Translating an inspired idea into a robust business plan
001 Brand Perception Map
Often analytical tools are a little bit disappointing because they do not show immediately where action is required. After all, analysis is only useful if it leads to actions or projects that improve a company’s performance and hence increase shareholder value. A version of a brand perception map is shown here using and example for a mobile phone operator in a particular country. The brand perception map only shows the data for your own company. Its advantage is that it allows you to see in which area you should take action to align your company’s brand or offering with customer needs.
Using a market survey, you can plot the market perception of your brand (horizontal axis) against what customers see as important (vertical axis). Attributes that show in the upper right hand quadrant are those where the brand closely matches market needs and this should be exploited or supported. Attributes in the upper left hand quadrant indicate where the brand performs badly in relation to market needs that this needs to be “fixed”. The lower right hand corner indicated where the brand performs well, but the market does not care. Here resources could be reallocated, for example to fix the perception of attributes in the “Fix” quadrant. Attributes in the lower left hand quadrant are those that do not matter and even if the brand achieves a low score, it does not matter to the customer. They can be ignored.
You can also generate similar maps for your competitors to gain insight into their relative strengths and weaknesses as perceived by customers and potentially anticipate competitor action.
