BMA262 Consumer Behaviour

Goal of the Survey

Colgate is a known all across the globe as an umbrella brand which is used to purchase the products related to oral hygiene, toothpastes, toothbrushes, mouthwashes and dental floss. The underlying idea of the survey conducted on Colgate is to understand the motivation, perception, attitude, culture and the individual lifestyle of people who in the recent times have purchased the product (Esch et. al., 2009).

Sample Size

The survey has been conducted with a Sample size of 38 people, and these are the people who have recently purchased the company’s product.

Data Analysis and Key Findings

This section will discuss the findings of the data from the collected responses and analyse to gain insight on the consumer behaviour while making their choice in picking Colgate.

1:

The first question has been designed to understand the reason from the sample population as to what motivates them or urges them to buy products of Colgate. The options are provided to the sample on the basis of brand attributes of Colgate and the factors which makes much sense for the respondents. The above analysis shows that out of 6 factors of motivation, maximum people engage with Colgate due to the brand name, and the second reason is the ease of availability.

Brand name is the biggest motivation to buy the products of Colgate, this implies that the brand which started selling products since 1873 has created a good brand name in the market (Netemeyer et. al., 2004). The people believe in the offering of the company and associate with the brand name and image of the company. The second reason of ease of availability is an indication of the effective supply chain management of the company. The downside is that the marketing and promotion strategy of Colgate is not highly effective in motivating people to buy the product.

2:

The second question has been drafted to understand the Pre-purchase behaviour or perception of the customers with Colgate. This is helpful in evaluating their post purchase behaviour after using the product (Vyas, 2018). 60% of the respondent had a positive perception about the product of Colgate, which is a very healthy sign for the company. As it already has a positive brand image in the market which evokes positive emotion of the people.

3:

The question here has been designed to evaluate the post purchase behaviour of the customers after they have tried and tested the product. This helps in understanding the change in the perception of the customers after actually trying the product (Rossiter, 2014). The Positive and noteworthy thing here is 57.89% of people felt positive after trying the product and almost 18.42% people felt very positive with the company’s offering. Another noteworthy thing is that 21% of the respondent felt neutral even after trying the product, this implies that product did meet their expectation at some levels, if not at all. The learning here is that the company has to leverage on this positive sentiments of the customers and push the product to these customers.

4:

The next question is based on understanding the emotions of the customers in making their choice with Colgate. The question will help in assessing the parameters with which the customers most strongly associate in the longer run. The result and the findings are pretty encouraging for Colgate. The highest number of respondent (42%) feel that the products of the company are highly reliable, thus in their mind they have a very reliable image of the company. The implication here is that any new product which gets launched in the market, people would buy it because they believe the product and the company is reliable. 18.42% of the respondents feel energetic after using the product; this implies the freshness the product gives to its customers. Its only 2% of the people who felt negative emotion of anger with the product, which can be mildly ignored.

5:

The next question is designed to assess the adoption of Colgate in the family environment. It would help in understanding the penetration of the product in the household, and whether people use more than one oral hygiene company product in their families (Vriens & Martins Alves, 2017). The result is really shocking for Colgate, it has been pointed that only 47% of the people said that everyone in their family uses Colgate. Whereas remaining 53% of the people use different companies’ product in their household. The learning here is that the company has to better understand these families and their perception for not using Colgate. Based on that the company has to create strategy to target the left out consumer families who do not use the product in their house.

6:

The next question has been designed and created to further segment and understand the age group of people who uses Colgate in their everyday lives. This will help the brand to further create engagement strategies for the customers and entice them in the company’s offering. Another specific reason behind this question is to understand the taste and preference of individuals in the family (Panigrahi, 2015). The results of the findings are something which are really encouraging for the company. Almost 60% of the people using the product are adults and family audience, something which is apt with the target market and positioning of the company. Another positive aspect here is that 18.42% of Children in the family use the product; this is really encouraging as this customer audience will grow up to become brand loyalist of Colgate. This is something which the company has been eying for a long time, engage with the Children and make them like Colgate and grow up to become brand loyalists.

