Mapping brand similarities: Comparing consumer online comments versus survey data

Online consumer behavior has become a valuable and viable source of consumer insights. Consumer comments in online forums, or discussion groups, have proven useful as a source to extract brand similarity data from.

Introduction

Practical market structure analysis and perceptual brand maps are typically derived from survey data (Cooper, 1983; Green, 1975). Respondents are presented with pairs of brands and are asked to rate them based on perceived similarity. Such data are then analyzed using a spatial mapping analysis like multidimensional scaling (MDS) approaches (e.g., Kruskal, 1964a) or a tree-type analysis approach such as hierarchical clustering (e.g., Johnson, 1967; Ward, 1963). However, spatial maps have been said to be somewhat more useful relative to hierarchical trees (Johnson & Hudson, 1998). In practice, both are often combined. For example, an MDS analysis may be...

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