Who is winning the market game? Market importance-performance analysis as a new approach for multi-product market research

Purpose This paper aims to address the limitations of traditional importance-performance analysis (IPA) in analyzing markets with multiple competing products. It extends IPA by introducing market importance-performance analysis (MIPA), a new comparative analysis framework that allows simultaneous comparison of multiple competitors. Design/methodology/approach It mathematically defines the MIPA framework and develops its underlying standardized metrics: market standardized performance (MSP) and market standardized importance (MSI) scores that can be used to compare products across relevant attributes. It validates the MIPA framework through a case study of social media platforms (n = 614) using Bayesian mixed-effects models. In this case study, it identifies strengths and weaknesses of each platform and subsequently compares platforms within the broader social media market. Findings MIPA applied to the social media market identifies four distinct market positions: Performance Maximizers (e.g. Facebook) exhibit superior attribute performance; Default Market Products (e.g. Instagram) meet market expectations without significant differentiation; Successful Differentiators (e.g. Signal) achieve competitive advantage by making specific attributes more important to their users; and Underperformers (e.g. Twitter) fail to meet market expectations on key attributes. Practical implications MIPA offers practitioners and researchers a powerful tool for market analysis that captures the complexity of multicompetitor markets. The authors show that MIPA can be used for better strategic decision-making on the positioning and differentiation of a product. They also discuss future developments including integration of online data collection and AI-based scoring systems. Originality/value Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) is one of the most widely used methods for evaluating product strengths and weaknesses. However, traditional IPA is limited to comparing only two products at a time. MIPA extends the product comparison to the entire market by capturing market expectations and product individual deviations from this expectation.