Tentative: Ethnic vs Western brands; linkages with consumer values

Abstract

Through this project we have tried to analyse the factors important for shaping consumer attitudes towards brands in the toothpaste category. We have also tried to analyse the important factors for the herbal and nonherbal category. For 8our analyses we shortlisted four brands- Colgate, Close up, Dabur and Patanjali. The main focus of our research is on Patanjali, a brand that has shown tremendous growth in recent years. This growth has been attributed to Ramdev Baba’s expertise in Ayurveda and the Halo effect from the effective medicines that the company manufactured first. All this lead to strong reference group effect that lead to a trickle down of adoption of the brand from the elders to the younger ones in their family. Some people also attribute the success of Patanjali to the ethnocentric behaviour of Indian consumers towards the brand. Through our research we wished to validate the above hypothesis and understand the factors leading to the success of this brand. To proceed we began with a rigorous literature survey to analyse the important factors or attributes that shape consumer attitudes. We then identified the important attributes for the toothpaste category and designed a questionnaire which would help us to study the impact of all these attributes towards the brands in the toothpaste category. Primary research was conducted through a survey using a sample of 175 respondents in the age group of 18-40. Our analysis involved developing a conceptual framework detailing important attributes for the consumers in the toothpaste category. We went ahead to develop another framework for the herbal category of toothpaste. The next step involved comparing the various brands on all these attributes and identifying key success factor for each. We observed that Quality was the most important attribute for shaping consumer attitude towards this category. Apart from this Feelings, Brand Personality and Attitude towards the Ad are among the most important attributes for the consumers. For the Herbal category we found that additional attributes featured which were Prestige, Word of Mouth receptive and Family orientation. We found that ethnocentrism is not an important factor for shaping consumer attitudes. Patanjali ranks high on WOM receptive and WOM spread. It ranks at the top in terms of brand personality and feelings. According to our research for a brand to be successful in this category it should Have a trustworthy and caring personality and should appeal to consumer senses like freshness, taste, flavor etc. Apart from this the consumers prefer celebrity which signifies trust and honesty rather than being just attractive. Hence Cinema or sports celebrities might not be the best choice for the category. Our observations show that the TVCs influence consumer attitudes a lot and consumers rate those brands high who are successful in establishing an emotional and social connection with them. Hence brands in this category should focus more in the emotional content while communicating the functional benefits in their ads. It is also important that brands induce positive feelings and satisfaction among the consumers as this directly impacts how their attitude is developed towards the brand.