Buyer and Consumer Behaviour: Weet-Bix - Case Study Example

Buyer and Consumer Behaviour Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Executive Summary 3 Section Brand Performance 3 Section 2: Awareness & Salience5 Section 3: Demographics & Segmentation 7 7 Reference List 8 Executive Summary Market research has been conducted to analyze the ‘Brand Performance’ and ‘Brand Salience’ of Weet-Bix in contrast to its competitors like Corn Flakes, Special K, Cheerios and Just Right. It has been found that solely loyal buying for Weet-Bix is pretty low in comparison to overall category buying. On the other hand, customers of Weet-Bix show tendency to purchase other brands. Top of Mind Awareness for Weet-Bix has contributed to increase in overall brand awareness and brand salience for Weet-Bix is pretty high. Customer profile of Weet-Bix slightly differs from other four brands. Popularity of Weet-Bix among female, customers with high household income and couples is pretty high. Significant amount of divergence in brand salience for Weet-Bix has been found between two categories like whole population (users and non-users of the brand) and users of the brand. Section 1: Brand Performance Question 1: The concept of ‘brand performance’ has always been perceived as functional outcome of collaborative summation of both intangible and tangible branding elements (Zeithaml, 2010). Kim et al. (2008) defined brand performance as the brand value that is able to provide definitive as well as measurable contribution towards sustainable success for the business as a whole. On the other hand, Zeithaml (2010) defined brand as “name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and differentiate them from those of competitors”. Therefore, it can be said that brand performance can be influenced through adjustments of mentioned brand related parameters that help customers to identify and differentiate the respective brand from other competitors. It is evident from the table (named as Table 1: Brand Performance Measures) that market share and market penetration are being used as key parameters to measure performance of the brand (Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006). On the other hand, Ehrenberg (1969) used the concept “Double Jeopardy” as marketing law that brands having lower market share tends to have low brand loyalty and limited purchase frequency within specific time period. Considering all the parameters like market share, market penetration, average purchase frequency and sole loyalty; Corn Flakes has been selected as market leader while Weet-Bix (2nd) and Special K (3rd) are selected as other two key players in the market. On the contrary, Cheerios and Just Right are selected as market followers while Just Right is performing very poorly in terms of all the four parameters. None of the customers are sole loyal to brands like Cheerios and Just Right. Differences in market share for Corn Flakes, Weet-Bix, Special K, Cheerios and Just Right has been proportionately changed with variation of market penetration of respective brands (Sharp, Wright and Goodhardt, 2002). Small differences between average purchase frequency and other parameters like Category Buying Rate, Share of Category Requirements proportion and Sole Loyalty percentage is confirming double jeopardy pattern for brands like Cheerios and Just Right. Very few customers purchase Cheerios and Just Right brands and these customers are less loyal to these two brands (Sharp, Wright and Goodhardt, 2002). Solely loyal buying for three brands like Corn Flakes, Weet-Bix and Special K is pretty low in comparison to overall category buying. Loyal customers of these three brands purchase in lower amount while ‘Brand Switchers’ tend to buy in different brands in higher amount (Ehrenberg, Goodhardt and Barwise 1990). Considering the low sole loyalty value in the table (named as Table 1: Brand Performance Measures), it can be said customers of particular brand frequently purchases from other available brands. Hence, market penetration of Corn Flakes, Weet-Bix, Special K or other two brands cannot be considered as pure rather the market penetration of brands is being plagued with problems like “Duplication of Purchase Law” (Ehrenberg, Goodhardt and Barwise, 1990). Question 2: Considering the data in the table (named as Table 2: Duplication of Purchase), it can be said that Corn Flakes and Special are two main competitors for Weet-Bix. Such assumption is being developed by considering as well as comparing parameters like market share, market penetration, average purchase frequency and sole loyalty. Ehrenberg, Goodhardt and Barwise (1990) and Lam (2006) defined “Duplication of Purchase Law” as the phenomenon in which buyers of particular brand tend to buy the same product from other available brands in same proportion to the