Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Responsive Perceptual Mapping




Lately I’ve stumbled upon a ton of perceptual map generating websites and have been having a blast playing around with them.  Of course, as MBA students I’m sure we’re all pretty familiar with the concept of perceptual mapping and some of us are pretty handy at building maps from scratch in Excel.  I for one, however, discovered recently that perceptual maps can be more than just an exercise in creative procrastination.  They can actually be incredibly useful.  But unless you’re some kind of Excel jock consultant or an advanced quantitative data analyst, you may not realize just how great they are for business. 

In general, people are accustomed to the double axis brand map where dichotomous scales cross to form four quadrants where various points within each sector represent the respective magnitude of attributes.  For example, “Budget,” versus “Premium,” along one axis and “High” versus “Low Quality” on the other.  The example above is  one of those basic maps.  Kinda boring and not exceptionally useful.  


Wikipedia defines perceptual mapping:
 “Perceptual mapping is a diagrammatic technique used by asset marketers that attempts to visually display the perceptions of customers or potential customers. Typically the position of a product, product line, brand, or company is displayed relative to their competition.” 

Map of Columbia Business School





When we consider the implications of the internet for perceptual mapping, the possibilities expand immensely.  The advent of powerful JavaScript techniques combined with the rich data the Internet enables us to mine, has made it possible to generate comprehensive maps incorporating tons of variables.  Users can also easily manipulate these maps to visualize how market segments might react to changes in any number of mapping factors.  For example, TouchGraph.com (example below), builds perceptual maps of related websites based on SEO keyword data. 

SEO Map of BandCamp.com on TouchGraph
One of my favorites is definitely the Linkedin Professional Network Map (Feel free to check mine out and try it yourself.)

My Linkedin Network Map

 

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1 comment:

  1. Erik MaurerJanuary 12, 2019 at 4:48 AM

    This is a smart blog. I mean it. You have so much knowledge about this issue, and so much passion. You also know how to make people rally behind it, obviously from the responses. internet marketing

    ReplyDelete

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