Hindustan Times

THE INDIAN INSTITUTE OF PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT NEW DELHI
THESIS ON PERCEPTUAL MAPPING OF HINDUSTAN TIMES READERS AT NEW DELHI SUBMITTED TO: PROF. SUMANTA SHARMA PROF. DIPTI SHARMA
UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF: MR. ______________ SUBMITTED BY: _____________ ALUMNI ID NUMBER: BATCH:
The Indian Institute of Planning & Management, New Delhi
ABSTRACT
Perceptual mapping is used to describe a set of techniques designed to represent perceptions about various mutual fund schemes and their similarities in a visual "space". It is useful for providing highly intuitive representations in order to position mutual fund schemes on dimensions critical to consumer perceptions in that visual space, a variety of simple to complex statistical methodologies can be used to create them. Some of the latter include multi-dimensional scaling, factor or cluster analytical methods, and conjoint analysis. Usually these techniques result in schemes being mapped on 2 to 3 dimensions. Two- dimensional maps are the most popular as they are most easily understood and interpreted by clients. There is also substantive agreement that consumers use only a limited number of separate (though sometimes complex and integrative) concepts to assess mutual fund schemes. To find out the perceptual mapping for Hindustan times by the customer. News paper provide various schemes to customers, where each scheme is targeted to different segments, this study helps us in identifying the actual targeted segments of each section of HT newspaper i.e. sports, business, Entertainment, General news from customer perceptive. Opinion will be collected from customers. Position of different schemes will be done by using Multidimensional Scaling technique for the selected variables. From this the customers can understand where there is a gap and where there is a cluster; accordingly they can use a new scheme for investment or restructure the existing scheme.
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SIGNATORY PAGE
TO WHOMESOEVER IT MAY CONCERN This is to confirm that Prerna Chauhan, student of IIPM, NEW DELHI, is doing a live project(Thesis) on the topic PERCEPTUAL MAPPING OF HINDUSTAN TIMES READERS AT NEW DELHI under my guidance and that the work being done by the candidate is original and is of the standard expected by an MBA student. May god bless her with all success in her career. Warm regards ____________
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TOPIC APPROVAL LETTER

Dear Mohd. Azam, This is to inform that your thesis proposal on Perceptual Mapping of Hindustan Times Readers in New Delhi, to be conducted under the guidance of Mr. Mohd. Mobin Qaisar Siddique is hereby approved and the topic registration id number is DS/09/11-M-07 Make it a comprehensive thesis by ensuring that all the objectives as stated by you in your synopsis are met using appropriate research design; a thesis should aim at adding value to the existing knowledge base. You are required to correspond with your internal guide Prof. Alpi Jain at alpi.jain@iipm.edu Ph.-0124-3350709 by sending at least six response sheets (attached along with this mail) at regular intervals before the last date for thesis submission. NB: 1) A thesis would be rejected if there is any variation in the topic/title from the one approved and registered with us. 2) The candidate needs to handwrite at least 1200 to 1500 words on the summary of thesis at the time of viva . Regards, Prof .Sumanta Sharma Dean (Projects) IIPM Sumanta.sharma@iipm.edu Phone: +91 0124 3350701 (D) +91 0124 3350715 (Board)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It is well-established fact that behind every achievement lays an unfathomable sea of gratitude to those who have extended their support and without whom the project would never have come into existence. I express my gratitude to IIPM, New Delhi for providing me an opportunity to work on this thesis as a part of the curriculum. Also, I express my gratitude to Prof. Sumanta Sharma and Prof. Dipti Sharma on the completion of my project.
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CONTENT
ABSTRACT................................................................................................ii SIGNATORY PAGE..................................................................................iii TOPIC APPROVAL LETTER...................................................................iv ACKNOWLEDGMENT..............................................................................v APPROVED THESIS SYNOPSIS............................................................vii
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................1 COMPANY PROFILE......................................................................................5 LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................15 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY....................................................................36 FINDING AND ANALYSIS..........................................................................37 CONCLUSION................................................................................................54 RECOMMENDATION...................................................................................55 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................56 ANNEXURE QUESTIONNAIRE...............................................................57
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THESIS SYNOPSIS
DETAILS OF THE STUDENT:
Name Batch Specialization Section Phone No Email Id : : : : : :
DESIRED AREA:
Marketing
TITLE OF THE THESIS:

PERCEPTUAL MAPPING OF HINDUSTAN TIMES READERS AT NEW DELHI
PROBLEM DEFINITION /HYPOTHESIS /RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

To find out the perceptual mapping for Hindustan times by the customer. News paper provide various schemes to customers, where each scheme is targeted to different segments, this study helps us in identifying the actual targeted segments of each section of HT newspaper i.e. sports, business, Entertainment, General news from customer perceptive. Opinion will be collected from customers. Position of different schemes will be done by using Multidimensional Scaling technique for the selected variables. From this the customers can understand where there is a gap and where there is a cluster; accordingly they can use a new scheme for investment or restructure the existing scheme.
LITERATURE RELATED TO THE RESEARCH (IN BRIEF)

Perceptual mapping is used to describe a set of techniques designed to represent perceptions about various Marketing concept and their similarities in a visual "space".
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It is useful for providing highly intuitive representations in order to position the different marketing strategy schemes on dimensions critical to consumer perceptions in that visual space, a variety of simple to complex statistical methodologies can be used to create them. Some of the latter include multi-dimensional scaling, factor or cluster analytical methods, and conjoint analysis. Usually these techniques result in schemes being mapped on 2 to 3 dimensions. Two- dimensional maps are the most popular as they are most easily understood and interpreted by clients. There is also substantive agreement that consumers use only a limited number of separate (though sometimes complex and integrative) concepts to assess the perceptual mapping.
SCOPE OF THE THESIS WORK
From the perceptual mapping the customers can understand where there is a gap and where there is a cluster; accordingly they can use a new scheme for investment or restructure the existing scheme.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
SECONDARY DATA I will collect the Secondary data from following sources: Newspaper HT, TOI Magazine - The Times. Harvard Business Review, 4ps Website/Internet Hindustan times Book Course book/ Philip Kotler Notes- Professors Notes
PRIMARY DATAI will collect the data through structure questionnaire. TOOL USEDExcel sheet, pie chart, and histogram
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SAMPLING METHOD Random Sampling SAMPLE SIZEI will try to collect data from more than 50 customers Target AudienceStudents, housewife, Businessman, working group i.e. if I need to target business segment probably I will take Banking customer in this account. JUSTIFICATION FOR CHOOSING A PARTICULAR RESEARCH PROPOSAL The type of research carried for the study is descriptive research and sampling taken is random sampling. Perceptual mapping is one of the few marketing research techniques that provides direct input into the strategic marketing planning process. It allows senior marketing planners to take a broad view of the strengths and weaknesses of their product or service offerings relative to the strengths and weaknesses of their competition.
SUMMER TRAINING REPORT (IN BRIEF)

During my internship I worked as a sales trainee in Reliance Capital Services.My prime job was to regulate and increase the sales of financial products offered by the company.My job also included comparative analysis of different financial product lines demanded by different consumers.
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DETAILS OF THE EXTERNAL GUIDE

