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A study of Consumer behavior with reference to Brand Lay’s

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Pacific Business Review International
Volume 6, Issue 11, May 2014

A study of Consumer behavior with reference to Brand Lay's

Dr. Manish Kumar Srivastava Abstract

Faculty Member Now a day's most business organizations are operating in a complex and
IBS Business School- Dehradun competitive environment where demands are constantly changing. In this era
ICFAI University Dehradun of intense competition, especially within the FMCG sector, one can achieve
success only after having a thorough understanding about their target
consumer behavior.
Consumer Behavior refers to the study of buying tendencies of consumers. It
Dr. A K Tiwari is the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and the processes they use
Faculty Member to select, use, and dispose of goods or services to satisfy their needs and wants.
IBSBusiness School - Dehradun It is really important for marketers to understand what prompts a consumer to
ICFAI University Dehradun purchase a particular product and what stops him from buying.
Lay's is the market leader in the potato chips product category. In this paper an
attempt has been made to study the various factors which affect the consumers
while theypurchase branded potato chips Lay's.

Keywords:
Consumer Behaviour; Advertisement; Brand Preference; Celebrity
endorsement

Introduction
Consumers who are the focal point for the marketers are very complex
individuals. It is very difficult and sometimes impossible to predict their
behavior. The king of the market i.e. the consumer, rules the market and
correct prediction about when, why, how, and where consumers do or do not
buy a product is crucial for them to succeed. Consumer behavior is affected by
many factors like economic, technological, political, cultural, demographic
and natural factors as well as the personal characteristics which are reflected in
the attitude, motivation, perception, personality, knowledge and lifestyle. A
proper understanding of their behavior will definitely help the marketers in
beating cut-throat competition. But understanding what is going on in
customers' black-box is a cumbersome task. Sometimes the customers
positively react to company's offerings and sometimes they directly reject it.
This strange behavior of customer makes the study of consumer behavior very
important.
The final and eventual goal of a marketer is to create strong relationship
between a brand and the customer. For this they need to know why consumers
prefer one brand over another. Brand preference plays a major role in creating
brand loyalty. If the marketers really want to understand about the customer
purchase intentions, they will have to understand how brand preferences are
formed by the customer.

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Pacific Business Review International

