closely associated with the attributes that
our target segment perceives as desirable?
Which brands do our target segments consider our closest
competitors?
What product attributes are responsible for the perceived differences
among products?
How would changes in a product's perceived attributes alter the
product's market share?
Getting Started
To apply positioning analysis, you can use your own data directly or a
preformatted template. In both options, the first row contains column
headings for the stimuli, and the first column contains perceptual attribute
labels and/or respondent preference identifiers.
The next chapter explains how to create an easy-to-use template to enter your own
data.
If you want to run a positioning analysis immediately, open the example file
OfficeStar Data (Positioning).xls and jump to Step 3: Running analysis (p. 3). By
default, the example files install in My Documents/My Marketing Engineering/.
Step 1 Creating a template
In Excel, if you click on MEXL POSITIONING CREATE TEMPLATE, a dialog box
appears. This dialog box allows you to create a template to run the positioning
analysis software. All positioning maps require at least two brands. To use
perceptual data, you must have least two attributes. To use preference data,
you need at least two respondents. In addition, to estimated market shares,
you must have access to preference data.
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Options
The first option refers to the number of columns the data set should contain.
Enter as many columns as there are brands (or stimuli) to be compared.
A positioning analysis can use perceptual data, preference data, or both at the
same time.
Perceptual data describe the market space occupied by various products
or offerings, as perceived by customers in the target segment(s). These
data do not necessarily describe the attributes of a product/offering;
rather, they refer to customer perceptions of the products/offerings along
those selected attributes. For example, they indicate how the target
market perceives Volvo on the Safety dimension (but not actual safety
ratings of Volvo cars).
Preference data summarize customer preferences for the various
products/offerings and therefore clarify whether a customer prefers
Offering A or Offering B. Preferences may translate into purchases of the
preferred offerings if no constraints (e.g., budget) prevent customers from
expressing their preferences through purchase. If preference data are not
available, you may substitute past purchase or market share data to
represent customer or segment preferences in some cases.
Perceptual data
Enter the number of dimensions (rows) along which the brands will be
compared (e.g., price, quality, design, safety, power, service quality). This
option is enabled only with perceptual data.
Preference data
Enter the number of respondents expected in the data. This option is enabled
only with preference data.
Checking the Include individual respondents matrices box creates
individual response matrices below the main perceptual and preference
matrices. You can change the perceptual matrix column and row titles
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throughout the sheet, then enter individual respondents' information
(name/identifier and each person's perceptual or preference data) in the
matrices.
The perceptual and preference matrices get automatically calculated on the
basis of the data available in the individual matrices, namely:
Perceptual matrices, which depend on the averages of respondents
ratings.
Preference matrices, which get copied individually into a unique matrix
that employs the appropriate format.
Step 2 Entering your data
In this tutorial, we use the example file OfficeStar Data (Positioning).xls, which in
the default condition appears in My Documents/My Marketing Engineering/.
To view a proper data format, open that spreadsheet in Excel. A snapshot is
reproduced below.
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A positioning analysis spreadsheet contains:
Perceptual data, or the averages of respondents ratings.
Preference data, which are specific to each respondent (in the example,
10 respondents expressed their preferences for all 4 options).
Note that if available (as in the OfficeStar example), the software
automatically calculates perceptual and preference matrices on the basis of the
data available in the individual matrices. You simply need to enter individual
data in the matrices below the main ones, and the later will be automatically
updated.
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Step 3 Running analyses
After entering your data in the Excel spreadsheet using the appropriate
format, click on MEXL POSITIONING RUN ANALYSIS. The dialog box that
appears allows you to set the options to perform a positioning analysis of your
data.
Options
First, select the number of dimensions you want to retain for the positioning
map.
Positioning analysis can provide either two- or three-dimensional maps but is
limited to displaying only two dimensions at a time. To represent three-
dimensional maps (X, Y, Z), the software provides three separate two-
dimensional maps, namely, (X, Y), (Y, Z), and (Z, X).
The two-dimensional view shows only the first two axes, X and Y. The three-
dimensional view creates three charts that show pairwise representations of
the three axes.
When you use the market share function of positioning analysis, a change to
any of the three views causes changes to an axis in one of the two other
views.
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Depending on the type of data available, you can select one of three maps to
display:
Perceptual map: Using perceptual data only, this map depicts a data
matrix that consists of the average perceptions of different market
offerings (i.e., choice alternatives) in a target segment. The perceptions
measures rely on selected attributes of the offerings, and the resulting
map provides a visual representation, in two or three dimensions, of how
the target segment perceives all the offerings.
Preference map: This option is appropriate if you only have preference
data (i.e., you lack information about how the target segment perceives
the different offerings along various attributes but have data about which
offers they like and dislike).
Joint space map: Because it includes both perceptual data and
preference data on the same map, this option offers the most insights and
incorporates both perceptions and preferences. Joint space maps allow
you to assess the relative attractiveness (in terms of potential market
share) of repositioning your brand in different areas of the map and offer
insights into which attributes of your offering you should change to make it
occupy a different position on the map.
Preference model
Positioning analysis software can represent respondents preferences using
different conceptual models. The underlying preference model then simulates
market shares in subsequent analyses.
Ideal point models denote each respondents preferences by an ideal
point. The closer an offering is positioned to a respondents ideal point,
the more preferred that offering is compared with an offering positioned
farther away. This option is available when you have access to preference
data.
Vector preference models denote each respondents preferences with a
vector that represents the direction in which that respondents preferences
increase. This option is available only if you have access to both
preference data and perceptual data; otherwise, it will be disabled.
