Abstract:

The experiment is aimed at structuring the market for heavy duty detergents. The problem that posed itself with regard to this experiment was: Is it possible to find this structure with the aid of multidimensional scaling (MDS)? The idea behind the experiment was not to find an operational structure in which the various products could be assigned a stable position. What we did have in mind, though, was to find out whether the method of MDS could be used in the detergent market to arrive at an interpretable market structure, something that so far has not been successfully done with the conventional research techniques. We have, by chance as it were, been able to answer the following question: 1. Does the image that consumers have of a given brand from another market remain stable, if this brand is positioned as a hypothetic brand in the market for heavy duty detergents? The brand in question has very large intrinsic value and the products offered on other markets under this label are highly appreciated by the consumer.