Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning pdf ebook

Figure 8.5 
Individual similarity 
matrix of leisure 
facilities
American Adventure (A)
Alton Towers (T)
Belton House (B)
Chatsworth House (C)
Warwick Castle (W)
Woburn Safari Park (S)
—
3
4
15
5
6
(A)
—
11
13
12
10
(T)
—
2
7
1
(B)
—
8
14
(C)
—
9
(W)
—
(S)

---

222
CHAPTER 8 SEGMENTATION AND POSITIONING RESEARCH 
Uncovering the dimensions of perception
While the map shows a representation of the similarities between objects (leisure attrac-
tions), in itself it tells us little of why they are seen as similar or dissimilar. We need to go 
further to identify and understand the dimensions, or criteria, that were being used by 
respondents in giving their similarity judgements.
Two methods of determining the dimensions or criteria are not recommended. The 
first is using experts’ judgements as, like their judgements of competitors, it is likely to be 
different from that of customers. The second is trying to eyeball the perceptual map to try 
to work out what the dimensions represent. Such maps are often ambiguous and there is 
a particular danger of researchers superimposing their own views of what is going on. A 
better, but still imperfect, technique is to ask customers directly how they differentiate the 
market. The problem here is that customers may give a relatively simplistic answer, which 
may not represent all the dimensions they may, sometimes subconsciously, use to differenti-
ate product offerings.
More useful is a research-based approach where respondents are asked first to choose 
two or more similar products and say why they consider them to be alike, then to choose 
some products they consider quite dissimilar and say why they see them as unalike. An 
approach such as this was used to determine the dimensions of the perceptual space for the 
leisure facilities. The respondents were first asked why they chose the first pair (Woburn 
Safari Park and Belton House) as most alike. They were then asked what made Belton 
House and Chatsworth House alike, and so on, until the respondents had difficulty saying 
that pairs were alike at all. The opposite tack was then taken, where the respondents were 
asked to explain why they considered pairs to be unalike; first of all, the most dissimilar 
pair of Chatsworth House and American Adventure, then Chatsworth House and Woburn 
Safari Park, etc. The result was a long list of attributes, which was reduced to ten after 
some similar ones were combined and less frequently used ones were deleted. The ones 
remaining were:
● 
big rides;
● 
educational;
● 
fun and games;
● 
sophisticated;
● 
noisy;
● 
for teenagers;
● 
strong theme;