Yeh Dil Maange More....?????

Another hot sunny morning in Tamil Nadu and I reach Mahabalipuram for my market survey. As most of my fellow Mamallas would agree, choosing a product or service today to survey is a Herculean task owing to the number of options that we have. As I landed at Mahabalipuram, I had several options in mind. But before I could use my brain to its fullest potential, it became absolutely necessary for me to grab a cold drink. As the chilled coke made its presence felt while moving down my throat, a realization dawned upon me. Why not try and find out something about the consumer behavior with respect to the soft drink industry? After all, it’s one of the most sold products, especially during this time of the year. 

As it happened to be, while I was enjoying my drink in a small road side shop which fortunately had all the major brands of soft drinks in stock, two more customers came to the same shop with the same demand as mine. They wanted to grab a bottle of cold drink each and the brand of their choice was ‘Thums Up’. They got what they wanted in the shop. I intended to ask a few questions to them and thanks to lady luck, they spoke a language which even I could speak. I asked them if they preferred ‘Thums Up’ to other varieties available and they agreed. It happened to their favourite brand of soft drinks. 

“What if the store did not have Thums Up?” Would they have tried the next shop? On listening to my question, they answered, almost unanimously, that would have been equally happy if the shop provided them with a chilled bottle of ‘Pepsi’. INTERESTING!!!

 As the day progressed and the temperature rose, I came in contact with many soft drink consumers who had one thing in common. They just wanted relief from the scorching heat and the bottle of cold drink provided them with the desired effect, irrespective of how the liquid inside the bottle tasted. Now the question that is haunting me is that although millions of rupees are being spent by the two major soft drinks producing giants namely ‘The Coca Cola Company’ and ‘PepsiCo’ to create a good consumer base, there is no sign of BRAND LOYALTY among the consumers. Now, is that a desired phenomenon?? 

Now I went inside the super market to study a different segment of consumers (The AC was a great relief!!). Now this place definitely had better stock and of course a better visibility of products. Here I found a few customers opting for the fresh fruit juices.

“Mango Frooti ... Fresh and Juicy”, that’s a jingle I grew up listening to. A pouch of frooti meant immense happiness to me while a kid. But today, the market does not belong to Frooti (read Parle) any more. Maaza (Coca Cola Company) and Slice (PepsiCo) tend to dominate the market.

The brands available at the super market included Slice, Minute Made (Pulpy Orange and Lemon) and various variants of Tropicana 100%. Of all the customers of the juice segment, Slice emerged as the most preferred brand. Some people did opt for Tropicana fruit juices citing health reasons for their choice. Availability was again the most important factor governing their buying behavior.

Thus, in this study, it became evident that soft drinks/ beverages fall into the category of impulse products and the availability is one factor that determines its sale. In spite of the fact that millions of rupees are being spent in order to advertise these products, these advertisements tend to have little influence in the buying behavior of consumers (at least in the surveyed market). Then why is the television flooded with such commercials. This question is haunting my mind and I hope I will find an answer to this at the end of my MBA education.

Amritava Deb Roy
FT 13406
Section 4