Get the market data for period t=0.

You'll download the MARKET_DATA_t_0.xls sheet with initial data of an artificial market with 300 consumers and 4 competing firms with one brand each. Note that prices are uniformly set at 100. You're in charge of FirmOne. By carefully analyzing the consumers' brand choices and brand perceptions you may figure out ...

Submit your strategy decisions file.

... a clever segmentation and positioning strategy, a new price if appropriate, an optimal sizing and allocation of FirmOne's advertising budget, and the most effective usage and composition of up to 12 claims in your advertising messages. Firms assume consumers' reservation price to be around 110 and are hesitant of triggering price wars. You may prefer to prepare the contents of your strategy in a text file, say, INPUT.txt. Completing the decision form is then straightforward with copy & paste. The structure of your decisions (to be organized and kept for backup in your INPUT.txt) is explained in the annotated text file INPUT.help which you may obtain here.

Replace your decisions file with the default input.

Using the default input produces sample results for FirmOne. As you will see from the profits chart and from the output file it manages to just maintain its market share.

Start the simulation run.

... this may take me a while. NOTE: If your browser responds with a "cannot find page" message press the step back (<=) icon to revert to the main page and examine your results file.

View the profits diagram.

... a line chart of the firms' profit performance over periods.

View the results and actions.

This OUTPUT.txt file shows detailed information on the competitors' strategies and the consumers' brand switching behavior in each simulation period.

Download the market data for all periods.

You'll be sent the MARKET_DATA.txt file with disaggregate data on consumers' brand choices and brand perceptions of all simulation periods. You may analyze this panel data set to learn more about how segment-specific brand perceptions influence choice. So you might get better prepared for a next run with improved strategy and action.