penetration of the mentioned available brands. Therefore, purchase duplication between any two brands is being directed by market penetration of respective brands (Lam, 2006). In the table (named as Table 2: Duplication of Purchase), minor deviation from expected pastern of “Duplication of Purchase Law” is being observed. For example, comparing the market penetration for Weet-Bix (52%), Special K (48%), Cheerios (45%) and Just Right (23%) with Table 2 data, it can be said Duplication of Purchase rate has been increased for Corn Flakes in contrast to expected Duplication of Purchase rate measured “Duplication of Purchase Law”. In case of Weet-Bix, increased Duplication of Purchase rate has also been observed (except Corn Flakes). Similar increased Duplication of Purchase rate pattern is being followed for brands like Special K, Cheerios and Just Right. There can be two possible reasons for deviations in expected values of Duplication of Purchase rate as mentioned by “Duplication of Purchase Law” such as 1- customers are not very loyal to their respective brands and they are well aware of the offering in repertoire market and 2- no particular brand has the ability to satisfy all the requirements of customers. Due to these two reasons, customers keep experimenting within mentioned 5 brands through periodic switching. 2 main implications for any marketing manager are, implication 1- brand switching of customer is increasing and sole loyalty of customer is also decreasing and implication 2- requirements of customers are not being fulfilled by any particular brand in comprehensive manner (Ehrenberg, Goodhardt and Barwise, 1990). As a result, gap in the market has been created. Section 2: Awareness & Salience Question 3: Romaniuk and Sharp (2004) used cognitive theory for defining brand salience. These scholars defined brand salience as the ‘prominence’ or accessibility of the respective brand in the memory of customers. According to Romaniuk and Sharp (2004), brand salience is synonymous top of mind brand or the brand being mentioned first by customers when certain product category is being used to help these customers to recall respective brands. On contrary, brand attitude is being defined as consensus perception of people regarding the brand. Chang and Chieng (2006) defined brand attitude as the combination of two components such as, 1- strength magnitude of customer experiences regarding the brand and 2- magnitude of liking and disliking of customers regarding the brand. Brand salience refers to awareness and mental consciousness of customers regarding the brand while brand attitude is directed by perception of customers regarding the brand. Brand salience has direct relationship with increase in purchasing frequency of customers while brand attitude may or may not directly increase purchasing frequency of customers (Romaniuk and Sharp, 2004). Measuring brand salience has three advantages, 1- it provides direct measure for brand awareness, 2- customer loyalty towards the brand can also be measured through brand salience and 3- brand recall or effectiveness of brand related marketing communication can be used by measuring brand salience. Building brand salience helps marketers to generate greater “Top of Mind Awareness”, greater “Top of Mind Awareness” ensures greater brand awareness and increased brand awareness can positively influence purchasing decision of customers (Chang and Chieng, 2006; Romaniuk and Sharp, 2004). Question 4: Considering the table (named as Table 3: Awareness & Salience Metrics), it can be said that Top of Mind Awareness or brand salience has positively influenced overall brand awareness. Increase in Top of Mind Awareness has contributed to increase in overall brand awareness. Weet-Bix brand has market penetration of 52% and sole brand loyalty of 6%. Considering such data, it can be said that Weet-Bix has not performed as expected within whole sample and within its customer base. Weet-Bix is performing comparatively strongly within its customer base as compared to within whole sample. Although, “Top of Mind Awareness” for Weet-Bix is comparative low but its overall brand awareness I quit high. Therefore, “Top of Mind Awareness” and “Overall Brand Awareness” for Weet-Bix do not follow perfect correlation assumptions. For Weet-Bix, brand salience within its customer base is almost equal to Corn Flake which is a market leader. Therefore, it can be said that users of Weet-Bix are well aware of the brand and these users first mention the name of Weet-Bix when they get exposed to product category cues. Question 5: Ehrenberg (2000) used ‘the Dirichlet’ model develop a predictive assumption for brand choice and purchase incidences. The Dirichlet model can be developed through input variables like market penetration, average purchase frequency, market share and