CHAPTER 2: DETERMINING DIMENSIONS IN RELATION TO POSITIONING
2.4 Step 2 of the Positioning Process
2.4.5 Measuring Determinant Attributes
The first and fundamental step in the development and formulation of a marketing strategy is to accurately identify which determinant attributes are used by the consumer; how the consumer perceives the various alternative brands on each of these attributes; and the relative importance of each of the attributes influencing patronage behaviour (Hawkins et al. 2007: 574). The marketer must therefore aim to accurately identify the attributes which “are determinant for the target market and the product category under consideration” (Walker and Mullins 2008: 157), Firstly, in terms of identifying which attributes are employed by consumers when evaluating alternatives, the marketer may choose to utilise one of three techniques, namely direct questioning, indirect questioning, or observation and experimentation (Myers and Alpert 1968:
15). According to Hawkins et al. (2007: 575), “direct methods include asking consumers what criteria they use in a particular purchase or, in a focus group setting, noting what consumers say about products and attributes”. Furthermore, in order to classify an attribute as determinant, dual questioning is employed where the consumer is asked: “what factors they consider important in a purchasing decision and then asked how they perceive these factors as differing among the various products or brands” (McDaniel and Gates 2010: 359). Resultantly, “attributes judged high in combined importance and differences are selected as determinant” (Alpert 1971: 185).
Marketers must be cautious and wary of an important limiting factor of the direct questioning approach, which is that consumers may either not recognise their own specific motives for making the purchases which they do or they may not want to disclose these in fear of appearing
“foolish or irrational” (Myers and Alpert 1968: 16). Marketers may attempt to counter this by,
22 for example, guaranteeing anonymity of the research respondents as well as using techniques such as self-administered questionnaires instead of focus groups and interviews.
Indirect questioning involves “any interviewing approach which does not directly ask respondents to indicate the reasons why they bought a product or service, or which features or attributes are most important in determining choice” (McDaniel and Gates 2010: 360). This method of identifying determinant attributes assumes that consumers will be reluctant, unable or unwilling to disclose their particular determinant attributes and criteria used in evaluating alternatives (Hawkins et al. 2007: 575). Motivation research is an indirect method commonly used which involves “third-person projective questioning” (Alpert 1971: 185). This technique gives the respondent an opportunity to state which attributes and criteria they believe their fellow respondents and consumers would use in a purchase situation. Accordingly, the marketer is able to infer that the „third-person‟ is exploited as a “projection of the respondent” and so the marketer can fittingly “indirectly determine the evaluative criteria that would be used”
(Hawkins et al. 2007: 575). This technique, however, is mostly used to “avoid questions that might be embarrassing or evoke hostility if posed directly to a respondent” (McDaniel and Gates 2010: 160).
Perceptual mapping is a second indirect method regularly used to establish determinant attributes and is “constructed by surveying consumers about various product attributes” and then creating a graph to represent the positions of competitors relative to these attributes (Peter and Olson 2010: 378-379). The perceptual map is thus a “visual representation of consumer perceptions of a product, brand, company, or any other object in two or more dimensions”
(McDaniel and Gates 2010: 621). Further techniques used for generating perceptual maps include: factor analysis, multidimensional scaling, discriminant analysis and correspondence analysis (McDaniel and Gates 2010: 622).
Observation and experimentation may also be utilised in the identification of determinant attributes. Observation involves watching and monitoring consumers in their actual purchase situation. There are numerous disadvantages associated with this technique, namely: firstly, only public “behaviour and physical personal characteristics” (McDaniel and Gates 2010: 238) can be observed, thus the researcher is not able to gather data regarding “motives, attitudes, intentions or feelings” (McDaniel and Gates 2010: 238); secondly, any observed behaviour in the present tense “may not be projectable into the future” (McDaniel and Gates 2010: 238); and lastly, observation tends to be expensive in terms of both money and time. Conversely, the experimental approach tries to “isolate the role of one or more specific features by holding all others constant, varying the factor in question, and then measuring the impact upon some operationally defined performance criterion, such as buying choice” (Myers and Alpert 1968:
23 19). This approach does, however, also have its disadvantages, namely: it is very costly (McDaniel and Gates 2010: 278); and it is often impossible to control and replicate many environments in which buying would occur “without significantly altering the relative role of the buying influences whose effects the researcher is attempting to study” (Myers and Alpert 1968: 19).
Finally, the marketer determines the relative importance of each of the attributes influencing patronage behaviour. A recent study conducted by Van Ittersum et al. (2007) suggests that attribute importance is a “multidimensional concept and that different methods may measure different dimensions of attribute importance” (Van Ittersum et al. 2007: 1179). Firstly, the dimension of salience, which “represents the importance of the attribute in memory” (Van Ittersum et al. 2007: 1180), is measured most accurately and validly using the free-elicitation method where participants are asked open-ended questions regarding which attributes they deem as important when, for instance, evaluating a particular product or brand. Accordingly, the attributes which are first mentioned and revealed by the participants are found to be the most important. This method is considered to be the most direct way of measuring the dimension of salience as “it solely relies on people‟s ability to retrieve internal attribute information stored in memory” (Van Ittersum et al. 2007: 1181).