7:

The next question has been framed to understand the net promoter score of Colgate. It implies that how often and how likely the consumers would be open to recommend the product to their peers, family, colleagues and others. This also goes on to show how much people believe in the product, and the customers are satisfied with the offering and would take the pain of recommending it to their friends, family and colleagues. The result is really positive, almost 50% of the respondents are highly likely to promote the product and give a positive feedback and recommendation to other people. It is only 2% of the sample size which is highly unlikely to refer the product to friends and family. The figure is not quite significant, but the noteworthy point is that 26% of respondent were neutral to the question of referring. This figure has to be definitely reduced to increase the net promoter score of Colgate and this can be achieved by closer association with the customers and engaging with the target audience.

8:

It is a known thing that the FMCG market is extremely clouded and too many players are raging wars to dominate the oral hygiene market. This question helps in understanding the response of the people towards other company’s product offering. The findings of the response are that almost 48% of the people purchase Colgate, in comparison to other company’s product. Now this is really encouraging and positive for the brand. Despite strong competition, pricing wars, marketing strategies and promotions and other factors, Colgate still leads by a huge margin. The closest in the race to Colgate is Close which is much behind (21%), but is a challenger to the leader position of Colgate. The learning for the company here is that it closely observes the move of Close up, as it is the prime competitor of Colgate, and based on the analysis of Close up; create competitive strategies to stay upbeat in the highly competitive market.

9:

This question is pretty interesting and gives the exact brand attributes of Colgate. For instance it is very important for the brand to ascertain what is the USP of Colgate in the heads of customers. Based on the Perceived and felt USP, the company creates marketing campaign and targets the desires set of customers. It also helps to know what are the qualities and in what order the customers value them. The company thus based on the findings of the customers focus on those elements and create campaigns to promote the other USP’s. The finding here is that almost 40% of the respondent feel that the most important benefit which Colgate offers to them is the Fresh Breathe. They are of the opinion that this is one of the biggest reasons or the feature of Colgate which sticks with them, and is the reason behind the purchase of Colgate.  The next best feature or the element is White teeth and stronger gums, something which the company actively promotes and showcases in its marketing campaign. Thus, it is really wonderful to notice that the customers are reciprocating to the value proposition of Colgate and associate with them in their head.

10:

This is the last question of the questionnaire and has been created to analyse the existing competition by diving into the minds of customers and to understand why they would prefer Colgate over any other brand. It is important to know about the same, because it helps the company in creating a differentiation strategy on the basis of this competitive advantage features or elements. The maximum inclination and the response of the customers is towards the reliability of the brand, its brand identity and brand association. Most definitely it is good news for Colgate that people believe in the brand values and find the product and the company extremely reliable. It really takes a lot of time to build a brand name and then leverage on the brand to attain the goal of sustainability. This is something which the company seems to have mastered and in comparison to any other player it is most definitely a much stronger brand, and a brand which people consider as highly reliable.

References

Esch, F.R., Schmitt, B.H., Redler, J. and Langner, T., 2009. The brand anchoring effect: A judgment bias resulting from brand awareness and temporary accessibility. Psychology & Marketing, 26(4), pp.383-395.

Netemeyer, R.G., Krishnan, B., Pullig, C., Wang, G., Yagci, M., Dean, D., Ricks, J. and Wirth, F., 2004. Developing and validating measures of facets of customer-based brand equity. Journal of business research, 57(2), pp.209-224.

Panigrahi, A.K., 2015. Brand User-Ship of Toothpaste Buyers: A Study on Berhampur City. Abhinav National Monthly Refereed Journal of Research in Commerce & Management, 4(4), pp.46-54.

Rossiter, J.R., 2014. ‘Branding’explained: Defining and measuring brand awareness and brand attitude. Journal of Brand Management, 21(7-8), pp.533-540.

Vriens, M. and Martins Alves, A., 2017. Modeling the implicit brand: capturing the hidden drivers. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 26(6), pp.600-615.

Vyas, H.D., 2018. A study on Brand awareness and preference for FMCG products in rural markets. SEMCOM Management & Technology Review.