Combined Market Structure and Segmentation Analysis Based on Brand Choice Data: Overcoming the Limitations of Conventional Techniques with Topologically Ordered Feature Maps

The objective and related issues of simultaneously performing competitive market structure (CMS) and market segmentation analysis is well-documented in the marketing literature. In this paper, an artificial neural network based approach of Kohonen (1982) for the formation of topological ordered feature maps is introduced into the context of brand choice data based combined CMS/segmentation analysis. Selected aspects of the methodological basis are discussed and in a demonstration study using household-level brand choice probabilities derived from diary household panel data the failure of conventional methodology is opposed to the promising properties of the suggested neurocomputing approach. To appear in: Proceedings of the 1998 AMA Exchange Colloquium, July 23-25, Vienna.