A loyal Customer is like an asset to the Company. The cost of acquiring a new customer is very high compared to retaining the old ones. If the company loses such a customer, it has to spend more on advertising and promotion to get the customer back. A customer has full freedom to switch from one brand to another by seeking a variety of products or tastes. There are several other factors that also influence the change of brands.
When a new brand enters the market, the tendency of customers to try new products is very high. Customers who are loyal to the brand stand as a barrier for the entry of a new brand and spend more on the brand and spread a word of mouth favoring the brand. Factors that affect the Customers to Switch Brands are:
Ingredients & Taste
Packaging
Price
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There is still another concept of switching brands:
“Age is a vital factor for Brand Switching”
As we grow older we tend to change our preferences based on the above. The consumption of chocolates change by age. The below graph indicates how it varies:
As the consumption varies by age, the chance of switching brands at a certain age also changes. In this article, let us examine how people of different age groups switch brands.
The brands that we are going to see are Cadbury, KitKat & Snickers.
ABOUT THE BRANDS :
Sources: Wikipedia & Time blog survey 2014
Some of the following strategies are adopted by the brand to retain the customer.
Advertisements:
Kit Kat :
Cadbury :
Snickers:
Packaging:
The consumers take only seconds scanning the shelves to select a chocolate. The packaging is one of the influence in customer preference.
Packaging is the window into any brand, and the wrapping on Divine Chocolate’s bars employs a solid background dotted with West African Adinkra symbols, each representing different traits and values.
In addition to paying homage to the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana, which supplies cocoa for Divine’s bars, the packaging helps move the bars into the everyday gifting category, Pearley said.
“(Chocolate) should be something that’s cherished and loved and shared,” he said. “We want to make that experience as fun and warm and inviting as possible.”
Source: Packaging, unique ingredients help chocolate bar makers break through the noise By Alyse Thompson.
Taste & Ingredients:
Everyone would like to have fun & a relaxing experience when eating chocolate. As Cadubry is a leader in Milk Chocolate, its taste is well known for everyone. KitKat comes with a Chocolate layer on the wafer. Snickers is an instant energy supplier enriched with chocolate & peanuts.
Everyone has different taste preferences and they select their ingredients.
Data from IRI, a Chicago-based research firm, show that the 3.5-ounce-and-smaller chocolate category pulled in $4.38 billion in the year ending June 17, or up one percent from 2017. Unit sales also stayed virtually flat, exceeding 3.4 billion during the same period.
KitKat, the leading chocolate bar in the category, pulled in nearly $336 million, followed by Hershey’s and Snickers at $334 million and $270 million, respectively.
Source: Packaging, unique ingredients help chocolate bar makers break through the noise By Alyse Thompson.
Price:
Almost all candy bars form these brands come in similar prices. These three brands have high number of consumers & their taste is easily recognized by all people.
To make themselves a commercial success they all come in almost similar prices and this factor has a negligible influence when people switch brands.
Quality:
A quality Rich Chocolate is always a preference for the consumer. It is one of the reasons to study why customer changes his brand when a better quality product arrives in the market.
MARKET SURVEY:
We conducted a market survey to measure what was the reason for consumers to stay loyal to the brand.
The number of people totally voted were 50 . Out of the 50 ,10 of them said they were not preferring any chocolate from the above three. So here is the graph showing how many people responded for the other brands.
From the survey results ,A wide range of age group have voted for Cadbury and 18 of them responded and main reason for choosing Cadbury is taste.
From the survey results ,The 17 respondents of KitKat were from the ame age group but they preferred it for different reasons.
From the Survey results, only 4 have responded for Snickers. I personally think it is a good energy supplier compared to other chocolates.
The Survey was open to all people to connect but when I posted the link, most of them were from India & France.
They Survey may not reflect the overall market but based on the survey, it is much focused on India & French market.
CONCLUSION:
From the survey ,it is seen that people who consume chocolates mostly prefer to either Taste or Quality. This is what gives them a positive memory of experience and make them to remember when they answered the survey.
As this was a cold survey people would have gathered the-information from memory to make it better. So it is Taste & Quality that gives them a good memory
CITED SOURCES :
Wikipedia
Alyse.T.,(2018)Packaging, unique ingredients help chocolate bar makers break through the noise. Candy Industry Online Journal
Online Survey link : https://fr.surveymonkey.com/survey-taken/?sm=FN5wA1znJCbj1wcv_2Fk5kAsVirua8isYt9IxXGmiRI_2F1LlLZ1UEQUGVBCHGC0npE5YI8_2B5ZzIW1iviECWLm0zX5GTUQhxJ2v1iUC_2FLCSONok_3D
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