Buyer and Consumer Behavior-Marketing, Measuring & Interpreting Brand Performance - Coursework Example

Buyer and Consumer Behavior-Marketing, measuring & interpreting Brand Performance Students Name Institution Supervisors Name Date Abstract This essay contains data findings and interpretation that will provide the reader with good knowledge about brand performance and marketing. The subjects covered in the paper are incorporated from different disciplines of business like consumer behavior, market psychology and marketing. The paper will thus seek to offer underlying findings related to branding, brand equity and a more detailed look into brand loyalty by consumer (MORGAN, John Michael, 2011, pp. 35-98). Introduction When it comes to the issues of marketing and branding, the way that marketers sell themselves to the consumers is more important than when they are on the field. The marketing industry is always growing with introduction of new technologies; this is because there is a large consumer base that goes hand in hand with the product headquarters and also customer loyalty to the products. However, this does not mean that the consumer is controlled by the marketer efforts to sell the product. It is important that other factors related to branding are also explored. The strength of a brand is just as important as the other factors within the industry, with the need for the product owners and marketers alike to analyze consumer behavior in relation to how they will react when it comes to activities of marketing and selling of the product (YOHN, Dennis Lee, 2004, pp. 14-28). Marketers need to understand that branding is a process of adding value to the product usually by the way the product is packaged, promoted, the name that is given to the product and market position in relation to the minds of the consumers of that product. 1. Differences and Patterns in Competing Brands This paper looks at the differences and pattern in the following competing brands; Smiths, Kettle, Doritos, Red Rock Deli and Jumpy’s. The analysis was then divided in to different categories of brand performances that included market share, penetration, average frequency, category buying, share of category requirements and sole loyalty in order to assess the brand that performed when. When it comes to market share, Smith’s Brand leads the way, followed by Kettle, the Doritos, the red rock deli and lastly Jumpy’s. If a brand has the largest market share then it means that it has penetrated the market deeper that all the other brands. In this case, the smith’s will be easily available to most of the areas consumers that other brands. This will definitely mean that smith’s gathers most of the sales as compared to other brands. Perhaps the reason for this may not be due to the rate of buying, but because of other factors like price and the way the brand has been placed in the markets. On the other hand, when we look at penetration, Smith’s product also performs much better than other brands. Market penetration may be factored by the fact that pricing of the brand is made in a way that most of its consumers are able to afford the product. The brand might have also engaged itself more in to ground advertising that television or newspaper advertising. Market penetration is also factored by understanding the needs of the consumers, the brand must be put in different packages where each class of consumer is also accommodated in the brand. This is also evident when we look at the average purchase frequency. The purchase frequency of the brand is also high at 2.2 as compared to the Jumpy’s product which lags behind at 1.2. Jumpy’s product must be lagging behind due to the fact that it does not communicate the customer language. For example, its prices might be high in the market; on the other hand the medium of marketing might have also led to the low purchasing frequency. In addition, a product that has a low market share, will definitely incur low sales at the end of the day (DREW, Michael R., 2013, pp. 5-77). The fourth matrix looks at the category buying rate, in section; Jumpy’s performs better than the others brands, while smith’s lags behind. This means that Jumpy’s does not have a general appeal to its brand and has designed its product only for a certain class of people, perhaps of high class individual. In this case, it will perform higher in category buy due to its unique identification with certain class of people. However, this will not work well for them because sales may not be as high as if they would design their brand to have a general outlook. When we look at the share of category requirements Smith’s performs higher than all others and Jumpy’s lags behind, as discussed above, this is because Jumpy’s brand looks at a certain class, however does not look at different requirements for different groups of consumers. In addition, this result also has to do with the fact that Smith’s has the largest market share. Lastly when we look at the sole loyalty of the brand, Smith’s brand also takes the lead. This is because it has the largest market penetration; in addition the product is also designed in a manner that it caters for different categories of consumers from the low class to the high class. It product design can also be appealing and easily identifiable to the consumer market. For example the McDonalds products are always identified by the Big M. All these factors are important for brand marketing and manufacturers need to factor all these. This means that a brand is should be an identifiable product, service, place or person that is augmented in a manner that the buyer or user of that product finds to be of great relevance. It should contain unique values that go hand in hand with the needs of the consumer. In this regard thus, branding will serve the mutual function of first of all identifying the source of the product to the user and also guaranteeing that consumer that the product will meet all his needs of quality and quantity too. When branding, the makers of the product also need to ensure that the product will protect the needs of that consumer and prevent him or her from confusing the product with other products in the market; this in fact, has been one of the main challenges that consumers undergo when it comes to identification of a particular brand. A brand should allow consumers a chance of identifying themselves with that product in all senses and create a long lasting bond that ensures consumers themselves market the same brand to other people in the circles. 