Name of the Guide : MOHD MOBIN QAISAR SIDDIQUE Qualification Designation : MBA : ZONAL MANAGER (SALES&MARKETING)
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The Indian Institute of Planning & Management, New 1 Delhi
INTRODUCTION
'Media' is the medium of carrying information, education and entertainment to the masses. It is an easier and efficient means of communication which plays a key role in the overall development of an economy. In an era where knowledge and facts are the tools for economic, political and cultural exchange, presence of the strong and constructive media in a country is important for catering to the diverse needs of individuals, society as a whole, small and large business and production houses, various research organizations, private sectors as well as the public sectors. Media is a conscience-keeper of the nation and has many tasks to perform in our day-to-day lives. It helps the Government to achieve various socioeconomic and political goals; educate urban and rural masses; instill a sense of responsibility among the people; as well as provide justice to the needy. It largely consists of print media like newspapers, magazines, journals and other publications, etc. as well as electronic media like radio, television, internet, etc. With the changing scenario of the world, it has acquired the status of an industry. In India, the media and entertainment industry is undergoing remarkable change and is one of the fastest growing sectors. The main factors responsible for this are rising per capita/ national income, high economic growth and strong macro-economic fundamentals, democratic set up; good governance as well as law and order position in the country. Specifically, spectacular growth of the television industry, new formats for film production and distribution, privatization and growth of radio, gradually liberalizing attitude of Government towards the sector, easier access to and for international companies as well as advent of digital communication and its technological innovations are the other attributes of the growth of the sector. The media industry plays an important role in creating people's awareness about national policies and programmes by providing information and education, besides creating healthy business environment in the country. Thus, it helps people to be active partners in the nation-building endeavor.
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Overview of newspaper scenario: In India newspaper publication began in Calcutta in the 1780's and by 1800 there were several dozen publications in English, with the numbers increasing periodically. Now, the progress has been so much that every major newspaper from India has an internet edition. In India the print and the electronic media are both very active. It was reported that in 1993, there were approximately 4000 newspapers being published in the country. Now the figure has increased to approximately 5,525 newspapers. Each week, National Readership Survey (NRS) says, the print news media reaches 242 million readers. These enormous numbers, the survey suggests, represent a chain of growth, driven both by expanding literacy and improved living standards. The publications in the country are in Hindi, English and all vernacular languages. There is also a good range of weekly, fortnightly and monthly magazines in the country which cover a whole range of national as well as international issues in depth.
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Top players: Newspapers:
The Hindustan Times Hindustan Times The Hindu Indian Express Malayalam Manorama. Dainik Bhaskar. Telegraph. Mid Day Mumbai. Deccan Herald. The Economic Times.
PRINT MEDIA: It is true that the age of electronic media has started; however printed information is and remains omnipresent. The market for print products offers more variety than ever. Usually, printed products are categorized into commercial printing and periodicals. This classification differentiates printed matter with regard to its frequency of publication. Commercial printing refers to print products that are produced occasionally (brochures, catalogs, leaflets, business cards). Periodicals are printed matters that appear periodically (newspapers, journals, magazines). Another way of categorizing printed products is by splitting them into special groups. These individual groups are: 1. BOOKS: Gutenbergs work and his invention, printing with movabe lead types, in the middle of the fifteenth century triggered a revolution in the book production. A much greater proportion of the population got the chance to acquire education, culture and information than had been possible with hand written books. 2. MAGAZINES:
The range of magazines consists mainly of periodicals, including trade magazines, journals and illustrated magazines. Magazines usually have a shorter life span. This is due to the content and it is the major characteristic of the periodicals. 3. NEWSPAPERS: A newspaper is a written publication containing news, information and advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called newsprint. General-interest newspapers often feature articles on political events, crime, business, art/entertainment, society and sports. Most traditional papers also feature an editorial page containing columns which express the personal opinions of writers. Supplementary sections may contain advertising, comics, coupons, and other printed media. Newspapers usually focus on one particular geographic area where most of their readers live. The newspaper is still one of the most significant mass media today. Most newspapers are produced daily and have a high circulation. The two most important categories of newspapers are daily papers and weekly papers. 4. BROCHURES: Apart from the advertising insert that comes in the newspapers and magazines, there is a large market for leaflets and product descriptions. Such printed matter is referred to as brochures. Brochures are commercial print work. The print volume of brochures is low. They are mainly used to describe something particular (e.g. company, product).
COMPANY PROFILE
India's foremost media conglomerate is home to the leading newspapers in the country - Hindustan Times (the flagship English daily) and Hindustan (Hindi newspaper). And it has a significant online presence with HindustanTimes.com. The Hindustan Times Ltd. plans to consolidate itself as vibrant and modern media powerhouse throuatiogh strategic partnerships, ever-increasing scope of operns and a consumer focused approach. Hindustan Times (HT) is India's leading newspaper, published since 1924 with roots in the independence movement. Hindustan Times is the flagship publication of HT Media Ltd.In 2008, the newspaper reported that with a (circulation of over 1.14 million) it was certified by the Audit Bureau of Circulations ranking them as the third largest circulatory daily English Newspaper in India It has a wide reach in northern India (barring Southern India), with simultaneous editions from New Delhi, Mumbai Lucknow Patna, Ranchi and Kolkata. It is also printed from Bhopal and Chandigarh. The print location of Jaipur was discontinued from June 2006. HT has also launched a youth daily HT Next in 2004. The Mumbai edition was launched on 14 July 2005. Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2008-R2 revealed that it has readership of (6.6 million) raking them as the second most widely read English Newspaper after Hindustan Times. Other sister publications of Hindustan Times are Mint (English business daily), Hindustan (Hindi Daily), Nandan (monthly children's magazine) and Kadambani (monthly literary magazine). The media group also owns a radio channel Fever and organises an annual Luxury Conference, which has featured speakers like designer Diane von Frstenberg, shoemaker Christian Louboutin, Gucci CEO Robert Polet and Cartier MD Patrick Normand. The KK Birla branch of the Birla family owns Hindustan Times. Critics allege that the paper often toes the line of Congress (I), the political party presently leading the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), which is in power in India.
HT Media Ltd
Print Print Hindustan Times Delhi Mumbai Chandigarh Bhopal Lucknow Patna Ranchi & Kolkata Radio ,Fever 104
