Positioning a Beverage to Introduce in Iran Airline Industry by Sensory Analysis

Positioning is a quick method to adapt a product to a new market. The position of the product reflects the type of consumer attitude towards the overall interest as well as important features of the product. One of the convenient ways of positioning is mapping the target market assumed from sensorial information. Thus, the purpose of this study is to position the beverages around the preferences of airline customers’ viewpoint to indicate a suitable one. The statistical population of the study includes the travelers aged 10 years or older experienced at least one long-haul air travel, whose opinions gathered through the central product test scheme. Accordingly, eight beverages proposed by domestic suppliers selected as test options. In this study, data analysis performed by XLSTAT software based on sensory analysis and extracted two branch results containing as internal and external preferences maps. The maps indicate the preferences of the products according to their competitive advantages and their overall interest in the customers' minds. Ultimately, the results lead to segmentation and market overview, and suggestions for target product properties and production for the major segment of the market and suppliers' marketing strategy.