As we discussed in the previous chapter, there is a subtle difference between product design and product positioning. While product design deals with decisions on the “optimal” characteristics of a product, product positioning deals with issues of how best to communicate the corresponding benefits (or attributes) to the target consumers (for more details, see Kotler and Keller (2012) and Kaul and Rao (1995)). Naturally the benefits of a product arise from its characteristics and the way consumers interpret them. In applications of conjoint analysis to product positioning, an analyst describes the possible benefits and their levels in the same way as one would in the case of product design; then the problem of determining the best positioning is identical to that of product design. In some cases, the analyst may include both product benefits and characteristics.