Radio
Events
Digital
Hindustan UP Delhi Bihar Jharkhand Uttarakhand Chandigarh
Mint Delhi Mumbai Bangalore Chennai Kolkata Pune Chandigarh
Delhi Mumbai Bangalore Kolkatta Events, Events And Solutions Leadership Summit Luxury Summit Youth Nexus Miss India world WIDE Digital, Internet & Mobile Hindustan Times.com Live Hindustan .Com Live Mint .Com I Love Delhi Delhi Shopping Carnival
Shine.com Desi martini.com HT mobile
BRANCH OFFICE OF HINDUSTAN TIMES JAIPUR Hindustan Times being one of the growing company of Print Media having its Branch Office in Jaipur. The entire operation of Hindustan Times in Rajasthan is regulated from this office of Jaipur. The reporting done to the HO in New Delhi from Jaipur branch. This office is located in Bani Park Area, Jaipur. The Office has four divisions Media Marketing, Editorial, Sales and Circulation, Ad Operation and AD Billing. ORAGANIZATIONAL HIERARCHY OF THE AREA OFFICE
PRODUCTS OF HINDUSTAN TIMES HINDUSTAN TIMES
The flagship publication of the Group has editions from Delhi, Lucknow, Patna and Kolkata, thus, dominating the Northern, Eastern and Central regions of the country. It is printed out of eleven centers including Bhopal, Chandigarh, Delhi, Jaipur, Nagpur,
Kolkata, Lucknow, Bhagalpur, Patna, Ranchi and Raipur, reaching closer to the consumers. Its New Delhi edition continues to be the single largest English daily edition in the country with a circulation of over 9.2 lakhs, while maintaining its leadership status in Delhi as the largest circulated English daily at 5.5 lakhs. Hindustan Times believes in continuous improvement and providing greater value to its readers and advertisers. It has set many a standard for its competitors and will continue to do so in the years to come. It is the first smart-age newspaper in India to evolve into a new international size, sleeker and smarter, which ensures enhanced ease of reading and convenient handling. In its endeavor to provide its readers with greater value, it has revamped its existing supplements and added new ones to its portfolio, offering a daily supplement catering to specific target audiences. Supplements like HT Estates (on real estate and interiors) are the first of their kind in their respective categories. The enlarged operations and enhanced look have also paid off with a substantial increase in circulation across the country. In a major incentive for the advertisers as well as the readers, Hindustan Times has entered into strategic alliances with The Indian Express, Business Standard, Mid-Day and Deccan Chronicle. These alliances, along with its strong presence in North India, make it one of the most of the most formidable media players. HINDUSTAN TIMES.COM HindustanTimes.com, a news led media portal is today one of the most popular port of call for news and infotainment content seekers on the Web. Besides carrying stories from the newspaper, the site has exclusive and in-depth coverage by its independent editorial staff. Its exclusive properties include HTTabloid.com, which is Asia's first tabloid on the Web; and HTCricket.com, a popular destination for cricketing bytes. The site also provides sections written by popular columnists, along with in-depth web exclusives on politics, business, new economy, entertainment, fashion and lifestyle. In another major achievement, HindustanTimes.com is the only Indian media site featured amongst the top 10 international newspaper sites by Forbes for the third time running, ranking above the likes of International Herald Tribune.
HINDUSTAN:
The group's Hindi newspaper, Hindustan is the 9th largest read newspaper in the country. (Source: National Readership Survey 2002). The publication's readership has grown by an impressive 11% to 63.85 lakhs (NRS). Hindustan has grown considerably from strength to strength and has gained significantly across markets. It remains the Number 1 daily in Bihar with a market share of more than 75% of the Hindi daily market. In Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, Hindustan has grown by 34%. Lucknow has been a trailblazer, recording an unprecedented growth of 169%. The popular Hindi daily has also featured innovative advertising campaigns tailored to meet the specific needs of advertisers. HT MINTWhile newspapers may be a suffering in most markets, they remain a growth business in India, according to RajuNarisetti, the former editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe, who recently launched what is now Indias newest and fastest-growing business newspaper, Mint. Among the reasons he cites for newspapers still succeeding in India and other developing countries are raising levels literacy and limited access to Internet. The newspaper was not launched as a free newspaper because local distributors need a share of revenue. That said, with a cover price of less than a cup of tea, potential business readers will not Media Marketing
The Indian Institute of Planning & Management, New 1 0 Delhi
Media Marketing has become an important segment of advertisement in Print Media. The overall revenue Print Media depends substantially on the revenue of the Media Marketing. The revenue comes from the booking of advertisement under various categories. As advertisement has become a effective tool of promotion for individuals, companies as well as government thus the scope of media marketing has also increased. The industry is booming and it has been also contributing in the GDP of the country. Media Marketing Scenario in RAJASTHAN: Rajasthan is a state of business class and there is a growing need for advertisement. The Print section has a considerable share of the entire pie and Hindustan Times being has a great opportunity to explore the entire market of Rajasthan. Print advertising of various categories can tap the segments according to their needs. Especially in case of business segment where print advertisement can be an effective tool for to promote their business. SWOT Analysis of the organization Strength: The flagship publication of the Group has editions from Delhi, Lucknow, Patna and Kolkata, thus, dominating the Northern, Eastern and Central regions of the country. Its New Delhi edition continues to be the single largest English daily edition in the country with a circulation of over 9.2 lakhs. Hindustan Times has set many a standard for its competitors. It is the first smart-age newspaper in India to evolve into a new international size, sleeker and smarter, which ensures enhanced ease of reading and convenient handling. In its endeavor to provide its readers with greater value, it has revamped its existing supplements and added new ones to its portfolio, offering a daily supplement catering to specific target audiences. In a major incentive for the advertisers as well as the readers, Hindustan Times has entered into strategic alliances with The Indian Express, Business Standard, Mid-Day and Deccan Chronicle. These alliances, along with its strong presence in North India, make it one of the most formidable media players. Weakness:
Mumbai edition of Hindustan Times will suck most of the companys investments and profitability for the next two years will be adversely affected. The Mumbai edition is expected to incur losses for a couple of years. In Mumbai, HTM faces immense competition from the established The Hindustan Times and Indian Express, which also have greater financial resources. In addition, other competitors entering the Mumbai market (DNA) will further extend HTMs timeframe to make money. Opportunity: Newspapers only reach 35% of the adult population, of which 65% is literate, there is significant room for growth. The sheer number of publications has created fierce competition Which has kept prices low which in turn has caused publishers to depend more on advertising revenues. Advertising revenues in 2006 are predicted to see a 15 to 20% spike. In 2005, 48% of India's total advertising market went to newspapers,7% more than went to television. Circulation could rise by a whopping 14% riding the back of the advertising boom. Threats: In Mumbai, HTM faces immense competition from the established The Hindustan Times and Indian Express. In addition, other competitors have entered the Mumbai market like DNA
Advertisement And its classification

