INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT BANGALORE
RMD
PGP – IV (2021-2022)
Multidimensional scaling/Perceptual map – for brand positioning/repositioning
Concept and application
Pictures are often more effective than words in explaining some marketing activities. For example, a
company’s annual reports set out sales figures in bar diagram for better understandings.
Multidimensional scaling/perceptual map is one such pictorial representation of consumers’
perception.
The most common and useful marketing application of multidimensional scaling is in product
positioning or brand positioning. Positioning is essentially concerned with mapping a consumer’s
mind and placing all the competing brands of a product category in appropriate slots or positions on it.
One obvious way to do that is to ask customers what they think of competing brands on say, six
attributes with a rating scale of 5 to 10 points. This would result in ratings for all brands on all
attributes, which could be taken two attributes (or more) at a time, and plotted on a graph.
For example, a product category of shampoos could be identified as having 5 attributes important to
consumers – price, lather, fragrance, consistency, and favourable effects on hair. If these were to be
rated on 7-point scale for say, six leading brands of shampoo A, B, C, D, E, and F, then we could pick
up any two attributes and plot the six brands on a map according to the consumer ratings. For
example, if we plotted rating on ‘price’ versus rating on ‘favourable effect on hair’, we may find that
all the six brands are positioned in different places based on consumer ratings or perceptions. This is
called a perpetual map/MDS of consumer perception about competing brands in a product category.
This is the type of map useful for deliberate positioning of a new brand, based on ‘gaps’ in the
current map or for finding out the current position of an existing brand on the map. If the desired
position of an existing brand owned by a company is different from the one perceived by consumers,
an option is to ‘reposition’ the brand.
Managerial questions pertaining to MDS
Answers of the following two questions help managers understand/perform MDS effectively:
1. How many dimensions will be there on which the objects/brands can be positioned?
2. Name those dimensions.
Approaches of MDS
It may be best to use both Direct and Derived approaches to answer the above-mentioned managerial
questions effectively. Direct approach may be used for obtaining the perceptual map (NO OF
DIMENSION, Question 1), and Derived approach may be used to interpreting the dimensions of the
perceptual map (NAMING THE DIMENSIONS, Question 2). Refer PPT and class discussion for
more details.
Managerial question 1: To decide how many dimensions will be there: SPSS commands for
MDS
Analyze > Scale > Multidimensional scaling (PROXSCAL, if data are metric, collected with Direct
approach)
Then Define and move all variables in Proximities (s) box.
Then go to Model and select shape of Triangle under Shape option and under Dimensions box
decide Minimum and maximum number of dimensions and Continue
Then go to Plot and select Stress and Continue
Managerial question 2: To name the dimensions of MDS (Subjective method)
If possible, the respondents can be shown the perceptual maps and asked to label the dimensions by
inspecting the configurations.
Managerial question 2: To name the dimensions of MDS (Objective method): SPSS commands
for MDS through – Factor analysis
Performa factor analysis by factor analysis commands such as:
Analyze > Dimension Reduction > Factor
Then move all variables in Variables box.
Then go to Descriptive and select KMO and Bartlett’s test.
Then go to Extraction and under Method select Principal Components and under Extract decide
criteria of selecting number (selective subjective criteria and type the number of factor equal to the
number of dimension we got from the answer of the managerial question 1) of factor and Continue.
Then go to Rotation and select Varimax and Continue.
Then click ok.
Once we get the Factor compositions, look at the dimensions of the MDS got in the managerial
question 1 and label the factor names across MDS dimensions appropriately.