Understanding the Effectiveness of Positioning Bases With Regard to Customer Perceptions

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to identify whether brands positioned in customers’ minds with features, abstract, benefit, or surrogate bases differ in their favorability, credibility, and differentiation. First, focus group studies were conducted to determine attributes related with automobiles and to select the automobile brands. Then, a survey was conducted to examine the effectiveness of brands that have different positions in customers’ minds. A perceptual map was derived through correspondence analysis. Results of Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests revealed that brands positioned on consumers’ minds with different positioning bases differ in their favorability, differentiation, and credibility.

KEYWORDS:

• Positioning strategy
• positioning effectiveness
• positioning bases
• correspondence analysis
• perceptual mapping

Notes

¹http://odd.org.tr/folders/2837/categorial1docs/546/2012%20Total%20RS.pdf.

²http://www.odd.org.tr/.