A Nonparametric Approach to Perceptions-Based Market Segmentation: Foundations

The new series edited by the "Jubilaumsstiftung of the Wirtschaftsuniversitat Wien aims at presenting results of interdisciplinary research conducted at one of the largest business schools in Europe. Volumes 1 and 2 focus on recent results gained by a group of mathematicians and marketing scientists. It is a unique feature that the writing style adopted for this series makes the findings accessible for members of both research communities. It is also targeted to practitioners in marketing management with an interest in optimally exploiting their consumer survey and panel data. Market segmentation and product positioning are major strategic issues in a company s marketing decision making. The analytical tools highlighted in the Foundations and Applications Volumes are new instruments for exploratory and inferential market structure analysis based on consumer brand perceptions and choice. Unlike the majority of contemporary marketing modeling these methods operate nonparametrically thus avoiding the rigorous assumptions which are rarely satisfied by real-world data.