Advertisement and Medias of advertisement Advertising is a non-personal form of communication intended to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to purchase or take some action upon products, ideals, or services. It includes the name of a product or service and how that product or service could benefit the consumer, to persuade a target market to purchase or to consume that particular brand. These brands are usually paid for or identified through sponsors and viewed via various media. Advertising can also serve to communicate an idea to a mass amount of people in an attempt to convince them to take a certain action, such as encouraging 'environmentally friendly' behaviors, and even unhealthy behaviors through food consumption, video game and television viewing promotion, and a "lazy man" routine through a loss of exercise . Modern advertising developed with the rise of mass production in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mass media can be defined as any media meant to reach a mass amount of people. Several types of mass media are television, internet, radio, news programs, and published pictures and articles. Advertisement does
Increasing the sales of the product/service Creating and maintaining a brand identity or brand image. Communicating a change in the existing product line. Introduction of a new product or service. Increasing the buzz-value of the brand or the company.
Medias of advertisements Print Media: Under print media the different types are-Newspaper, magazine, broachers, fliers etc. Electronic media: Under Electronic media the different types are-Broadcast (Television[Entertainment, Sports, News]&Radio), Internet, Cinemas Movies. Word of mouth publicity: Under this category pioneer ship, direct marketing. Outdoor Marketing: This category comprises of Billboards, kiosks, trade house and Events. Categories Of Advertisement Of Hindustan Times
DISPLAY:This is a very important category of advertisement. And has a great influence on revenue of newspaper. Display ads basically are those ads which appears in a box .It shows the brand, product and its features. Display ads show detailed information about the company and its outlets. It can be of two types colour and black and white. Display ads are measured in terms of SQCM DAVP:The Directorate of Advertising & Visual Publicity (DAVP) is the nodal agency to undertake multi-media advertising and publicity for various Ministries and Departments of Government of India. Some of the Autonomous Bodies also route their advertisements through DAVP. As a service agency, it endeavors to communicate at grass roots level on behalf of various Central Government Ministries. DIPR:DIPR stands for department of information and public relation. This ia an agency which undertake media advertisement and publicity for various ministries and department of state level government of India. OBITUARY: This kind of category defines those ads, which are printed in relation to condolences and remembrance of those who have passed away. This is generally having a separate and permanent space in newspapers SELF ADVERTISEMENT: This refers to that category which prints ads in connection to the promotion of the brand of newspaper itself. For instance when a newspaper gives ads in which it shows its association with some kind a social cause Or when it print ads to promote a special segment of its newspaper such a matrimonial. AFR/UFR:These are special purpose advertisement printed on occasion like a festival or anniversary. These ads basically are the ads, which display the financial report of any company who wants to reveal its financial position to its financers; stakeholders like shareholders suppliers and customers. They are printed yearly, half yearly or may be quarterlys per the choice and policy of the company. AFR stand for audited financial report and UFR stands for un-audited financial report. FEATURES ADS:
This kind of ads are printed rarely on special sary of a newspaper or other such occasion CLASSIFIEDS: Classified advertising is a form of advertising which is particularly common in newspapers online and other periodicals e.g. free ads papers or Penny savers. Classified advertising differs from standard advertising or business models in that it allows private individuals (not simple companies or corporate entities) to solicit sales for products and services. A detailed description of classified is given in the pages to come.
LITRATURE REVIEW
Perceptual mapping is one of the few marketing research techniques that provides direct input into the strategic marketing planning process. It allows senior marketing planners to take a broad view of the strengths and weaknesses of their product or service offerings relative to the strengths and weaknesses of their competition. It allows the marketing planner to view the customer and the competitor simultaneously in the same realm. Perceptual mapping and preference mapping techniques have been basic tools of the applied marketing research profession for over twenty years now. It is one of the few advanced multivariate techniques that have not suffered very much from alternating waves of popularity and disfavor. Although I personally observed a minor waning of the use of the techniques in the early 1980's, it is now as popular as ever. And although these techniques have been used extensively over a large number of applied research studies, and for a very wide variety of product and service categories, and have been subjected to extensive validations, there still remain some very basic issues as to the procedure's applicability and usefulness. In addition, there remain many outstanding issues concerning the proper procedures and algorithms that should be used for perceptual mapping. So, I see that my main task at this conference is to raise the issues, as I see them. I am taking a rather naive approach. That is, I will approach these issues from the research manager's point of view, and not the statistician's. These issues represent the kinds of questions that my clients ask me and my staff. Obviously, I have some answers, and some biases, but I will try to minimize those, and concentrate on the issues. I know that many of these issues will be addressed at this conference, both in formal presentations and in informal discussions. I am taking this route in the hope that this introduction will encourage greater investigation, increase validation activities, and provide fuel for additional conferences of this type.
CURRENT ISSUES IN PERCEPTUAL MAPPING A. Defining and limiting the relevant space
How is the relevant space limited? There are three types of limitations that must be placed on the relevant multivariate space that will be analyzed and mapped. They are: 1. Limits on the population that is to be surveyed. This seldom poses a serious problem because it tends to be self-defining in terms of users, or purchasers of the products, services, or firms in question. However, there are questions as to how familiar a respondent is with a product, or brand. This will be discussed in a later section. 2. Limits on the relevant set of variables that will be used to define the perceptual space. In my opinion, this is the most critical area for setting limitations, except for those using the scaling methods based on overall product similarities. The major question to the applied researcher is what variables are to be used to orient the perceptual positioning of the various competitors. There is a nearly unlimited set of variables available.
3. Limits on the relevant set of products, services, or firms that will be mapped into the multivariate space is also a major issue. Although I don't believe that this is as critical an issue as the selection of the relevant variable set, it is still a serious one. A balance is required. B. Are there particular product categories or merchandise lines or firm types where discriminant analysis-based mapping works better? If so, then what are the characteristics of those product categories or industries? C. Is "high involvement" in the respondent rating process a necessary prerequisite for multivariate mapping? What level of familiarity is necessary and sufficient to include a set of ratings into the definition of the relevant multivariate space? D. Extracting the dimensions.
1. What are some good rules of thumb for determining how many dimensions to use? How much variance needs to be explained to be comfortable? How should we handle dimensions with low variance explained, but test as significant? 2. How do you display more than two dimensions? What procedures and graphics algorithms are available? What graphics procedures best convey the information in the multivariate space to managers and creative professionals? 3. If you are forced to use a two-dimensional map, but have three or more significant dimensions, how do you adequately show those attributes that are heavily loaded on the third dimension? Or, do you eliminate those from the display. If you do eliminate them, what criteria should you use? 4. What actions should you take when the first extracted dimension explains much more variance then the second dimension? Is it appropriate to display those two dimensions as equal axes in the map? E. Plotting the variables in the derived space raises some interesting questions. 1. Should variable coordinate weighting be used to show differences in the amount of variance explained by each axis? 2. If so, what should be used as the appropriate weights percent of variance explained by each axis, eigen values, or something else?
F. Plotting the firms/products in the perceptual space 1. How should we show which products or firms are significantly different from others on the map? 2. Does anyone attempt to draw confidence limits around the mapped points anymore?
G. Is longitudinal mapping a valid concept? What are the critical issues in overlaying maps? What are the best methods for doing this? 1. Line up "index" points from successive time periods so as to minimize the variance between them? Should the index points be the vector of importance ratings, or some other measure? 2. Select a very stable vector that consistently discriminates between at least two of the products or firms, and minimize the variance between their positions over successive time periods? 3. Use both of these methods in combination? 4. Re-generate the dimensions with each attribute from each time period representing a separate attribute, and each product from each time period representing a separate product?
5. Always use the original space, and simply plug in the standardized means for each product from successive time periods into the linear dimensional equations and calculate the new coordinates? 6. What other procedures are being used?
H. How can you incorporate volumetric data into multivariate mapping? In other words, how can you show the marketing manager where the greatest demand exists on the map or where the opportunities are? a. available?
Are scatter plots of grouped respondent locations the only thing
b. depict number of be done with "smoothing"
Or, can we develop a surface plot over the mapped space that will such things as dollars spent, or number of items bought, or even times visited? What methods are being used now? What could the new graphics packages combined with multivariate routines to superimpose surface plots over the derived
