another key concept his how are you going to

position your product in consumers' minds?

and so when we talk about positioning a

product -- product positioning -- we are not talking about

where the product is on store shelves

or where it is available for purchase. when we talk about positioning,

we're talking about how what image

the product holds in consumers' minds.

and some common positioning strategies

might be to position your product based

value -- that the benefits they get the exceed

price. another common positioning strategy

would be based on quality and here we have to be able to specifically

tell what makes are product better

another positioning strategy might be service

or price or a variety

product attributes. let's look at

what we call creating a perceptual

map to illustrate this concept

of positioning. we are

in the beverage market. you've already done some research in the previous assignment

about the bottled water industry. but

say you're wanting to see if there's a market

need out there for a beverage and one of the

things you're wanting to consider is

whether there's more opportunity for healthy

or unhappy beverage targeted to children

or adults. so on this particular example let's look at some beverages

and see where they would fit. from

looking at these attributes -- whether it's a child's

average or adult beverage or a healthy beverage

or an unhealthy beverage -- let's create a

perceptual maps for some beverage. what about water

all water? it is a relatively healthy average for both children and adults.

it might skew a little bit more toward adults --

and again i'm not an expert in this

industry -- this is where water

is located on the perceptual map to show

where it is positioned in consumers' minds. what about white milk?

milk is concerned relatively healthy.

milk is probably drunk more frequently by children than adults.

so we're gonna position it right here on this

perceptual map. what about chocolate milk?

would that skew a little bit more toward a children's beverage and because it's chocolate

be a little bit more unhealthy? maybe it would be positioned here.

what aboaut soda pop or soft drink?

they would probably be more of a unhealthy beverage

that's probably used fairly

equally between children and adults perhaps. so i'm going to position it here.

i am doing this without

marketing research. what about coffee?

coffee is probably what? an adult beverage

seen as relatively unhealthy. tea?

-- oops, i skipped ahead -- let's look at te.

tea might be considered a little bit more healthy because of all the

anti-oxidant green tea things

that we hear. I get skipped past juice

which is probably consumed more by children

than adults -- especially apple juice or something like that -- probably

considered somewhat healthier than chocolate milk --

i'm not exactly sure on that one.

but here in you can see

a perceptual map that shows the

position of various products in the minds of consumers.

and this is might identify areas for product

growth. for example it seems to me like we need more healthy

beverages for adults. so I hope

this has illustrated clearly to you the

market interpretation concepts

of segmenting, targeting and positioning.