The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development

18.5. Perceptual Mapping: "What Do Customers Think of Current Products?"

Perceptual mapping is a "mind map" of customer perceptions. Much like a roadmap, it shows which products are considered "close" to each other and which are far apart. Perceptual mapping works by having customers take a simple survey, which asks them to rate their impression of current products on various attributes (no more than about 20). Table 18.4 shows an example for two-seat sports cars.

The same three questions would be asked for the Porsche Boxster, Honda S2000, Lexus SC430, and Chevrolet Corvette. Statistical tools such as multidimensional scaling, factor (principal component) analysis, multiple discriminant analysis, or correspondence analysis are used to boil the many ratings down to a simple chart. The resulting sports car perceptual map (WRC Research Systems, 1996) might look like that shown in Figure 18.3.

The perceptual map shows that the Mazda Miata is the value leader (it's located way out on the "value" scale). The Lexus SC430 does very well for "appearance." The Porsche Boxster does well for "performance" and "appearance," but poorly for "performance" (it's located far away from "high performance"). A new product developer could use this map to see that there is a gap between the Corvette, the Lexus, and the Miata. This gap is an opportunity for a new car that has better appearance than the Miata, better performance than the Lexus, and slightly less performance and price than the Corvette. ...