space? Needless to say, there are still many outstanding issues and further development opportunities with multivariate mapping procedures. I'm sure that there are others besides these. I would like to challenge the readers to address these issues, share them with your peers, publicize solutions to them, freely subject them to validations, and give us more specificity in executing this most powerful and useful marketing research procedure. De bond and Thaler (1985) while investigating the possible psychological basis for investor behavior ,argue that mean reversion in stock prices is an evidence of investor over reaction where investor over emphasize recent firm performance in forming future expectations. Shanmugham (2000) conduct a survey of 201 individual investors to study the information sourcing by investors,their perception of various investment strategy dimention and the factors, psychological and sociological factors dominated the economic factors dominated the economic factors in share investment decisions. Incidentally ,an investment in mutual funds would be entitled to indexation benefits in the computation of capital gains, which would ortherwise be denied to a direct investment in debt securities .It is a common observation that large companies deploy their investible surplus in the fixed income schemes, which involves negligible downward risk, and seek to leverage the tax arbitrage. From press reports that mutual funds offer special plans, titled as serial plans, which allow an investors to be the sole member of a scheme and the deployment of the money is effected in avenues choosen by the said investor. Marketing Strategy: HT adopted a two-stage process. They first focused on building the brand in a new market by targeting the discerning English reader. Then they focused on building the circulation. They concentrated specifically on households that subscribe to English newspapers. They built quality circulation instead of just increasing sales numbers.
Promotional Strategy: HT used Let there be light ad campaign to spread the message of its superior content. The positioning is that HT as a brand is a thought-stimulating product. The TV commercial was made such that it showed HT readers were being distinguished from a crowd of blindfolded people.
Pricing Strategy: The sales and delivery model that lasted for so many decades are undergoing a radical change. Newspapers traditionally had `newsstand' sales from where a fairly large proportion of their readers picked up their daily fix. The remaining sales were made through `hawkers' who delivered the newspaper home and collected the money at the end of the month. Subscription sales for daily newspapers were always a very small proportion of the total sales.
The Hindustan Times has been touting a scheme where a newspaper has a cover price of Rs 2.50 but actually costs just Re1 per day. A reader who goes in for the cash back scheme on an advance payment of an annual subscription gets a glossy booklet with twelve coupons affixed with a fancy hologram. A coupon is given at the end of every month to the `hawker' who delivers the newspaper home. This gives a feeling of security to the reader who is skeptical about a one-time advance payment. Present Status: The flagship publication of the Group has editions from Delhi, Lucknow, Patna and Kolkata, thus, dominating the Northern, Eastern and Central regions of the country. It is printed out of eleven centers including Bhopal, Chandigarh, Delhi, Jaipur, Nagpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Bhagalpur, Patna, Ranchi and Raipur, reaching closer to the consumers. Its New Delhi edition continues to be the single largest English daily edition in the country with a circulation of over 9.2 lakhs, while maintaining its leadership status in Delhi as the largest circulated English daily at 5.5 lakhs. In its endeavor to provide its readers with greater value, it has revamped its existing supplements and added new ones to its portfolio, offering a daily supplement catering to specific target audiences. Supplements like HT Estates (on real estate and interiors) are the first of their kind in their respective categories. HT NEXT:
Hindustan Times rolled out its youth edition - HT NEXT. It is the first ever
Newspaper launched especially for the youth. Loaded with new, views and interesting trivia from around the world, the all-color edition of Hindustan Times will is available at a price of Rs. 1.50 at stands across Delhi and NCR. Targeted purely at young readers, HT Next promises to be a reader friendly, comprehensive and holistic daily with substance and style.
The first Hindustan Times Luxury Conference, co-sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India, was held on 2006 in Mumbai. Hindustan Times, one of Indias leading and most respected English dailies, has always prided itself in spotting emerging trends and the Hindustan Times Luxury Conference had been initiated to aid the development of the luxury industry in India. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Indias premier trade body, was a partner in this endeavour.
Overview:
In November 2003, Hindustan Times launched the Leadership Summit - an annual conference that seeks to enhance the level of discussion on pressing issues, encourage interaction among leaders in various areas and present international quality thought platforms, as part of its mission to contribute to thought leadership and evolve action plans for a secure and better future. Relevance: The Hindustan Times Leadership Summit is a platform for eminent leaders to interact, share their opinions and views on important issues of concern and arrive at solutions. The conference aims to understand the world's views on social, economic and political issues. It tries to gain insights on India's role in the world and its importance in the global growth scenario. The Hindustan Leadership Summit invites international business leaders, strategists along with renowned personalities from India and abroad. Perceptual mapping is one of the few marketing research techniques that provides direct input into the strategic marketing planning process. It allows senior marketing planners to take a broad view of the strengths and weaknesses of their product or service offerings relative to the strengths and weaknesses of their competition. It allows the marketing planner to view the customer and the competitor simultaneously in the same realm. Perceptual mapping and preference mapping techniques have been a basic tool of the applied marketing research profession for over twenty years now. It is one of the few advanced multivariate techniques that has not suffered very much from alternating waves of popularity and disfavor. Although I personally observed a minor waning of the use of the techniques in the early 1980's, it is now as popular as ever. And although these techniques have been used extensively over a large number of applied research studies, and for a very wide variety of product and service categories, and have been subjected to extensive validations, there still remain some very basic issues as to the procedure's applicability and usefulness. In addition, there remain many outstanding issues concerning the proper procedures and algorithms that should be used for perceptual mapping.
So, I see that my main task at this conference is to raise the issues, as I see them. I am taking a rather naive approach. That is, I will approach these issues from the research manager's point of view, and not the statistician's. These issues represent the kinds of questions that my clients ask me and my staff. Obviously, I have some answers, and some biases, but I will try to minimize those, and concentrate on the issues. I know that many of these issues will be addressed at this conference, both in formal presentations and in informal discussions. I am taking this route in the hopes that this introduction will encourage greater investigation, increase validation activities, encourage additional, practitioner? oriented publishing activities, and provide fuel for additional conferences of this type. WHAT'S IN A NAME? So, let's start with the first issue. Just what is perceptual mapping? Or, is it preference mapping? Or, is it structural segmentation? Or what? Here is a list of some of the names that I have seen this procedure called: - Perceptual Mapping - Preference Mapping - Structural Segmentation - Brand Mapping - Behavioral Mapping - Strategic Product Positioning Well, if the only difference - MDS Mapping - Market Mapping - Product Mapping - Goal Mapping - Image Mapping - Semantic Mapping between these various names is the selection of a
particular attribute set, then I suggest that we rename the technique to just plain old Multivariate Mapping. If one wishes to distinguish algorithms, then the proper descriptive prefix can be used, such as discriminant analysis?based multivariate mapping. Or, if one wishes to distinguish the types of attributes used, then an appropriate suffix like multivariate mapping of consumer product preferences would be more appropriate. Either, or both are far more descriptive and certainly reduces confusion. If there are true differences between these various names and the and the idea of generic multivariate mapping, then we are obligated to make those distinctions and perpetuate that nomenclature throughout the profession. As it stands now, the name perceptual mapping is confusing to both marketing managers and many research
professionals. Currently, most marketing managers assume that there is a fundamental difference between perceptual mapping and, say, preference mapping. Is there really? ISSUES AND PROBLEMS WITH CURRENT ALGORITHMS IN GENERAL USE Following are the three major classes of algorithms that are generally in use for perceptual mapping in the applied marketing research arena. Included is a brief discussion of their strengths and weaknesses, and some outstanding questions, from a users viewpoint. A. Discriminant analysis is still the most popular algorithm in use today for applied multivariate mapping. The procedure is widely available. The algorithm is robust in that the assumptions concerning the continuity of the data, and the data distributions can be relaxed to a considerable extent. The inputs to discriminant analysis consist of individual respondent ratings of products across attributes. The basic assumptions are that the rating scales are continuous and normally distributed. However, in using the technique for mapping purposes, these assumptions can be relaxed to the point that products simply rank? ordered on attributes will provide sufficient information for mapping purposes. Discriminant analysis is much like regression analysis in that it uses a least?squares approach in an attempt to fit linear models to the data. However, the dependent variable is nominal. That is, for mapping purposes, the dependent variable is the product being rated. Thus, each product rated by each respondent is an input record, so if a respondent rated five products, that generates five input records. Discriminant analysis then calculates the coefficients to a set of standardized linear equations, called discriminant equations, that explain the differences between the product ratings. Or, said a different way, explains the variance between product ratings. The formation of the linear equations follows an order, such that the first equation explains the most variance, the second explains the most variance remaining after accounting for the variance explained by the first, and so on until you reach a limit of one less than the number of products being rated, or one less than the number of variables, whichever is less.
