Buyer and Consumer Behaviour: Measuring and Interpreting Brand Performance - Assignment Example

?Buyer and Consumer Behaviour: Measuring and Interpreting Brand Performance By [Presented to] of [August 09, ] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The role of marketing and promotional strategies in enhancing the worth and importance of products and services is a known fact (Fan, 2002). The discussion aims at underpinning and assessing the marketing and promotional strategies of Mars Chocolate Bars in creating a deep and positive impact over the buying behaviour of consumers. The discussion has been presented in three parts where the first part highlights the importance of the brand performance dealing with three questions over the kinds of markets, brand performance and preference and kinds of consumers. It can be said that operating in repertoire market requires focusing on light users along with concentrating on existing heavy users. This will help in creating a long term impression and value in the business environment. The second part of the discussion talks about awareness and salience where three questions over brand salience and top of the mind impression has been discussed. It is important to create brand salience using marketing and promotional strategies in order to grow and develop as a brand. At the same time, brand salience offers long term competitive advantages considering the fact that customers remember a product for a long period of time and thus helping in strengthening the sales prospects. The discussion also reflected that Mars is preferred by large numbers of consumers and much should be credited to its branding and promotional strategies. The third part of the discussion assesses the demographic factors where it was found that large number of customers preferring different chocolate brands have similar demographic factors. This shows that organsiations need to design an effective marketing strategy that will lead to value creation for all. On the basis of the discussion and analysis, it can be said that Mars certainly holds competitive advantages over its competitors in terms of market share and penetration. Section-1: Brand Performance As per the table highlighting the differences and patterns between the competing brands and Mars, It can be said that Mars has largest market share that shows its acceptance as a brand. Moreover, it also shows that consumers prefer Mars over Kit Kat, Snickers and Nestle Gold. The market penetration is one of the four the growth strategies that is a part of Ansoff Matrix. It shows that an organsiation operates in the competitive business environment where similar product already exists. The best way to achieve the competitive advantage is to gain the customers of competitors. In this case, the market penetration for Mars is the highest (72) and can be considered as quite effective and impactful. The average purchasing frequency is 2.2 for Mars, 2.3 for Kit Kat and 2.0 for Snickers. This shows that in terms of average purchasing, Mars has a close competition with Kit Kat and Snickers. The category buying rate of Mars is the lowest at 5.8 with Kit Kat at 6.2, Snickers (7.4), Twix (7.3) and Nestle Gold (8.5). However, the sole loyalty of Mars is 22 compared to Kit Kat (7.7) and Snickers (4.2). Overall, Mars has an edge over its competition in every aspect other than category buying rate. Mars is operating in the repertoire market considering the fact that consumers have multiple choices while choosing their preferred chocolate. Moreover, in repertoire markets, decisions are affected by impulse buying and often based on words of mouth. On the other hand, subscription market is quite different from the repertoire market. Subscription market is for purchasers who are loyal and purchase products and services with certain degree of regularity. However, the average purchasing frequency and market share reveals that consumers prefer different brands where Mars has an edge over its competitors but the kind of market it operates in cannot be considered as subscription market as there are no signs of customer loyalty and regularities in buying behaviour (Martins, 2000). However, there is very little doubt over the market share of Mars that is quite impressive and appealing. Heavy and light buyers often help in achieving the sales objectives of organsiations in a significant way. However, organsiations need to decide between the heavy and light buyers in terms of target customers. Heavy buyers tend to spend heavy on the products they prefer and buy but also expect deals and offers. They are often very price conscious and will easily shift to any other competitor’s product whenever there is an alluring deal and offer. On the other hand, light buyers tend to buy at some intervals and often do not buy in bulk. They do not spend too much money on a specific product or service. However, organsiations need to understand that heavy buyers are already locked by some other competitors and gaining their loyalty can be a cumbersome and stringent task (Schmidt, Ludlow, 2002). Focusing on heavy buyers may not offer much needed value and benefits and thus, it is important to look for light buyers, who will buy in small quality but will contribute in gaining good amount of market share. Developing strategies for light buyers can be considered as an ideal move by organsiations but it is important to assess the market scenario and challenges. It is important to understand and evaluate the spending pattern and buying behaviour of consumers in a critical manner and accordingly strategies can be designed and developed. In order to attract light customers, it is important to offer them attractive and affordable deals along with promoting the product that will catch their attention. This will help in creating an image for the product that will be further strengthened by the acceptance and preference of consumers (Holt, 2004). The next part of the discussion talks about the awareness and salience. Section-2: Awareness and Salience Brand salience is a degree and extent to which consumers think about a particular brand in a buying situation. Brand salience can be considered as one of the most important aspects of branding considering that fact it affects and impacts the buying behaviour of consumers in a positive manner. When a product or service is on top of the mind of any consumers, he tends to buy that particular product leaving other products and services (Keller, 2003). It is important to create a brand attitude that will help in attracting the minds and hearts of consumers along with enhancing the overall appeal, significance and acceptance of a product and service. It is important to create brand salience as consumers will think about a particular product only while buying products and services. This will further help in enhancing the sales prospects of products and services (Neumeier, 2006). After assessing the table highlighting the brand salience, it can be said that Mars Bar tops the list in terms of top of the mind awareness (41) compared to Kit Kat (19) and Snickers (18). At the same time, in terms of overall brand awareness, Mars Bar again tops the list with (89) points compared to Kit Kat (73) and Snickers (72). On the other hand, pertaining to the brand salience of the whole