The salty snacks market of India is worth Rs. 7,500 crore. Frito- individual needs (i.e., cognitive, affective, interactive and many
Lay (business unit of PepsiCo), which is the $65-billion US based more) which motivates them to be in favour of one medium over
company, has been mostly credited for the rapid expansion of the another one while making a choice for media use (Idris, Yayid,
snacks market in India since it entered the segment in 1995. This Khatibi, 2009).
market is having a growth rate of 20% a year and Frito-Lay has
Consumers' differ in their choices towards favorite advertising
offered about 150 products or variants to this market.
medium. Some people prefer television commercials and
When PepsiCo introduced Lays and Cheetos brands in 1995, there newspaper/magazines commercials while there are some who
were only two large competitors - Haldiram's and Amrit Agro, prefer new types of advertising like on-line commercials.
which owned potato chips brand Uncle Chips that was later Television advertising is considered as more pervasive as
acquired by the US cola giant. PepsiCo's Kurkure - launched in compared to other media. Television commercial is normally
1999 -was a runaway success. At present, Frito-Lay controls considered as the most effective mass-market advertising format.
roughly half the market and is the market leader in this product In practical terms, advertisement has strong psychological effects
category. (http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com) on consumers. Something is psychological if it relates to mental,
behavioural, imagination, memory, emotion, motivation, learning,
Literature Review
reasoning, and personality are involved (Eze, 2004).
Purchase Behaviour of Consumers
According to PankajPriya et al(2010), the demand for the
Jorin (1987) examined changes in spending power and buying advertised products is influenced by the children's attitude towards
habits of Swiss consumers since the beginning of the 20th century advertisements. The cognitive changes among the different age
and in the more recent past. According to his study, current trends groups lead to the formation of varying attitudes towards the
include greater emphasis on health and safety of foodstuffs and advertisements. Yet there are other strong factors apart from
less attention to price. The prospects for high quality branded advertisements, which result in the requests for a product or brand.
products were also seen to be good. Rees (1992), in his study
The study done by Gbadamosi et al (2012) aimed at exploring
revealed that factors influencing the consumer's choice of food
African children's attitudinal reactions totelevision
were flavour, texture, appearance, advertising, a reduction in
advertisements.
traditional cooking, fragmentation of family means and an
increase in 'snacking'.etc. Consumers were responding to Factors Influencing Brand Preference
messages about safety and healthy eating. They were concerned
Gluckman (1986) studied the factors influencing consumption
about the way in which food was produced and want safe, 'natural',
and preference for wine. The explicit factors identified were, the
high quality food at an appropriate price. Ragavan (1994)
familiarity with brand name, the price of wine, quality or the mouth
reported that, quality, regular availability, price, accuracy in
feel of the liquid, taste with regard to its sweetness or dryness and
weighing and billing, range of vegetables and accessibility as the
the suitability for all tastes. The implicit factors identified through
factors in the order of importance which had influenced purchase
extensive questioning were colour and appearance. The study
of vegetables by respondents from modern retail outlet. Dhillon
conducted by Kumar et al. (1987) revealed that brand image is
et al. (1995), while studying the purchase behaviour in Ludhiana,
more important than the origin of the product, since the consumers
rural and urban respondents ranked nearby market and main
were attracted by the brands. Shanmugsundaram (1990) studied
market as their first and second preference of order respectively for
about soft drink preference in Vellore town of North Arcot district
the purchase of food items.
in Tamil Nadu. The study revealed that, the most preferred soft
Advertising and Consumer Behaviour drink among respondents as Gold spot (26.00%), followed by
Limca (24.80%). Taste was the main factor for preference of
The primary goal of advertising is to influence the buying behavior
particular brand and among the media; television played a vital
of the prospective customer. To do this, the marketer needs to
role in influencing consumer to go for a particular brand. Because
understand what makes potential customers behave in the manner
of convenience in carrying, tetra pack was most preferred one.
they do.As a result uncovering “why” people buy is an extremely
difficult task, because purchase decision is almost entirely psycho- Sabeson (1992) in his study stated that, high quality, price and
social. Consumer behaviour encompasses a series of event in taste of the products were the major criteria based on which the
which the conditions of one time period are the primary consumers selected a brand of processed fruits and vegetable
determinants of the considerations and activities of the next time products. Ashalatha (1998) studied the factors influencing the
period (Tucker & Robertson, 1973).According to Proctor et al. performance of BAMUL milk for a sample of 100 respondents.
(1982), the principal aim of consumer behaviour analysis is to The study revealed that the factors such as door delivery, clean
explain why consumers act in particular ways under certain packing, quality, hygienic preparation, time saving and reliability,
circumstances. Kassargian and Robertson, (1976) however, has good value for money, freshness and desired flavour were
declared that attitude toward advertisement are diverse and reflect important in the order in influencing the decision of buyers for
much individual differences. Jagdish (1973) in measuring the BAMUL milk. The study undertaken by Sheeja (1998) in
effectiveness of advertising contends that there are many other Coimbatore district considered the quality aspects like aroma,
factors that concomitantly and antecedently influence consumer taste, freshness and purity as the major factors deciding the
behaviour. For example, consumers often buy products not only preference for a particular brand of processed spices.
for what they do, but also for what they mean (Kassargian&
Objectives of The Study
Robertson, 1976).Another key assumption here is the theory of
uses and gratifications which suggests that audiences have The objectives of the study are as follows:

96 w w w. p b r. c o . i n
 Volume 6, Issue 11, May 2014

I. To study the factors influencing the buying decision making describe the profiles of consumers, brand preference, and
for Lay's awareness about the brand etc. The chi-square test has been used to
test the association between the two characteristics. For this study
II. To examine the influence of advertising on consumer buying
authors have used statistical software SPSS (Statistical Package
behavior
for Social Sciences) for the estimation of the chi-square value.
III. To examine the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement in the
Table 1 show the demographic (sex, age, education, occupation
promotion of brand Lay's
and income) details of the respondents.Out of the total sample size
IV. To study the source of awareness of consumers towards of 145 respondents, 82 (56.6%) of them were male and 63 (43.4%)
branded chips Lay's were female.The table also reveals that approximately 73%
consumers belong to the age group of 10 to 25 and the rest of them
Data And Methodology
(27% approx.) belong to 25 plus age group. It could be framed
Data for this study are obtained from primary sources and collected from the table that the modal age group is 10 to 15 with about 36%
by structured questionnaire in Dehradun City. The respondents (approx.) of the total sample. More than 50% of the customers
were selected non-probabilistically as per the 'quota sampling'. consuming chips belong to the 10-20 age groups.55% of the total
Here quota was made on the basis of age. Table1 shows the general respondents are educated upto SSC (intermediate) level and rest of
profile of the respondents. In the survey, appropriate data were them has gone for higher education.66% of the total respondents
obtained from 145 respondents. belong to the student category, followed by service class people
(27%).
The collected data are analyzed through descriptive statistical
tools such as percentage and mean which have been used to

w w w. p b r. c o . i n 97
Pacific Business Review International

Table 2 clearly shows that out of the total sample size of 145, which is again one of the brands of the same company i.e. Pepsico
56.6% customers prefer Lay's over other brand of chips available offering Lay's.
in the market. The second place is held by Uncle Chipps (25.5%)

