专业定制研究方案

U&A Research Method (Usage and Attitude Method)

During the actual research process, we usually adopt the methods of Fishbein Model and ideal-point model.

What’s the Ideal-Point Model?

Ideal-point model asserts that each customer has an ideal point. The more a product characteristics is close towards the ideal point, the more likely the product would be customer’s target. Take the area of commercial residential building for example, a consumer may want an apartment of area close to 150 ㎡, and they will find it unsatisfying if it’s too big or too small.

Under the ideal-point model, consumers are asked to rate a brand in terms of its features, and the rating of their “ideal” brand. According to the model, the more a feature is close to the ideal point, the more favorable a brand is to the customers.

The uniqueness of the ideal-point model is that it provides customers with the information of their ideal brands and their perspectives of current brands.

Formula of Ideal-Point Model

Under the ideal-point model, consumers are asked to rate a brand in terms of its features, and the rating of their “ideal” brand. According to the model, the more a feature is close to the ideal point, the more favorable a brand is to the customers

The formula is as follows: 式中，

• Djk is the degree of the kth customer’s dissatisfaction towards brand j.
• Iik represents the ideal level of feature i towards kth customer
• Bikj is the belief value of kth customer to the feature of brand j
• Wik is the weighting the kth customer attaches to feature i.
• The smaller the Dj, the more preferable brand j is to the kth customer

If there’s a brand, of which each feature reaches the ideal standard, i.e. then the brand is the optimal one to customers.

The advertisement strategy of Ideal-Point Model

The key of advertisement strategy with Ideal-point model lies in the following points:

• Change the consumers’ ideal point (lik), in order to make it as close as possible to your brand belief value.

2.Increase the importance weight of the brand features which are close to consumers’ ideal point, or decrease the importance weight of the brand features which are far from consumers’ ideal point.

For instance, if consumers are used to strong white alcohol, but your product is quite light, then you’ll need to persuade them with advertisement in order to make them believe that lighter white alcohol is more appropriate. On the contrary, if your alcohol product is exactly a strong one and with higher price, then the key point is to stress that the taste should be a priority concern.