sample, Mars Bar brand salience stands at (36) compared to Kit Kat’s (21) and Snickers’ (18). In terms of brand salience of users only, Mars Bar stands at (42) followed by Kit Kat (41) and Nestle Gold (43). It can be said that in terms of brand salience of the whole sample and users only, Mars Bar has performed well among all the competitors. It is important to look at the brand salience individually in order to identify the impact and influence of each brand on the buying decision of customers individually. As per the data and information, Mars Bar has significant competitive advantages over its competitors. Brand salience can be built using appropriate strategies and understanding of the needs and demands of consumers. In order to create a long lasting impression over the minds and hearts of consumers, it is important to assess their buying behaviour and purchasing trends. It is judicious to invest good amount of money on promotional strategies along with enhancing the overall reputation and reach of the product (Proctor, 2003). It is necessary to create mental cues that will trigger the thought of buying a particular product (Kotler; Armstrong, 2008) Some of the impactful cues can be pamphlets, danglers, free offers, surprise gifts, advertising, words of mouth, door to door publicity, promotional offers and product testing. These will help in reaching to customers along with creating a deep impact over their minds. Whenever, anything is promoted largely and vastly, it tends to impact the mind for a period of time and that period often helps in creating brand salience. Consumers often possess short term memory when it comes to products and services. This suggests that with the introduction of new and appealing products, existing products may lose their value and importance. Mars is a renowned brand having great reach and market share in different parts of the world. Moreover, with so many chocolates brands being available, customers often look for something different in terms of taste and affordability. This may shift their attention for a moment but in the long run, they will prefer having the chocolate bar that had satisfied their taste buds. Brand salience is all about making customers think about a product again and again. When customers think about a product all the time while buying products and services, it shows their preference and acceptance for that product. Moreover, it also highlights the power and brand equity of a product that attracts customers in a great way. The next part of the discussion presents an understanding and analysis of demographic factors in the buying behvaiour of consumers. Section-3: Demographics: Relationship Status The customer profile of Mars Bar is slightly different to its competitors in terms of few aspects. After analysing the demographic factors, it can be said that as per the relationship status, there is not much difference in terms of the buying behaviour. However, in terms of total household income, consumers with an income of $50000-$70000 tend to be spending more on buying Mars Bars. On the other hand, in terms of genders, males seem to buy more Mars compared to any other chocolate bar while females have equal likeliness for Mars and other chocolate bars. It can be said that the demographic factors do not reveal much in terms of differences other than the difference in gender preference and household earnings. So, it can be said that the customer profile of Mars Bar is not much different to its customers and almost holds the same degree of preference based on the demographic factors and analysis. After analysing and assessing the table offering demographic information of Mars consumers. It can be assumed that literally people of all age and income group tend to buy Mars Chocolate Bar. Even large number of males and females prefer to buy Mars over other chocolate brands. There is no denying that marketing strategies have to be more inclined towards the general customers with promotional offer and advertising being the front runners to impact and influence the buying behaviour of consumers (Joshi, 2005) Marketing strategies should include differentiation and uniqueness in order to attract customers and differentiating Mars Bars from other chocolate bars. It will be nice to create brand salience by using a number of marketing and promotional strategies (Aaker, 1996). This will help in creating a long lasting impact over the buying behaviour of consumers along with enhancing and strengthening the overall image, feasibility and acceptance of the product in a positive and unique manner (Wernick, 1991). Conclusion Mars chocolate bars have been a preferred option for a number of chocolate lovers across the world. The analysis of brand preference, brand awareness and salience and demographic factors affecting the buying behaviour of consumers pertaining to Mars clearly suggests that Mars has a competitive advantage over its competitors in terms of market share and penetration. At the same time, in terms of number of buyers, Mars has a distinctive advantage over its competitors. The demographic factors affecting the buying behaviour suggest that there are not many demographic factors affect the buying behaviour of consumers and more or less are similar in case of the chocolate brands. However, analysis of data states that Mars chocolate bars hold great degree of value and preference strengthened by greater degree of preference and acceptance by large number of consumers. Mars is preferred by males, females, singles and couples and almost by everyone. However, the brand needs to develop effective marketing strategies that can help in developing brand salience in an effective and systematic manner and that too for a long period of time (Rundle, Kuhn, 2008). This will help in gaining large amount of market share and distinctive competitive advantage. At the same time, it needs to be mentioned that above discussion is based on the analysis of few factors that may not be sufficient to underpin the concept and usefulness of brand performance. An assessment of brand value and performance requires analysis of wide arrays of factors that lead to a better understanding and conclusion. The next part of the discussion presents some logical and judicious recommendations based on the understanding of the importance of brand performance and brand equity. This will help in analysing factors that will lead to better performance of the brand along with creating long lasting impression. Recommendations On the basis of the analysis and discussion, some of the recommendations are as follow: It is important to introduce new chocolate variants in order to attract customers It is important to create long lasting impression that will further help in compelling consumers to buy the product again and again Mars need introduced new and innovative marketing strategies like social media publicity and contests to create brand salience Mars need to be more vocal and available in order to create ever lasting impression References Aaker, D (1996), “Measuring Brand Equity across Products and Markets,” California Management Review, 38 (Spring), 102-120 Fan, Y. (2002) “The National Image of Global Brands”, Journal of Brand Management, 9:3, 180-192, Holt, DB (2004). 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