ABSTRACT
The seven major areas of product considerations — positioning, product life cycle, product competition, product mix, product design, new products, and product audit — provide a systematic framework for reviewing products and developing competitive strategies. PA product’s position in a customer’s mind is the result of three groups of influences: the company’s total effort, including its marketing mix; environmental influences, including competitive efforts; and the customer’s own perceptual processes, including its internal culture. Related to perceptual mapping is the perceptual matrix. The technique illustrates how consumers combine attributes and evaluate them as they make buying decisions. The chapter also illustrates the perceptual situation for two segments of the dentifrice market at the time that Lever developed Aim toothpaste.