After you have selected all the options, you must select the cells containing
the data.
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The software then generates a new spreadsheet that contains the results of
your positioning analysis.
Step 4 Interpreting the results
Positioning map(s)
The generated positioning map(s) will consist of:
One map if you choose to retain two dimensions (X-Y).
Three maps if you choose to retain three dimensions (X-Y, X-Z, and Y-Z).
When interpreting the maps, keep in mind:
The distances between products on the map indicate their perceived
similarities. Products that are close together are perceived as similar,
whereas those that are far apart are perceived as different.
The axes of a perceptual map are the aggregate dimensions (or composite
attributes) along which customers tend to discriminate offerings. Attributes
aligned close to each axis provide clues of the meaning of that axis. The
variance explained by each axis indicates the relative importance of that
axis for explaining customer perceptions. If the variance explained by the
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horizontal dimension is 40% and the variance explained by the vertical
dimension is 20%, the horizontal dimension is twice as important in
explaining customer perceptions.
The lines on a perceptual map indicate the direction in which an attribute
increases while moving away from the origin along that line. For example,
if the Service quality attribute uses a 19 scale, in which 9 represents
the highest quality, then service quality increases along that line and away
from the origin.
The length of a line on the map indicates the variance in that attribute
explained by the perceptual map. The longer a line, the greater is the
importance of that attribute in differentiating among offerings in the
market.
To position a product on any attribute on the map, you can draw an
imaginary perpendicular line from the product to the attribute. The farther
an offering is from the origin along the direction of that attribute, the
higher is the rating of the offering on that attribute.
Note that if an attribute (e.g., screen display) uses a reverse scale
measure (e.g., higher numbers represent poorer screen display), the
offerings have progressively poorer screen displays as they move along
the related attribute vector, away from the origin.
The red lines on a joint space map with a vector preference model indicate
the preference vectors of the respondents (customers). Preference
increases in the direction of the line away from the origin. The length of
the line indicates the variance in that customer's preferences explained by
the map. The longer the line, the better the map captures the preferences
of the customer.
The purple dots on a joint space map with an ideal point preference model
indicate the locations of the ideal offering (i.e., brand) for that customer.
The farther an offering is from the ideal point, the less the customer
prefers that offering. The "Diagnostics" sheet summarizes the variance of
each customer's preferences explained by the joint space map.
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If you do not have perceptual data, you can still draw a perceptual map using
the Ideal point model, which requires preference data only. In an ideal point
perceptual map, each brand and customer is represented by a point, one
customer prefers the brands that are the closest to him. Two brands close to
one another in the map indicates that these brands are liked (or disliked) by
the same customers, hence are competing for the same segments of
customers. This type of map contains less information, but is useful in the
absence of perceptual data.
Diagnostics (tab)
The Diagnostic tab contains useful information for understanding and
interpreting the results further.
Variance explained (and cumulated variance explained) refers to how
much variance in the data the maps capture (summarize). The difference
in the variance explained by two versus three dimensions should guide
your decision regarding whether it is worth the added effort and
complexity to run a three-dimensional analysis.
Statistics give general statistics about the dimensions.
Coordinates indicate the exact coordinates of each item and dimension in
the new reduced space.
Diagnostics for preference map indicate the extent to which the new
reduced map effectively captures or explains the variability of preferences.
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Variance explained and cumulated variance explained (charts)
The Variance Explained and Cumulated Variance Explained charts plot how
much each additional factor retained in the new reduced space captures
variance in the original data.
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When deciding whether to retain two or three dimensions, you should choose
three dimensions only if the third factor captures significantly more variance
(compared with the first two). In the OfficeStar example, the first two factors
capture 97.7% of the variance in the initial data, and adding a third factor
captures only an additional 2.3%. Therefore, adding a third factor to this
analysis is not worth the extra effort, and the analyst should retain just the
first two.
Step 5 Market share analysis
When consumers preference data are available, you have additional options
that are not available with simple perceptual mapsnamely, running market
share analysis, which allows you to estimate the market shares of existing
products if they were moved around in the map.
To select a product whose market share you want to explore at various
locations on the map, press SHIFT + LEFT CLICK on the diamond next to the
desired product (the product icon will turn red). To explore its potential
market share, simply press SHIFT + LEFT CLICK anywhere on the chart to
display its market share at that point. Cross-hairs will appear at that position
on the map, along with a market share figure (bottom left of the screen), as
shown below. You should interpret the computed market share as a measure
of the relative attractiveness (i.e., relative to market share at the original
position) of the selected location on the map for the selected product rather
than an indicator of the absolute magnitude of the market share the product
can realize at the new position.
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In computing market share, the software assumes that the selected product
has been relocated to the new position indicated by the cross-hairs (the map
still shows the product at its original location for comparison purposes) but all
other products remain at their original positions.
You can display other chart options by pressing SHIFT + CTRL + LEFT CLICK.
The radio buttons (circles) allow you to select the choice rule to use for the
market share computations.
The first-choice rule assumes that each customer purchases only his or
her most preferred product.
The share-of-preference rule assumes that the probability a customer
will select a product is proportional to the products share of preference
with respect to all products included in the model. (The share-of-
preference model, as implemented here, arbitrarily sets the preference
value of a customers least preferred product to 0.)
The check boxes allow you to create a new copy of the positioning map that
includes either attributes or preferences. If you select neither check box, the
Create New Chart action produces a chart showing brands only.