These linear equations are further constrained so that each one is uncorrelated to the other. That is, they are orthogonal. These two properties, the successive optimization of the variance explained, and the orthogonality of the equations, forms the basis for mapping, because one is assured that the first linear equation, which defines the X axis of a map, explains the most variation between products, and the second linear equation, or Y axis, explains the most variance between products, after accounting for the variance explained by the X axis (given the limitations of the least?squares procedure). And the X and Y axes are orthogonal. In most cases, the first two equations define the majority of the variance between product ratings, and are the only significant dimensions. Later, we will discuss significant dimensions beyond two. Assuming for the moment that there are only two significant dimensions, the calculated coefficients of each variable in each equation define the X and Y coordinates of the attribute on the map. The X and Y coordinates of each product are calculated by substituting the mean attribute ratings of each product into the two discriminant equations, and calculating the results. The linear discriminant equations allow the researcher to easily plot additional products, or concepts into the derived space. These equations also allow the researcher to explore the distributions of specific customer groups in the derived space. Most widely available discriminant analysis algorithms provide a variety of useful statistics to the researcher, such as eigen values to show you the variance explained by each equation, tests of significance for each equation, multivariate F statistics to show the significance of the group differences, and correlations between the discriminant functions and each attribute variable. The procedure also has a few drawbacks. Obviously it requires individual ratings of individual products (or services, or firms) on each of a selected set of attributes. Consequently, there is a perpetual problem with what to do with missing data points. Although I have read a dozen papers on handling missing data in discriminant analysis, there seems to be no consensus short of case?
wise deletion. Yet, the realities of today's marketing research industry often makes this an unacceptable solution. Is mean substitution an appropriate solution? How does mean substitution effect the calculation of the discriminant functions? The procedure is dependent on the selection of the appropriate attribute set. The omission of important discriminating attributes may lead to false conclusions concerning the dimensionality of consumer ratings of product differences. Also, the procedure highlights those variables that discriminate between products, and will not display on the map attributes that may be extremely important, even dominating product choice, but do not differentiate between products. Alternatively, situations often develop where a particular variable discriminates between products, but is not important in product choice. Often, the selected set of attribute variables is highly correlated, consequently, there is no control over the number of attribute variables, or which attribute variables, enter the discriminant solution and define the relevant space. To overcome this situation, multiple passes, forcing in variables in which there is a high interest, are often required. This can be costly. The inclusion or exclusion of one of the products or firms being rated often changes the dimensionality of the space, especially when the set of firms or products under consideration is small or radically different from other products. It is often difficult to convey this situation to research managers and senior marketing management. A radically changing product space detracts from the confidence that senior marketing managers have in the procedure. Is there some way of overcoming this, short of adding more products simply to stabilize the space? That solution is often not viable in researching industrial products. B. R-Type Factor Analysis is seldom used as a mapping procedure in today's applied marketing research field, although in the 1970's it was the preferred mapping procedure among many applied researchers. And, there are a few empirical studies that show it is superior to discriminant analysis. Although you have the same problems with what to do about missing data and selecting the relevant set of variables as you have with discriminant analysis, this procedure overcomes two of the problems with discriminant analysis. All
variables are shown on the map, and the inclusion or exclusion of products has no effect on the extracted dimensions. The inputs to factor analysis are very similar to those for discriminant analysis, product ratings across attributes. However, an additional ingredient is required. You must also collect an importance rating from each respondent for each attribute. These importance ratings are the basis for developing the mapping space. The basic assumptions concerning the distribution and continuity of the rating scales should not be relaxed. At this point the two procedures part ways. Unlike discriminant analysis, where the variance between product ratings is addressed, factor analysis attempts to explain the correlation between importance ratings of the variables. That is, the first factor equation is that linear equation that explains the maximum amount of correlation between the variables, and the second extracted equation explains the most of the remaining correlation, and so on, until 100% of the correlation is explained with a number of factors equal to one less than the number of variables. The extracted factors are linear equations which have a coefficient for each variable. These coefficients are commonly referred to as factor loadings. The output of factor analysis does meet the basic criteria for developing a map. The first two dimensions explain the maximum amount of variance (i.e. correlation) between the importance ratings of the variables (not the ratings of the products), and they are orthogonal. Thus, to define a variable location on the map is a simple case of using that variable's loading on the first factor as the X coordinate, and its loading on the second factor as the Y coordinate. Factor analysis is an interdependence procedure, thus the various differences in product ratings is ignored until after the factor equations are derived. Product locations in the derived space are calculated by averaging the first two factor scores of that product's ratings to define the X and Y coordinates. Or alternatively, plugging the average product scores on each attribute into the two factor scores and calculating the X and Y coordinates. The extraction of factors is highly sensitive to the number of correlated attributes. The addition or deletion of an attribute may dramatically alter the dimensionality of the derived space. In addition, extraction of factors is dependent on the intercorrelations
between variables, and does not necessarily optimize the separation between products, like discriminant analysis. Furthermore, a single variable that may be considered extremely important and dominating the selection of products, like safety, may not show up as a dimension on a map, simply because it is not correlated to any of the other measures. Myers and Tauber (Market Structure Analysis, AMA, 1977) recommended overcoming this problem through the use of a "weighted covariance approach", where the input to the factoring program is a matrix of product covariances, weighted by regression scores derived from regressing the importance ratings against product choice. But this has proved to be a bulky and difficult procedure to implement, and there has been little empirical validation. C. Non-metric scaling procedures are still used quite often for multivariate mapping. However, I am only going to concentrate on one of those, and briefly describe the others. 1. Correspondence Analysis or Dual Scaling techniques are gaining in popularity, mainly because there has been a considerable amount written on the technique over the last few years, it is an extremely robust technique, it has simple data collection requirements, and the algorithms are becoming widely available. Correspondence analysis is often used as a post?hoc mapping procedure for studies that did not originally contemplate multivariate mapping, because of its ability to use summary distributions of nominal data. The procedure puts no significant demands on the distribution of the data. In addition, the procedure does not require the standard attributes?by?products data format required by other procedures. A matrix of products?by?attributes works just as well, and will produce an identical map. In addition, the point?point maps produced from correspondence analysis are directly generated by most of the programs and they are much easier for general marketing managers and creative promotional personal to understand. Inputs to correspondence analysis can be as simple as a summary table of respondent checks as to whether a product has a certain characteristic or not. Almost any data collection procedure imaginable can be transformed, and used to provide inputs to correspondence analysis. Respondents can be asked to name a single brand most
associated with an attribute, or occasion, or store. Even open ended questions can be used by asking respondents to name the qualities most associated with a brand, or store, or personality. There are no restrictions as to how many, or how few items a respondent associates with a product, or whatever. The data input to the program is a matrix of counts of how many times a product, service, firm, or whatever, is associated with an attribute, usage occasion, need, or whatever. Consequently, the data collection process is highly simplified. This has considerable appeal in light of the industry's intense interest in "respondent abuse" and declining response rates. Correspondence analysis has a unique ability to integrate a large amount of data from divergent perspectives on a single map. For example, brands, product attributes, needs fulfillment, and usage occasions can all be shown on the same map. The two main drawbacks of the technique are that it uses only summarized distributions of nominal data for most of the algorithms that are currently available. Thus, a considerable amount of the variance associated with a database of individual responses is sacrificed. And metric data distributions must be "nominalized" to be used in the procedure. The exception is Benzacri's SPAD program that few researchers have access to. SPAD allows you to input either the individual observations, or ratings, or the summarized data. Interestingly, you will often get differing amounts of explained variance, and/or different product and attribute locations on the map, depending whether you use the individual observations or the summarized data. Frankly, I'm not sure why this happens. If there are a number of metric distributions that must be converted to nominal variables, the selection of the appropriate break?points is critical, and has a considerable effect on the amount of explained variance and the extracted dimensions of the correspondence map. We need a solution to this situation, and guidelines on proper procedures for nominalizing metric data. 2. KYST, PROFIT, INDSCAL, TORSCA, PREFMAP, PROXIMITY, ALSCAL, SSA?1 thru SSA?4, MRSCAL, MINISSA, MINITRI, PARAFAC, and MDSCALE, (to name a few) all fall into a class of
