Perceptual map is a marketing tool that is used to help place a brand in context of its competitors in terms of public perception of the brands with respect to critical industry variables (Daye, 2009). The two-dimensional nature of the map means that there are two dimensions (elements) that are evaluated. Consumer opinions about these variables and a variety of brands are taken in order to construct the map. The objective of the perceptual map is to understand how the brand's position in perceived by the public, and use this information to shape marketing strategy either to reinforce this perception or to change it.
Two major variables that people consider when purchasing a vehicle, other than price, are safety and prestige. For car buyers, safety is an important issue because of the inherent dangers in driving and the need to minimize the risk to yourself and your family. Prestige is also….

Perceptual Maps
Differentiation and positioning are closely related, but they are not the same. Borna and Chapman (1993) argues that differentiation is a form of positioning, but I would argue the reverse. A product can be differentiated in a number of ways. Thorr Motorcycles are differentiated on the basis of bike features and branding, for example -- things that make Thorr bikes unique. Positioning reflects the perception of differentiation that the company pursues.

The perceptual map helps Thorr to analyze how the consumer thinks about the different points of differentiation of Thorr motorcycles and from there it can be better understand if Thorr is pursuing the right positioning. The views of consumers about the different attributes of Thorr bikes -- and whether those attributes are important or not -- help to characterize a best fit positioning for Thorr. Consumers see Thorr bikes as high quality machines with superior design, but not necessarily….

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Despite the marketing plans attempts to overcome price reductions on the image of the bike, performance results showed that changes such as service or style are often viewed as too superficial to change the customer's perception of an inferior product.

Even so, CruiserThor is still outperforming the competition in terms of sales for the past year.

Phase 3

Market research indicates that CruiserThor is still perceived as an expensive motorcycle, but that is also viewed as powerfully, high quality product.

In the final phase, I assigned lifestyle image a value of 9 to reflect the market research indicating how important this parameter is to CruiserThor's consumers. I gave quality engineering a value of 8 as this is one of the product's core strengths. Further, I continued to emphasize service for the same reasons discussed previously, assigning in a value of 7. Learning the important of price on brand image from the phase 2 simulation,….

Perceptual Maps
complete simulation login phoenix. username shannont7426 password 07071983st. click classroom tab page week 4 simulation complete assignment: Complete simulation, Using Perceptual Maps Marketing, located student website.

Simulation: CruiserThorr

The situation

The situation profiled in the case study is that of CruiserThorr, a motorcycle company that once had an illustrious reputation, but has since fallen upon hard times. CruiserThorr is known for its dominance of the 'luxury' motorcycle market, offering high-powered vehicles to baby boomers. However, these consumers are gradually 'aging out' of the motorcycle market. Either they are no longer riding at all, or they have decided not to acquire as many new vehicles as they did previously. This means that CruiserThorr must find a way to lure in younger consumers and encourage them to identify with its brand. However, these potential buyers are often a bit reluctant to purchase one of the company's vehicles because of price considerations. Also, the….

Cruiserthor
Perceptual maps

Using perceptual maps in marketing: CruiserThor

This paper will review the market situation of CruiserThor Motorcycles and examine how the introduction of a new low-cost motorcycle to its product offerings was able to change the company's brand image. CruiserThor had a market image and price tag commensurate with Harley Davidson or other large, expensive, high-power bikes. Unfortunately, consumer desires are changing and these vehicles are no longer in high demand. At the beginning of the simulation, CruiserThor had to find a way to change with the times, or be left behind its competitors.

Situation

During the first phase of the simulation, CruiserThor Motorcycles controlled 40% of the market of heavy duty motorcycles. The market environment was an oligopoly, which meant that it was dominated by a few, select companies. It was particularly well-known in the heavyweight motorcycle category. CruiserThor's dominance of the market had been carefully crafted over many years under the….

Perceptual Mapping
Analysis of the CruiseThorr Perceptual Map and Market Positioning

The intent of this analysis is to evaluate the simulations involving perpetual mapping for the CruiseThorr and oth motorcycles, the latter model launched as part of this simulation. Each of the situations are described, followed by a recommended solution and results achieved. Additional questions are also answered at the end of this analysis pertaining to product differentiation, product repositioning and product lifecycles,

Analysis of Scenario-based Simulations

The initial situations, recommended solution and results of each iteration of the simulation are presented and analyzed in this section.

Situation Analysis

The first simulation begins with the CruiseThorr losing market share as younger buyers don't have the high disposable income to afford it The 21- to 35-year-old age group is interested in motorcycles yet cannot afford the CruiseThorr, and also find the model to be behind the times in terms of their taste. Compounding this challenge is the….

Marketing
In a recent episode of E, a young girl -- 11 years old or so -- had been kidnapped. During recovery, she was killed. In that case, the death was caused by the hubris of an arrogant new E attending physician. But it could have been caused at any time by the kidnapper. According to Dwelle (2004), most abducted children are recovered or killed within the first 3.2 hours; any factor that could reduce the time frame during which the child is missing will reduce the chanced the child will be killed.

The facts and figures alone are powerful marketing tools for the Techno Genie. Statistics say that:

Every 40 seconds another child is reported missing.

One in every 42 children will become abducted, missing, lost or runaway.

Over 2000 children are reported missing each day

Over 725,000 reported missing children every year.

The rate of missing children has increased 444% since 1982.

Added to that,….