Table2 shows that maximum respondents(56.6%) have preferred given less importance to packaging and price of the product.Above
Lay's. When the respondents were asked “why do you prefer results reveal that respondents have given more important to
brandLay's” maximum (60%) respondents have given first rank to quality of product and advertisement of product, but they have also
quality of productfollowed by advertisement. Respondents have considered availability of product. (Table 3)

Out of the total 82 male respondents, 51 (62%) respondents prefer female respondents preferred Lay's. It means that the acceptance
Lay's over other brands whereas 31 respondents out of the total 63 level of Lay's among both the sexes is 50% or more. (Table 4)

98 w w w. p b r. c o . i n
 Volume 6, Issue 11, May 2014

It was found that among all the age groups, Lay's was the most Uncle Chips as well as other brands is significantly high in the 16
preferred brand as compared to other brands considered in the and above (16-20, 21-25 & 25+) age group. (Table 5)
study. The acceptance level of the brand Lay's as compared to

Table 6 shows the distribution of respondents on the basis of their maximum users of chips is upto high school and it is true for all
education and brand choice. It indicates that education of brands.

Table 7 gives the summary of chi square test. In this table authors 2. There is no impact of age of respondent on brand choice.
have tested two hypotheses.
On the basis of above results first hypothesis is accepted and
1. There is no impact of sex of respondent on selection of brand second hypothesis is rejected and it reveals that there is no impact
and of sex on selection of brand but age has significant impact on
choice of brands.

w w w. p b r. c o . i n 99
Pacific Business Review International

In this survey when a question was asked “From where do you came to know about it from Radio advertising and 11% from
come to know about that brand?”Television advertising was found Newspaper & other Print Advertising. However, 4.8% can not
to be the media from where 67.6% respondents got to know about remember how they came to know about that brand. (Table 8)
the brand of chips which they are consuming. Approximately 12%

Above analysis shows that out of the total 145 respondents 132 combination of sound and vision in the TV advertisements might
(91%) answered that they find television as the most effective be reason behind the preference for this media. (Table 9)
communication medium for the promotionof Lay's. The

Analysis given in table 10 shows that82.8% (120) respondents shows that the company is successful in creating an appropriate
were completely aware of Lay's for more than 4 years. This figure space in the minds of the customers. (Table 10)

100 w w w. p b r. c o . i n
 Volume 6, Issue 11, May 2014

When the question “Which celebrity endorses brand Lay's” was wines', European J. Mktg, 20 (6), pp21-31.
asked from the respondents, 95 respondents (65.5%) answered it
Jagdish, S.(1973), 'Measurement of advertising effectiveness:
as Saif Ali Khan, 12 (8.3%) answered it as M.S.Dhoni and 13 (9%)
Some theoretical considerations', Journal of Advertising
answered it as Saif Ali Khan and M.S.Dhoni. It can be deduced
Research, 27(2), pp23-34.
from the the significant difference in these figures that Saif Ali
Khan is the most remembered celebrity associated with this brand. Jorin, R., (1987), 'Consumer behaviour is changing and offering
(Table 11) new opportunities',Berater- Information, 26 (9), pp 8-14.
Conclusion Kassargian, J. and Robertson, J., (1976), 'Perspective in consumer
behaviour', UK: Oxford University Press Ltd.
This study concludes that Lay's is considered as the most preferred
brand in its category. Quality and advertisement of the product has Kumar, K., Ambarish, Jordan, B.B. and Barker Tansu, A., (1987),
a major influence on consumer preference of brand 'Made in India, what it means to Indian consumers?' Ind.
Lay's.Respondents have given more importance to availability of J. Mktg, 17 (9), pp26-34.
product than to packaging and price of the product. Impact of age
Morden A.R.,(1991), 'Elements of Marketing', London: D.P.
has also been seen on the brand choice. Television advertising was
Publication Ltd..
found most effective communication medium for the promotionof
Lay's and majority of the respondents were aware of Lay's for more Priya, P., Baisya, R.K. & Sharma, S. (2010), 'Television
than 4 years. This study also concluded that Saif Ali Khan is the advertisements and children's buying behaviour',
most admired and remembered celebrity associated with this Marketing Intelligence and Planning, 28, 2, pp. 151–169.
brand.
Proctor, R. and M. A. Stone, (1982), 'Marketing Research. Great
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