mapping procedures called non?metric multidimensional scaling procedures. However, in actuality, some of these algorithms are more metric in nature than non?metric. Although conceptually different from correspondence analysis, for the most part they have been replaced with correspondence analysis because the data collection procedure is as easy for one as the other. These methods release the researcher from having to specify the appropriate attribute set, and instead rely on how consumers judge the products in question to be similar, or dissimilar. The data collection process is often an unstructured sorting task, their respondents are asked to sort products into piles that are similar, or simply rank order products based on their similarity. Orthogonal scales are then derived to explain the consumers' perceived differences between the complete set of products. The derivations are based on minimizing stress in the fewest dimensions possible, while preserving respondents' order of similarity. The nature of the dimensions are determined by inspecting the manner in which each product is aligned with each dimension. Explanatory variables can be depicted on the map by asking consumers to correlate the similarity of a given attribute, or usage occasion, to the products. The procedures for the most part are quite sensitive to the number of products in the data set. The addition or deletion of one product, will often change the dimensionality of the space. In addition, several of these algorithms require complicated, and often conceptually difficult, data transformations to work correctly and they are quite sensitive to the types of transformations undertaken. (see "Multidimensional Scaling", by Kruskal and Wish, Sage University Press, 1978.) CURRENT ISSUES IN PERCEPTUAL MAPPING A. Defining and limiting the relevant space How is the relevant space limited? There are three types of limitations that must be placed on the relevant multivariate space that will be analyzed and mapped. They are: 1. Limits on the population that is to be surveyed. This seldom poses a serious problem because it tends to be self?defining in terms of users, or purchasers of the products, services, or firms in question. However,
there are questions as to how familiar a respondent is with a product, or brand. This will be discussed in a later section. 2. Limits on the relevant set of variables that will be used to define the perceptual space. In my opinion, this is the most critical area for setting limitations, except for those using the scaling methods based on overall product similarities. The major question to the applied researcher is what variables are to be used to orient the perceptual positioning of the various competitors. There is a nearly unlimited set of variables available. The selection of the relevant variable set determines the type of map that will be produced. That is, will the map be based on such things as purchase behavior, organizational images, product usage behaviors, product attribute characteristics, brand images, consumer goals, consumer needs, convenience issues, or some combination of these. This is a critical decision, and requires the agreement of senior marketing management to concur with the appropriate attribute set. Determination of the relevant set requires the professional marketing researcher to critically examine previous research in the category, conduct qualitative research, and creatively select those variables that will provide senior marketing managers with the insight necessary to form marketing strategy. The problem is that we all have seen empirical evidence that the relevant set of attributes changes dramatically from product category to product category, and even among sub?categories. Yet, there is no substantial body of knowledge to tell us what is the relevant set of variables that should be used in any one category. We are left to re?inventing the wheel every time we approach a new product category with multivariate mapping. This severely detracts from the general adaptation of multivariate mapping procedures at the strategic marketing planning level. 3. Limits on the relevant set of products, services, or firms that will be mapped into the multivariate space is also a major issue. Although I don't believe that this is as critical an issue as the selection of the relevant variable set, it is still a serious one. A balance is required.
In this era of market fragmentation, and the rapid emergence of new product categories, and sub?categories, brought on by an acceleration of differentiated products flooding the market place, the selection of the relevant competitive set of products or services is ever?changing. If the relevant set of products, services or firms is too broad, we may fail to uncover those truly discriminating variables that may reveal an opportunity for a competitive advantage. That is, some non?competitive products may so skew the spatial dimensions of the map that differences between the true set of competitors may be hidden or overlooked. On the other hand, the selection of too narrow of a competitive set may destine the marketing planner to focus on the wrong competitors and wrong dimensions. As an example, department stores for years focused on competing department stores as the relevant set, ignoring the single merchandise line specialty stores and the deep discounters until the department stores' bottom lines started gushing red ink. Given the rapid nature of change in the competitive set for most product and service lines, we could not rely on a body of literature to solve this problem. What is needed is a set of generally accepted procedures for determining the relevant competitive set at any point in time. Permit me to continue the discussion of issues in multivariate mapping in a more abbreviated manner. I will limit my remarks from here on to discriminant analysis? based multivariate mapping, since that is what most of us are using. B. Are there particular product categories or merchandise lines or firm?types where discriminant analysis?based mapping works better? If so, then what are the characteristics of those product categories or industries. C. Is "high?involvement" in the respondent rating process a necessary prerequisite for multivariate mapping? What level of familiarity is necessary and sufficient to include a set of ratings into the definition of the relevant multivariate space? D. Extracting the dimensions. 1. What are some good rules of thumb for determining how many dimensions to use? How much variance needs to be explained to be
comfortable? How should we handle dimensions with low variance explained, but test as significant? 2. How do you display more than two dimensions? What procedures and graphics algorithms are available? What graphics procedures best convey the information in the multivariate space to managers and creative professionals? 3. If you are forced to use a two?dimensional map, but have three or more significant dimensions, how do you adequately show those attributes that are heavily loaded on the third dimension? Or, do you eliminate those from the display. If you do eliminate them, what criteria should you use? 4. What actions should you take when the first extracted dimension explains much more variance then the second dimension. Is it appropriate to display those two dimensions as equal axes in the map? E. Plotting the variables in the derived space raises some interesting questions. 1. Should variable coordinate weighting be used to show differences in the amount of variance explained by each axis? 2. If so, what should be used as the appropriate weights ? percent of variance explained by each axis, eigenvalues, or something else? F. Plotting the firms/products in the perceptual space 1. How should we show which products or firms are significantly different from others on the map? 2. Does anyone attempt to draw confidence limits around the mapped points anymore? G. What about "ideal" points? 1. Should "ideal" points be used at all? 2. If so, what is the best way of doing that? a. Use importance ratings and treat these as another product rating? In other words, do we permit importance ratings to assist in the definition of the relevant space?
b. Or, should we calculate standardized mean importance ratings and plug those values into the previously extracted dimensional linear equations to calculate the coordinates of the ideal point? c. Should we use respondents' highest rating of any firm/product on each attribute and use that as a set of ratings for the "ideal" product? d. What about using respondents' preferred firm/product and simply duplicate that rating as the set of "ideal" ratings under the assumption that the respondent will purchase or use that product closest to their ideal ? e. Is it appropriate to map a "generalized" space, then segment the sample on importance ratings or product preferences, then impose the mean ratings of those segments as multiple "ideal" points on the map? f. What other methodologies are there for generating "ideal points"? g. What do you do when any one of these procedures dramatically skews the map? H. Is longitudinal mapping a valid concept? What are the critical issues in overlaying maps? What are the best methods for doing this? 1. Line up "index" points from successive time periods so as to minimize the variance between them? Should the index points be the vector of importance ratings, or some other measure? 2. Select a very stable vector that consistently discriminates between at least two of the products or firms, and minimize the variance between their positions over successive time periods? 3. Use both of these methods in combination? 4. Re-generate the dimensions with each attribute from each time period representing a separate attribute, and each product from each time period representing a separate product?
5. Always use the original space, and simply plug in the standardized means for each product from successive time periods into the linear dimensional equations and calculate the new coordinates? 6. What other procedures are being used? I. How can you incorporate volumetric data into multivariate mapping? In other words, how can you show the marketing manager where the greatest demand exists on the map? Or, where the opportunities are. a. b. Are scatter plots of grouped respondent locations the only thing available? Or, can we develop a surface?plot over the mapped space that will depict such
things as dollars spent, or number of items bought, or even number of times visited? What methods are being used now? What could be done with the new graphics packages combined with multivariate "smoothing" routines to super?impose surface plots over the derived space?
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY SECONDARY DATA I will collect the Secondary data from following sources: Newspaper HT, TOI Magazine - The Times. Harvard Business Review, 4ps Website/Internet Hindustan times Book Course book/ Philip Kotler Notes- Professors Notes
PRIMARY DATAI will collect the data through structure questionnaire. TOOL USEDExcel sheet, pie chart, and histogram SAMPLING METHOD Random Sampling SAMPLE SIZEI will try to collect data from more than 50 customers Target AudienceStudents, housewife, Businessman, working group i.e. if I need to target business segment probably I will take Banking customer in this account. JUSTIFICATION FOR CHOOSING A PARTICULAR RESEARCH PROPOSAL The type of research carried for the study is descriptive research and sampling taken is random sampling. Perceptual mapping is one of the few marketing research techniques that provides direct input into the strategic marketing planning process. It allows senior marketing planners to take a broad view of the strengths and weaknesses of their product or service offerings relative to the strengths and weaknesses of their competition.
FINDING AND ANALYSIS