overall category membership of particular brand. Under” the Dirichlet model”, buying propensities of customers are being directed by variance in population distribution. In such context, considering the table (named as Table 3: Awareness & Salience Metrics), marketing strategy can be developed for Weet-Bix with the help of Dirichlet model. Mentioned brand salience for Weet-Bix has implications like greater brand awareness, high level of customer engagement with the brand and customers having high brand salience can become strong opinion leader for the brand. These implications can be used by marketers to adjust product/price/place/promotion strategies to channel the brand salience into purchasing decision of customers. Brand salience for Weet-Bix can be built and enhanced through inclusion of visual or audio cues, diversifying product portfolio of the brand in accordance with real time requirements of customers, using competitive pricing policies and others. 10 cues that can be included into a Weet-Bix advertisement are 1- nutritional facts of the product, 2- medical certificate from authorized institutes printed on the packet, 3- colourful packaging, 4- catchy taglines, 5- variants of the product, 6- discount offering on retail price of the product, 7- cartoon pictures on product packets, 8- celebrity endorsement, 9- catchy jingles and 10- emotional cues can be used to help customers to understand need of the product. Section 3: Demographics & Segmentation Question 6: Considering the tables (named as Table 4: Demographics - Relationship status), it can be said that customer profile of Weet-Bix is not different for to that of the competition. Demographic median absolute deviation (MAD) for all the five brands is in close proximity (within the range of (2.1 to 2.8). Median absolute deviation (MAD) ignores the deviations of outliers that are small in number. Therefore, close proximity of demographic MAD values for all the 5 brands is showing that relationship status of customer profile of Weet-Bix is no different from its competitors. Considering the tables (named as Table 5: Demographics - Total household income), it can be said that customers in the high income group (More than $70,000) prefer Weet-Bix in greater extent in comparison to other available brands. However, due to high deviation on respective income level (4.2), the mentioned assumption is questionable. Considering the tables (named as Table 6: Demographics – Gender), it can be said that gender MAD for Weet-Bix is different from with other four brands such as Corn Flakes, Special K, Cheerios and Just Right. Considering results of these three tables, it can be said that customer profile of Weet-Bix is slightly different to that of the competition. Question 7: Based demographic and segmentation results, it has been found that Weet-Bix is more popular among Female, customers with high household income and couples. Therefore, marketing strategy would be to promote the brand during the break of TV programmes that are being popular among females. Premium pricing can be used to convey niche image of the brand to customers having high household. In order to attract couples, discounts on product can be given to this segment during Valentine’s Day or any special days in a year. Even contests can be organized for couples and free travel package for contest winning couples can be organized by marketing department of Weet-Bix. Reference List Carroll, B. A. and Ahuvia, A., 2006. Some Antecedents and Outcomes of Brand Love. Marketing Letters, 17(2), pp. 79-89. Chang, P. and Chieng, M., 2006. Building consumer–brand relationship: A cross-cultural experiential view. Phycology & Marketing, 23(11), pp. 927-959. Ehrenberg, A. S. C., 1969. Towards an Integrated Theory of Consumer Behaviour. Journal of the Market Research Society, 11(4) (October), 305-37. Ehrenberg, A. S. C., Goodhardt, G. J. And Barwise, T. P., 1990. Double Jeopardy Revisited. Journal of Marketing, 54(July), pp. 82-91. Ehrenberg, A.S.C., 2000. Repeat Buying - Facts, Theory and Applications. Journal of Empirical Generalisations in Marketing Science, 5, pp. 392-770. Kim, K. H., Kim, K. S., Kim, D. Y., Kim, J. H. and Kang, S. H., 2008. Brand equity in hospital marketing. Journal of Business Research, 61, pp. 75-82. Lam, D., 2006. Applicability of the Duplication of Purchase Law to Gaming. UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal, 10(2), pp. 55-62. Romaniuk, J. and Sharp, B., 2004. Conceptualizing and measuring brand salience. [pdf] University of South Australia. Available at [Accessed 26 May 2014]. Sharp, B., Wright, M. and Goodhardt, G., 2002. Purchase Loyalty is Polarised into either Repertoire or Subscription Patterns. Australasian Marketing Journal, 10 (3), pp. 7-20. Zeithaml, V. A., 2010. Delivering quality service. New York: Simon and Schuster. Read More