A MIXED INTEGER NONLINEAR PROGRAMMING MODEL FOR PRODUCT POSITIONING PROBLEM

Product positioning in a market of big city, such as, Medan, Indonesia, is about visibility and recognition and what product represents for a buyer. Consumers usually differ in their choice of an object out of an existing set, and they would also differ if asked to specify an ideal object. The aim of the problem considered is to optimally design a new product in order to attract the largest number of consumers. This paper proposes a mixed integer nonlinear programming model to formulate the problem. A direct search approach based on reduced gradient is proposed to solve the model.