Marketing
Involvement

Consumer involvement refers to the amount of time, though and energy that a consumer puts into a particular purchase decision (McNamara, 2014). This can be categorized along the emotional/rational scale. So many small purchases like impulse purchases are low involvement. At the very low involvement end of the scale is something like fries with your burger -- you might not even want them, and accept the suggestion for them almost reflexively. At the high involvement end of the scale would be something like the military bidding process, or for consumers buying a house or car. A medium-involvement purchase involves at least some thought. An example might be new headphones -- it's not an impulse purchase but unless you're ad audiophile there is only so much energy you will put into that purchase.

For marketers, the optimal situation for a low involvement purchase is to reduce the search for information to nothing.….

Positioning
Perceptual mapping is a method by which a product can be positioned in the marketplace. It allows marketers see where the competition is positioned, which is valuable for a couple of reasons. One is that the product can be positioned in a blind spot, an area on the map where there are few competing products. The other is that the marketing team understand which competitors represent the most direct threats, and why.

The product we are mapping is a line of Coca-Cola mixed drinks. These included Coke & Rum, Whiskey & Coke and other such mixed beverages. Such products are known in Europe and are particularly common in Germany in the same premixed format that we are charged with launching. In North America, however, there is little knowledge of these products. Consumers are only familiar with drinks they have mixed themselves. Moreover, consumers are familiar with the Coke brand, which means….

Searches
Consumer Involvement Theory

Consumer involvement theory is the idea that products and services differ in terms of the amount of time and energy that a consumer puts into the purchase decision (McNamara, 2014). There are different levels of involvement, but for marketers it is important to know what level a given product is. For the most part, involvement level reflects the category of product, rather than the individual product itself - there is not much difference between one car and another in terms of involvement, but there is a big difference between the level of involvement between a car and a pack of gum. While involvement is on a continuum, it can roughly be divided between low, medium and high involvement products.

A low involvement product is an impulse purchase, one to which is given very little thought. These are typically products with low differentiation between attributes and low costs. An….

Burberry
According to the Boston Consulting Group, Burberry had settled into a position somewhere in between a cash cow and a dog. The market for fashion, particularly in the UK, was in a state of maturity and slow growth. The Burberry brand was successful, a trait of a cash cow, but had also grown tired, a dog trait. Thus, the brand was beginning to move in the wrong direction. The response on the part of management was to reposition in the brand so that the brand would grow, no matter what the state of the market in the UK was like.

The Ansoff Matrix breaks down a company in terms of how it can grow, with a combination of existing or new markets and existing products and new products. At Burberry, the company decided to grow using both new products and new markets, but without ignoring the traditional success of the company.….

For Tresemme, for example, the color scheme and general layout of the package is consistent with other Tresemme products and is not specific to the dry shampoo product.
Packaging -- Recommended

Given that the pricing need not change, the package size does not need to change either. The layout and color tone are dictated by the overall branding of Tresemme so are going to be difficult to change. Two aspects of the packaging can change, however. The first is the shape of the package, which should be changed to convey to the consumers that this is a different product from Fresh Start. The second is that the package should have a different name (not Fresh Start) and should impress upon the consumer that it is a new product. The new selling proposition "unique" should also be incorporated into the text of the packaging.

Target Market -- Recommendations

It is recommended that the company….

Company
Apple is a personal electronics manufacturer and marketers. The company competes in personal computers, mp3 players, tablet computers, software and smartphones (Apple.com, 2011). Apple has improved revenues and profits rapidly of late (Apple, 2011). Apple is financially strong with a great balance sheet (MSN Moneycentral, 2011) and strong brand loyalty (ithers, 2008). The company's stock is currently trading at very high multiples because of its multi-year track record of hit product launches, its lack of slowdown during the recession and the company's continued ability to resonate with consumers. Apple's entrant into smartphones is the iPhone. Apple holds 25% share of the market, good for third place behind Android and Blackberry (Blodget, 2011). Apple just introduced its latest model smartphone, the iPhone 4.

Product Description

The iPhone 4 is the latest incarnation of Apple's iPhone line of smartphones. The smartphone market is divided by operating system, rather than device manufacturer. There are….

Devise P and marketing strategies to earn greater trust, typing their performance back to the perceptual maps as a measure of performance. This is also a critical step as it will show the progress over time of selected marketing and P strategies to gain greater trust and credibility back.

Develop Voice of the Customer Programs and aggressively pursue getting channel members involved. Getting customers to have a sense of ownership over the products and also showing the willingness to act on their feedback is also critical for getting the company trusted again, and also ensuring product strategies are aligned with customer needs.

Initiate a Partner elationship Management system to measure the financial implications of both the recall and marketing strategies on the performance of channel partners and resellers.

eferences

Associated Press, (2007). Mattel issues new massive China toy recall. etrieved October 9, 2007, from MSNBC Web site: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20254745/

CM Buyer (2005) - Searching for Blue….

Business Drivers
Multidimensional scaling and factor analysis are a couple of different statistical techniques that can be used to understand the drivers of a business. MDS is a technique that renders multiple data points in a relational manner -- data points that end up closer to one another are expressed visually as such, while those that are fairly far from each other in the key variable are expressed as being far. Factor analysis seeks to learn look at a set of different variables and identify the latent variable. This is the underlying variable that is driving the other variables, something that has a lot of value for a business.

Multidimensional Scaling

Multidimensional scaling is "a set of data analysis techniques that display the structure of distance-like data as a geometrical picture" (Young, 1985). There are a number of different techniques as part of multidimensional scaling, and this paper will outline them, as well….