2. Smith’s Main Competitors When it comes to brand popularity and competition, the form of market competition can be distinguished by several factors including market penetration, the number of suppliers, consumer interest in the product and other barriers that may deter the brand from entry in the markets and the different goods and services that are being traded by the markets. In the competitive world that exists in cheap markets, most of the markets may not easily be explained in the perfect competition monopoly like the one smith’s enjoy due to high market penetration. In reality Smith’s competitive markets may not be perfectly competitive but are competitive. One of the reason why this situation happens is that smith’s brand does not only take a given market price as the competitive brand, but also other competitors in the brand markets have the market power to decide their prices as is the case with most monopolistic firms. In this manner, the smith’s brand is a good example as illustrated on the table, its ability in deviation of expected patterns leads to a monopolistic competitive brand market. For example, it can be argued that Smith’s market as illustrated on the table seems to be more oligopolistic leading to other brands like Kettle or Jumpy’s to enjoy a deviated market share. Several key factors result to this observation of competition that Smith’s market differs from other brand structures such as monopoly or oligopoly. First of all, each brand produces differentiated products. This can be explaining in the table, where for example Jumpy’s and Smiths are different brands, meaning that they have a totally different purpose in the markets. On the other hand, they may be producing the same kind of end products but are designed differently. Those products from Smith’s may have a different feature but have the same or similar purpose to that of smiths. This means that deviation in the two products are close substitutes of one another, however one is not a perfect substitute for the other product due to the fact that competing products will always have a different design, consumer choice, consumer loyalty and market penetration and quality. In this way, the deviation curve of the smith’s product may not be very steep but more in terms of a demanding curve (OULE, David and Shapiro, Owen, 2014, pp. 33-76). The other reason for deviation will have to do with cross price elasticity of demand between the various products; this can lead to positive measures as it will look at the sensitivity of the customer loyalty to the brand to changes in price when it comes to the other product as is the case with Smith’s and Jumpy’s. For example, if Smith produces one of its brands and decides to increase the price it currently sells the same product in the market, customer loyalty to the brand will easily deviate to other brands meaning that market penetration for the other products will also increase as they are close to substitutes of Smith’s brand. On the other hand though, it may not reach a point of zero or near that point, due to the fact that the two are not actually substitutes of one another. However, there is another factor, there may be no entry barriers that determine consumers to embrace Jumpy’s for example, and leave Smith’s market brand easily. This is because Smith’s brand has the largest market penetration with the highest rate of consumer loyalty while a brand like Jumpy’s has low penetration rate meaning that people do not know a lot about the brand. And although there may be differences on the grounds of deviation, the market share of Smith’s will still outrun the other brand products like Jumpy’s and Kettle. This deviation though, will definitely affect the market share for smith if it is not controlled at an earlier stage. 3. Brand Attitude and brand Salience Brand attitude is formed when consumers are well aware of a product; brand attitude thus is the value that they will attach to that product convincing them to be loyal to the product and to keep on purchasing the product. Brand salience on the other hand occurs when a consumer attaches a certain feeling or memory to a product, for example, a girl attaching the love for chocolate with the love of a memorable romantic dinner. This means that the consumer will always buy the product because of the mental attachment formed on the product. 4. Patterns in table 3 related to brand attitude In the table, one can easily notice that brand attitude is a major determinant of penetration of a brand in the market. Once consumers are able to attach other benefits of the products other than their personal desire to the product, then the product is guaranteed to penetrate markets. The table also shows that consumers look for several benefits of a product other than price and availability, for example, the health factors and also popularity of that product. Brand attitude is usually formed along the lines of customer appeal to the product. Brand salience also plays a crucial role in the penetration of a product, this is because, once a client is able to attach a certain feeling to the product, the brand is guaranteed to maintain its market or even increase in its markets (JIWA, Bernadette, 2013, pp. 12-102). 5. Smith’s Brand Attitude I disagree with the director on the brand attitude of Smiths, this is because despite the fact that it still has the highest penetration as compared to other brands, in addition, 68 % of consumers reported saying that it is unhealthy, however when one looks at the number of users it stands at 72% this means that the brand attitude does not affect the penetration of smith. The reason for this could be related to the brand salience that consumers have attached with the product. 6. Customer profile of smith’s In the table, it can be interpreted that smith’s enjoys a large market share in families more than it does in single families or single houses. At the same time when we look at the gender question, smith’s brand does well among the female gender as compared to the male gender. In this case it can be concluded that the smith’s penetration is more on brand salience than it is on the brand attitude. 7. Implication of the demographics and segmentation for Smith’s marketing strategy This means that Smith’s marketing strategy should be focused more on encouraging couple hood in the marketing messages. However, where this cannot be done, then it should attach brand salience for single households, this will ensure that consumers who are not attached to the product will create a certain memory with the product (JIWA, Bernadette, 2013, pp. 12-102). Bibliography DREW, Michael R. 2013. In: Brand Strategy 101: Your Logo Is Irrelevant - The 3-Step Process to Build a Kick-Ass Brand (The 7 Steps to a Successful Business in a Changing Market), Beneath the Cover Press; 2 edition, pp.5-77. JIWA, Bernadette. 2013. In: The Fortune Cookie Principle: The 20 keys to a great brand story and why your business needs one., CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, pp.12-102. MORGAN, John Michael. 2011. In: Brand Against the Machine: How to Build Your Brand, Cut Through the Marketing Noise, and Stand Out from the Competition, Wiley; 1 edition, pp.35-98. OULE, David and Owen SHAPIRO. 2014. In: Brand Shift: The Future of Brands and Marketing, David Houle & Associates; 1 edition, pp.33-76. YOHN, Dennis Lee. 2004. In: What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles that Separate the Best from the Rest, Jossey-Bass; 1 edition, pp.14-28. Read More