Adaptive Modelling - Market segmentation and product positioning

Austrian Science Fund

The marketing research initiative aims at developing explanatory and decision models which optimize market segmentation and product positioning strategies simultaneously. In the solutions available so far some of the 'free' parameters (number of product attribute dimensions, number of consumer segments, brands in the consumer's consideration set) must be fixed in advance while the marketing analyst would prefer to avoid these arbitrary decisions. Traditional statistical as well as neurocomputing methodology will be explored to achieve this goal. The long-term objectives are linked to the Artificial Factory concept. The marketing initiative will contribute to building the dynamic market environment for the 'learning' firm. This will happen on the macro (market response functions) and micro (consumers' choice behaviour) levels of analysis. Once the Artificial Factory/Consumer Markets system is operative a variety of segmentation/positioning strategies may be evaluated experimentally.