Research Methodology Project On Comparative study of international brands over Indian brands of cold drinks

Details of Research Team

Executive Summary
Project Title
Comparative study of international brands over Indian brands of cold drinks

Project Description
The Indian cold drink market is primarily ruled by two multinationals. While there are some regional players of repute, none have been able to expand their presence to the national level. Knowledge of the key attributes that drives the target customer will help these players to understand what makes the multinationals successful and how to design their product offerings so as to compete with the established product of these multinationals. This study has been conducted to understand the key attributes of various bottled cold drinks and for the purpose of launching a new cold drink targeting urban youth.

Objective of Study
To know: why International brands of cold-drinks are preferred over local brands which attributes of cold-drinks are preferred by the consumers .

Table of Contents:
Introduction...3 Research objective.4 Research methodology..4 Findings5 Data analysis.8 Limitations. Conclusions Recommendations..

Introduction:
The soft drink industry in India is one of the most competitive with many international and domestic players operating in the market. Initially domestic players like Parle group dominated the Indian soft drink market with brands like Thums up, Limca, Goldspot etc. However with the re-entry of MNC players like Pepsi in 1991 and Coca-Cola in 1993, the market took a decisive shift in favour of these MNCs and over the years Coca-Cola and Pepsi has become the prominent players in the market. Soft drinks can be principally classified into carbonated and non-carbonated. Carbonated drinks include cola, lemon and orange flavors while non carbonated drinks principally comprise of mango flavor. The carbonated cola products constitute 60% of the soft drink market and three prominent brands in this category are Pepsi, Coca-Cola and Thums up. Thums up was a brand from Parle until Coca-Cola bought it in 1993 and tried to kill it to push its own brand. But the loyal customers of Thums up never let it die and the brand still is the leading brand in the Indian soft drink market. The global soft drink industry is currently expanding quite rapidly. This is due to two major factors. First, markets are expanding rapidly in developing countries and second people are turning toward natural, healthy, and low-calorie drinks. This so called new-age beverages, such as tea-based beverages, is considerably stimulating the development of the soft drink industry and also creating a major challenge to the carbonated beverage market. In part to address this trend, big soft drink companies, like Pepsi and Coke, are striving to become a total beverage company, in which they will serve the comprehensive soft drink market. This project has been carried out in order to do a Comparative study of international brands over Indian brands of cold drinks

Research Objectives
To know: why International brands of cold-drinks are preferred over local brands which attributes of cold-drinks are preferred by the consumers

Research methodology:
1. Research Design This will comprise of descriptive research to reach a clear problem definition and understand the various attributes of the bottled cold drinks that will help us to carry out our study. 2. Sample Design This phase will involve field research, which will comprise of executing the questionnaire to a random sample of 200 people. The questionnaire will be intended for obtaining the data pertaining to the preferences of research sample towards the various attributes of bottled cold drinks. 3. Field work plan A questionnaire will be circulated through internet and face to face interview will be conducted to collect the data regarding the project. 4. Analysis Plan This phase will aim at analyzing the data collected in the previous phase using SPSS. This will help us to come up with a quantitative analysis from the data available, and deduce the buyer preferences for the chosen product segment.

Demographics
The gender proportion shows a dominance of males compared to females with 36% of the latter and remaining 64 % of the former.

What is your gender ?

36% male female 64%

2.The brands preffered by people is shown in the below chart with a maximum share of coke followed by pepsi and maaza.

Brands
thumps up Frooty 3% 9% sprite 2% mazza 22% pepsi 16% none 7% coke 41%

3. Majority of the age group belongs in the range of 23 to 25 years followed by 20 to 23.

Findings

Attributes Preffered
Shape and Design of Bottle Nutritional value star endorsement price thirst quenching 6% 11% 14% 15% 29% 12% 7% Availability Flavor(cola,lime,mango,orange,etc) size of the bottle brand

3%

3%

Relation between gender*attributes

Linear-by-Linear Association 4.132 N of Valid Cases 119

As the chi-square value came out to be greater then 0.05 there is no relation between people belonging to a particular gender and the attributes they prefer.

Consumption Patterns
41 31 31 19 10 3 1 34 29

Relation between consumption patterns*Income

Chi-Square Tests Value Pearson Chi-Square Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association N of Valid Cases 5.982 6.009 3.363 119 df 4 4 1 Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) 0.201 0.198 0.067

As the chisquare value came out to be greater than 0.05, no relation exists between peoples consumption pattern and their financial condition.

Relation between frequency of consumption*gender

As the chi-square value came out to be greater than 0.05,there is no relation between the number of a times a person consumes a drink compared to his gender.

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Buying Patterns
1.Buying pattern-Place

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Proper cold drink shop Any shop that sells cold drinks, the shop does not really matter

2.Buying pattern-price

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 10 to 20 20 to 30 above 30

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3.Buying pattern-type

30 25 20 male 15 10 5 0 carbonated non carbonated female

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Data Analysis:
30% of people prefer proper cold drink shop to buy cold drinks whereas 70% of people buy cold drinks from any shop that sells cold drinks, the shop does not really matter 73% of people would pay 10 to 20 Rs. For a cold drink whereas 26% of people would be willing to pay above Rs. 20 People highly believe that Indian brands dont give quality as compared to their prices Males prefer carbonated drinks whereas females prefer non-carbonated drinks Quality is the major driver that drives the multinationals consumption compared to the indian brands Flavour of the drink is the major attribute driver in the softdrink industry, followed by the price and brand image Gender play no significant role in determining the major attributes required in a softdrink as both the males and females have the same priority Also the consumption patterns is not disturbed by the monthly income as most of the people find drinking softdrinks while their travel. Also gender does not influences the drinking pattern of individuals

Limitations:
There were certain limitations of this study, like; people in different grades were unenthusiastic to fill up the questionnaire Time Constraints also played a factor as a detailed door to door survey could have been conducted Limited to urban area and people comfortable with Internet

Recommendations:
Innovation Indian companies lack in innovation like introduction of diet coke, or drinks with various flavors where the foreign multinationals take advantage of and can give a better pricing with much better quality. Hence this is a front where the Indian companies have to buckle up as compared to their foreign counterparts. Strong Marketing Foreign brands come out with various breath taking marketing gimmicks like relating Thumbs up as a drink for tough man with a tag line like Aaj kuch toofani karte hai Brand building Exercise 13

Unlike foreign brands, Indian brands need to build up their brand image like making it a youth centric brand like Pepsi or a kids drink like frooty.Once a brand image is perceived by the consumers its easy for the brand to then try with new flavours and pricing within the same name. Youth Centric Approach Targeting the youth is what most of the brands are looking at as they are the one who are major drivers and who influences the other age group people. Also youth are people who can be easily influenced and hence most of the brands try to woo them.

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