The second dimension of attribute importance, namely that of relevance, “represents the importance of the attribute to the individual based on personal values and desires” (Van Ittersum et al. 2007: 1180). This dimension may be measured using any of the following five methods:
Direct-rating method, which requires participants to rate attributes, for instance, on a scale from 1 to 7 where 1 represents that the attribute is unimportant and 7 that it is important;
Direct-ranking method, where participants are asked to rank order a certain number on attributes;
Point-allocation method, which requires research respondents “to distribute 100 points among the attributes (important attributes receiving more points)” (Van Ittersum et al. 2007:
1181);
Analytical hierarchy process, which involves multiple comparisons, where participants compare the importance of attributes two at a time, are used to derive overall attribute importance;
Information-display-board method, which “measures attribute importance through the extent and order of information search” (Ford et al. 1989 cited in Van Ittersum et al. 2007:
1181).
24 Each of the above-mentioned methods most directly measure relevance, as the participants‟
responses during each of these techniques “will be primarily driven by the importance of the attributes for them based on their personal values and desires” (Van Ittersum et al. 2007: 1181).
According to Van Ittersum et al. (2007: 1181), the dimension of determinance, which
“represents the importance of the attribute in judgement and choice” (Van Ittersum et al. 2007:
1180), may be measured by four different methods, namely:
Multi-attribute attitude method, where the “importance of an attribute is represented by the weight that an individual gives to the attribute level in judgement – the impact of (the valuation of) a specific attribute level on the overall liking of the object” (Van Ittersum et al. 2007: 1182);
Trade-off method, which “has individuals conduct a matching task – for instance, adjust one attribute of one product, such that the product becomes equally attractive to another product that is fully described on all available attributes, from which attribute importance is derived” (Van Ittersum et al. 2007: 1182);
Swing-weight method, which asks participants “which attribute they would upgrade first if they were confronted with a product that has attributes with only the worst possible levels available” (Van Ittersum et al. 2007: 1182), followed by the second attribute they would upgrade, the third and so forth, with the first being allocated 100 points, the second slightly less and so on;
Conjoint method, a method which requires the consumer to rank a set of predetermined attributes “in terms of his or her preference for those combinations of features” (Hawkins et al. 2007: 751). A computer program subsequently uses these preference ranks to “derive the relative importance consumers assign to each level of each attribute tested” (Hawkins et al.
2007: 752). The main objective of conjoint analysis is to identify “which combination of a limited number of attributes consumes most prefer”, and in so doing, determine which “key attributes are important to consumers” (Walker and Mullins 2008: 166). Conjoint analysis therefore serves to measure “complex decision-making that requires multiattribute judgements” (Cooper and Schindler 2006: 628). The primary disadvantage of conjoint analysis does, however, include a “degree of artificiality” (McDaniel and Gates 2010: 631), as “respondents may be more deliberate in their choice processes” and may receive more product or brand information in the conjoint context as a simulated market environment as opposed to a “real market situation” (McDaniel and Gates 2010: 631). In addition, it is also worth noting the influence of real advertising and promotion on product choice and selection, compared to the product descriptions provided during the conjoint analysis (McDaniel and Gates 2010: 631).
25 Walker and Mullins (2008: 166) do, however, propose an alternative to the above-mentioned methods of measuring the dimension of determinance, namely that of Discriminant Analysis.
The first step in this statistical technique involves identifying the most important attributes used by the target consumer when evaluating the various options within the particular competitive set, in this case, the researcher identified the attributes Generation Y consumers apply when choosing between clothing retailers. Next, the analyst will collect “data from a sample of consumers concerning their ratings of each product or brand on all attributes” (Walker and Mullins 2008: 166). Finally, the “discriminant analysis program then determines consumers‟
perceptual dimensions on the basis of which attributes best differentiate, or discriminate, among brands” (Walker and Mullins 2008: 166).
Ultimately, Van Ittersum et al. (2007: 1186) explain that “although it is tempting to conclude that the determinance of attributes thus should be the key component in research, all three dimensions – the salience, relevance and determinance, should play an important role”. This has been employed in the current research project, which aims to investigate the South African clothing retail industry in terms of the specific attributes Generation Y consumers employ when choosing a clothing retailer from which to purchase their apparel. Accordingly, the Free- elicitation Method was utilised when conducting the qualitative aspect of the research design, specifically the focus group sessions, thus measuring the salience dimension of attribute importance. The Direct-rating Method was used in both the focus group guide and the questionnaire, forming the quantitative component of the project, as respondents were asked to rate the importance of various attributes when choosing a clothing retailer from which to purchase clothing. Lastly, Discriminant Analysis was used to measure the attribute of determinance, as the respondents were asked in the questionnaire to rate each of five clothing retailers on all of the attributes previously identified as important.
In conclusion, the identification and measurement of determinant attributes as part of the positioning process, is essential in developing a clear comprehension of the attributes which consumers employ when forming preferences and making purchases which is, in turn, fundamental to the overall strategic planning and eventual success of a firm. A firm which understands the needs and desires of its target market, especially the desired image and position, is better equipped and able to design and maintain the marketing mix in such a manner as to meet these requirements, satisfy the consumer and achieve success. Accordingly, this research aims to understand the determinant attributes consumers employ when choosing between various clothing retailers, thus giving retailers the data necessary to accurately meet their consumers‟ needs.
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