Q. which kind of institution is this?
Inference: Institutes select a media to give an adv respect to the courses they deal in and this response gave us the real picture that which kind of a institute it is.
Q. How many students are there in your institute?
4500 and above 3500 7% 10% 2500 17%
RES PONS E
500 46% 1500 20%
Inference: Above response showed the strength of the institute through the intake of students. And strength of institutes give a pave to advertisement for the same
Q3.What is the target audience
RES PONS E
North India 4%
Rajsthan 23% All India 73%
Inference: Institutes have to target a segment for the further plans of adv. Response gave us the picture that institutes target which region. PAN India is at pinnacle.
Q4. If Nationally, Which are those region students come from? Please specify
RES PONS E
bihar 0%
Madhyapradesh 14%
Other Utter pradesh 3% 1%
Jharkhand 82%
Inference: Advertisement gives a platform for an institute to attract prospect customers from different region. And the result jot down says Jharkhand is at highest
Q5.What is the percentage of student in take in rajsthan?
RES PONS E
20% -40% 3% 80% -100% 32% 60% -80% 38% 40% -60% 27%
Inference: Within the native region how a city edition will work this response gives us the exact blue print to be followed. Here 38% of institutes said that they intake 60%-80% within rajasthan.
Q6.Who is your Target audience?
Inference: Institute has to make a segment to focus upon. And via response we can observe that graduates is at supreme by 48%
Q7.When does your admission process starts?
Inference: Every institute has a particular time period when the admission process is at boom. Response tells that its mainly in May-June with a percentage of 69 when the advertisement is at hike.
Q8.Who are your nearest competitors?
Inference: Competition creates opportunity to increase potential. So by this response institutes come to know their nearest competitors and accordingly they can advertise. So here colleges with different universities are highest.
Q9.What is your annual budget of advertising?
Inference: Annual budget for advertising has to plan out according to the availability of resources. In this response 46% institutes say that their budget range is 25-50lakhs
Q10.What is the purpose of your advertising?
RES PONS E
Adm ission Notice 15%
Marketing and brandingActivity 67%
Appointm ents 18%
Inference: Ultimately motive is what matters, so here in this response it has been seen that the supreme purpose for advertising is marketing and brand-activity with a percentage of 67.
Q11. Which media do you prefer to advertise?
RES PONS E
Exhibition and events 23%
BTL 4%
Outdoor m edia 8% Electronic m edia 4%
print media 61%
Inference: Medium is of great importance while advertising. This response shows that 61% of institutes prefer print media as their promotional tool.
Q12.Which publication you prefer the most for local advertising in news paper?
RES PONS E
Hindustan Tim es 30%
Dainik Bhaskar 37%
Rajasthan patrika 15%
D.N.A 6%
Tim of India es 12%
Inference: Above analysis says that for local advertising in newspaper Dainik Bhaskar is the most preferred publication with a peak percentage of 37.
Q13. What criteria do you consider while selecting a media for advertising?
top of the mind recall 17% catering to target audience 19%
reach/cirpercepti coct response culation on 18% 11% 8% availibilit y 27%
Inference: There are many criteria through which media are chosen. Above response states that 27% of institutes keep availability as the utmost criteria followed by catering to target audience.
OVERALL PRESENTATION OF THE HINDUSTAN TIMES
CUSTOMER RATING Excellent Good Average Poor Very poor
RESPONDENT 83 125 42 10 0
INTERPRETATION: From the above chart it is clearly seen that the overall presentation of TOI is good majority of the people are satisfied with the overall presentation of the paper. So the company can maintain the same way of presenting the news.
EDITORIAL CONTENT OF THE HINDUSTAN TIMES CUSTOMER RATING Excellent Good Average Poor Very poor RESPONDENT 24 64 98 68 6
INTERPRETATION: The customers fells that the editorial column in the paper is average and needs improvement, some customers felt that the overall editorial content need to increase as there is only one side in the newspaper with editorial content.
OVERALL CONTENT OF THE HINDUSTAN TIMES CUSTOMER RATING Excellent Good Average Poor Very poor RESPONDENT 35 150 65 10 0
INTERPRETATION; Majority of the customers fell that the overall content in the newspaper is good does not require any improvement while some felt that some column in the paper needs improvisation. THINGS WHICH CUSTOMERS LIKE IN HINDUSTAN TIMES THINGS Pricing
RESPONDENT (in %) 27
Content Front page presentation local news Sports Supplements
6 16 16 8 16 8
INTERPRETATION: When customers were asked about the two thing they like the first response from them was the pricing and then the next option was the front page news coverage, thus the above chart explains the customers likings in Hindustan Times.
CONCLUSION
Perceptual mapping is one of the few marketing research techniques that provides direct input into the strategic marketing planning process. It allows senior marketing planners to take a broad view of the strengths and weaknesses of their product or service offerings relative to the strengths and weaknesses of their competition. It allows the marketing planner to view the customer and the competitor simultaneously in the same realm. Perceptual mapping and preference mapping techniques have been a basic tool of the applied marketing research profession for over twenty years now. It is one of the few advanced multivariate techniques that has not suffered very much from alternating waves of popularity and disfavor. Although I personally observed a minor waning of the use of the techniques in the early 1980's, it is now as popular as ever. And although these techniques have been used extensively over a large number of applied research studies, and for a very wide variety of product and service categories, and have been subjected to extensive validations, there still remain some very basic issues as to the procedure's applicability and usefulness. In addition, there remain many outstanding issues concerning the proper procedures and algorithms that should be used for perceptual mapping.
RECOMMENDATION
The major players of English Newspapers are The Times Of India , The Hindu , The Economic Times , Business Standard , Business Line, Hindustan Times etc. The survey states that among Non Business dailies The Times Of India is the most preferred English daily while among Business dailies The Business Standard was most Preferred by the people Major age groups Reading English Newspaper was 25 to 35 years group
Most of the people agreed that English Newspaper was easily available in the
city .A large number of people (41%) stated that The Times Of India was most easily available English Newspaper. Newspapers are a source of news and information. If man wants food for his belly, he also needs news for his mind to keep pace with the world. The latter he gets from newspapers. They refresh his knowledge and ideas. The newspapers have a very important position and place in a democratic country. They are the critics of administration, justice and law. They play the part of social reformers. They remove the barriers separating man from man. They are the advocates of liberty; equality and fraternity. They enforce the right and redress the wrong.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.
Donald R. Cooper and Pamela S. Schindler (2001), Business Research Methods, eighth Edition, Tata McGraw Hill Publishers. C R kothari, Research Methodology - Methods and Techniques (2006), 23rd revised Edition, New Delhi.
www.asiamarketresearch.com/glossary/brand-mapping.htm www.blackcoffee.com/brand-mapping.html www.mcorpconsulting.com/services/tools/brandMapping.asp www.mm4xl.com/software/tools/brand.php
2.
1. 2. 3. 4.
ANNEXURE
Q1. which kind of institution is this? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Q2. How many students are there in your institute? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Q3.What is the target audience -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Q4. If Nationally, Which are those region students come from? Please specify -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Q5.What is the percentage of student in take in Rajasthan? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Q6.Who is your Target audience? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q7.When does your admission process starts? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Q8.Who are your nearest competitors? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Q9.What is your annual budget of advertising? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Q10.What is the purpose of your advertising? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Q11. Which media do you prefer to advertise? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Q12.Which publication you prefer the most for local advertising in news paper? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Q13. What criteria do you consider while selecting a media for advertising? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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THE INDIAN INSTITUTE OF PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT NEW DELHI

The Indian Institute of Planning & Management, New Delhi

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TOPIC APPROVAL LETTER

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TITLE OF THE THESIS:

PROBLEM DEFINITION /HYPOTHESIS /RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

LITERATURE RELATED TO THE RESEARCH (IN BRIEF)

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SCOPE OF THE THESIS WORK

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SUMMER TRAINING REPORT (IN BRIEF)

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DETAILS OF THE EXTERNAL GUIDE

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Top players: Newspapers:

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The Indian Institute of Planning & Management, New 5 Delhi

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Hindustan UP Delhi Bihar Jharkhand Uttarakhand Chandigarh

Mint Delhi Mumbai Bangalore Chennai Kolkata Pune Chandigarh

Shine.com Desi martini.com HT mobile

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PRODUCTS OF HINDUSTAN TIMES HINDUSTAN TIMES

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Advertisement And its classification

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Are scatter plots of grouped respondent locations the only thing

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b. depict number of be done with "smoothing"