Car body style

The aim of this study is to better understand the consumers representations and perceptions of car body styles, and assess the effect of the physical parameters of cars on the consumers perceptions. For this purpose, we have developed a methodological approach using experimental designs and free sorting task procedure. 

Thirty-four car body styles (Fig. 7.6) were generated according to a D-optimal experimental design. Six of these 34 car body styles are considered as typical body style categories by the car designers hatch, estate, SUV ( Sport Utility Vehicle ) (short and long) and MPV ( Multi-Purpose Vehicle ) (squared rear and rounded rear). 

Car body styles are presented to the subjects on color print paper, glued on cardboard in order to strengthen the samples. As the experiment focuses on the physical and structural characteristics of the cars, pictures do not include any element of style, and present several similarities in their representation gray body color, same trims and head lights design. 

Figure 7.6 Car body styles generated by experimental design.

As pointed out in the section devoted to the statistical treatment of free sorting data, the determination of a consensus partition is based on the maximization of a criterion that reflects the extent to which the subjects agree with this consensus partition. Figure 7.8 shows the evolution of the optimization criterion according to the number of groups of the consensus partition. The maximum value is obtained with seven groups of car body styles. 

The two typical SUVs (long and short) are grouped in the same category, showing that the consumers do not perceive these two cars as belonging to different categories of car body styles. 

Figure 7.9 shows the additive tree resulting from the analysis of dissimilarities between car body styles. The seven groups of the consensus partition are superimposed on the tree. 

Consumer perception of car body styles is organized around the five typical and classical car categories, Hatch," Estate, MPV long, MPV short, SUV and also around two new hybrid categories rounded rear estate car and hybrid cars between estate and MPV . The size of the rims and the rear overhang length are less important in the perception of the car body style than the other physical parameters. Although this experiment was conducted on reduced scale samples, it made it possible to identify the physical characteristics of the car body style that are important in the consumer perception, and also to better understand how the consumers perceive and conceptualize the car universe. 

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