In helping you develop a market positioning strategy for your product or service, perceptual maps or positioning maps as they are sometimes referred to, are often used to help the organisation identify a positioning strategy.
When plotting a peceptual map two dimensions are commonly
used. Below is a very basic perceptual map. If we plot the UK chocolate
market we can identify those brands which are high price and high quality.
Belgium chocolates are plotted as high quality and high price, and twix
is plotted one low quality low price brand. Once completed the perceptual
map could help identify where an organisation could launch a new brand
pherhaps at the medium price and quality range. In our basic map, you
can see there is not much competition within that particular area.
We must remember that perceptual maps are plotted on the basis of someones perception and what maybe a quality product to one person, may not be percieved as quality to another.