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In this article, the author outlines an approach to marketing planning for radically new products, disruptive or discontinuous innovations that change the dimensionality of the consumer decision. The planning process begins with an extensive situation analysis. The factors identified in the situation analysis are woven into the economic webs surrounding the new product. The webs are mapped into Bayesian networks that can be updated as events unfold and used to simulate the impact that changes in assumptions underlying the web have on the prospects for the new product. The author illustrates this method using a historical case regarding the introduction of videotape recorders by Sony and JVC and a contemporary case of the introduction of electric vehicles. The author provides a complete, numerical example pertaining to a software development project in the Appendix.

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Least squares estimation techniques are developed for a special multiplicative model based on the Luce choice axiom whose potential usefulness in marketing applications justifies estimation techniques which can be easily implemented.

The authors present a model that maps competitive market structures by identifying the preference structure of each consumer segment. By marrying two different data types—switching probabilities and attribute ratings—their model divides a market into several homogeneous sub-markets in which consumers consider a distinctive subset of brands (consideration set or competitive group) with a segment-specific rule for attribute evaluations and a segment-specific ideal point. Using data published in Harshman and colleagues’ (1982) work, the authors examine the U. S. car market and find brand-loyal segments for all car types except those favored by first-time buyers, a universal market, and five switching segments that consider car groups differing in the nation of origin, size, and luxury level. Breaking the switching segment into finer partitions gives a better account of the data than the Colombo-Morrison model or an asymmetric generalization of that model. The authors advocate the development of marketing goals with respect to each of the segment maps in the hope that it will lead to more synergistic marketing strategies for brands encountering multifaceted competition.