VALUEMAP: An integrated approach toward the spatial modeling of perceived customer value

Value marketing has become a major theme in contemporary marketing practice. Perceived value has also long been recognized as a fundamental conception in both the economic and marketing literature. Despite its managerial and academic significance, value has nonetheless received scant theoretical, empirical, or analytical research emphasis. In this paper, I present VALUEMAP, an analytical model of perceived value based on a new latent structure, ordered-probit multidimensional scaling procedure, that draws from a meaningful conceptual framework which is also described. In particular, I incorporate the notion of multiattribute reference zones in the perception of value and also allow for consumer heterogeneity and estimate segment-level threshold parameters. Further, the segments and brands can be jointly represented in a multidimensional space.; The VALUEMAP model is applied in an empirical study in the context of compact cars. The results indicate the there are two underlying dimensions of perceived value: one, dominated by reliability, performance, and safety of the automobile, and the other by the origin (American vs. Import), price, and cost factor. The heterogeneity of perceived value was uncovered by the presence of two segments: one, consisting of mostly male subjects who are highly price and depreciation sensitive, and prefer American cars; and the other comprising mostly of female subjects who are brand, quality, performance, and safety conscious, and prefer Japanese cars. Overall, the model provides a measurement scheme of perceived value which allows the investigation into how a given brand in a product category is judged by consumer segments in terms of value.