Brand Awareness And Loyalty: An Analysis Of Pepsi And McDonald’s

Brand Awareness of Pepsi and McDonald’s

Discuss about the Generating brand awareness in online social network.

Brand management is considered as a way to analyse and plan the perception of brands. The response of a particular company by the public helps organisations to formulate a target market that can help in increasing the revenue of the organisations. According to Rosenbaum-Elliott, Percy and Pervan (2015), brand management consists of two elements that are essential for maintaining the loyalty of the customers. These include the tangible as well as the intangible elements. The tangible elements include the price and packaging of the materials and the intangible elements include the relationship it organisations have with the customers. The assignment focuses on brand awareness and the brand associations that organisations create with the customers. For this purpose, the assignment focuses on Pepsi and McDonald’s and identifies its perceived quality as well as the brand loyalty that customers have on these companies.

Pepsi is one of the most recognised soft drink in the world. Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink that is manufactured by PepsiCo. The drink was initially introduced in 1893 as Brad’s drink after the name of its founder Caleb Bradham. The drink was renamed to Pepsi-Cola in 1898 and later the name Pepsi came up in 1961 (Pepsi.com, 2018). The drink was first made popular in North Calorina in the United States. The drink was made in a drug store due to the lack of space and proper funding to experiment with the chemicals. Currently, Pepsi is one of the leading soft drinks in the world and is a popular sponsor for many sports teams and sporting events (Pepsi.com, 2018).

McDonald’s is a fast food company in the United States that was founded in 1940. McDonald’s is a public restaurant that manufactures one of the best burgers, chickens and French fries. The headquarters of the company is located in Chicago after it had moved from Illinois. McDonald’s is considered as the largest restaurant chain in the world with customers in over a 100 countries. All over the world, McDonald’s has 37,000 outlets (Mcdonalds.com, 2018). It has seen a steady growth since its initial years. It has also been reported that McDonald’s is the world’s second-largest private employer with over 375,000 employees working with the restaurant (Mcdonalds.com, 2018). The assignment focuses on these two brands and analyses the level of awareness it has in the market and the loyalty customers have upon these brands.

Brand Associations of Pepsi and McDonald’s

According to Okonkwo-Pézard (2017), brand awareness refers to the extent to which customers recognise a particular brand. Brand awareness has been recognised as one of the important factors that perceive the behaviours of the customers. Based on the manner in which customers are aware of a brand, organisations tend to form strategies that help them to continue with the manufacturing of products. Vigneron and Johnson (2017) stated that awareness does not always have to mean that customers have to recognise the brand. Customers need to remember certain distinct features about a brand so that it can become a success. The brand awareness has an important application in the decision-making process of customers. The analysis of the brand awareness of Pepsi and McDonald’s can be done to recognise the manner in which customers identify the brand.

As stated earlier, Pepsi is one of the most recognised soft drinks in the world. According to Ertimur and Coskuner-Balli (2015), developing a proper logo is the most important thing for the brand as most customers recognise brands by the logo. In the case of Pepsi, the red, blue and white colour logo is the most distinguishing factor for the drink. The fact that the drink contains flavours that are appreciated by the customers makes it unique in terms of taste as well. Other factors that define the brand awareness of Pepsi is the fact that the drink is recognised for the variety of manner it is presented to the public. The introduction of dietary drinks for people having sugar has made the drink gain global recognition and fame (Brunk, 2016). Thus, it can be said that the brand awareness of Pepsi can help it to maintain its customers in the business.

In the case of McDonald’s, the company has been popular among the people since its formation. The fact that the company is one of the biggest restaurant chains in the world makes it possible for people to be well aware of McDonald’s. Like Pepsi and other major brands, the logo of McDonald’s is unique and the customers instantly recognise it. Other distinguishing features that separate McDonald’s is the fact that it provides toys for the children purchasing the products. The fact that the company celebrates special occasions for the children is one of the unique things that make McDonald’s famous. For example, during the release of the Star Wars movie in 2017, the company gave away action figures based on the characters from the movie (Mcdonalds.com, 2018).

Perceived Quality of Pepsi and McDonald’s

According to Kelley, Sheehan and Jugenheimer (2015), the brand associations are not considered as the benefits provided or taken by a particular company. It is considered as the image, symbols and logos that are associated with the brand and the benefit of it. Brand associations help in providing differentiations that are not replicable by the competitors. Du Preez and Bendixen (2015) stated that the brand associations have a deep impact on the mind of the customers. It is essential for brands to be associated with other businesses so that customers can perceive the brand and provide its necessary feedback. Brand associations can help in identifying the degree to which specific product and service are recognised within a particular product or service. Huang and Sarigöllü (2014) are of the opinion that the name of the company need to display the attribute that a company possess for its success in the business market.

In the case of Pepsi, the brand associations of the company had begun with Coca-Cola. The two companies were joined together to manufacture soft drinks that are essential to the success of the company. However, the association deal was cut off, and currently both the brands work independently. According to Sasmita and Mohd Suki (2015), the success of Pepsi is mainly dedicated to the sponsorships it provides to sports and sporting events. For example, Pepsi is a sponsor for the NASCAR events that are held in the United States. This provides the company with an opportunity to continue its production in the business and maintain its reputation. Another association of Pepsi is with different celebrities. In this regard, it can be said that the drink is associated with a number of celebrities from all genres of entertainment.

In the case of McDonald’s, the brand associations are formed at the price at which the company sales its products. According to Barreda et al. (2015), one of the reasons behind the success of McDonald’s is the fact that it provides good quality products at pocket-friendly prices. This is mainly because McDonald’s tend to target the young customers such as children and college goers for increasing its products. This provides opportunities for the company to excel in the market and enhance the quality of the product. This provides uniqueness for the company and the competitors cannot replicate the strategy of low-price easily. Thus, the brand associations of both the companies are unique and provide an advantage in the competitive business market.

Brand Loyalty of Pepsi and McDonald’s

Arora and Kumar (2018) stated that the perceived quality is defined as the perception of the customers about the overall quality and the position it holds in the market. The quality is determined by comparing the present quality along with the intended purpose of the product. It has been seen that the viewpoints provided by the customers are the result of the experience that they have with a particular brand or organisation. Perceived quality depends upon two main factors necessary for intriguing the interests of the customers. These factors include the extrinsic factors and the intrinsic factors (Rubio, Oubiña and Villaseñor, 2014). This results from the involvement and the knowledge of the customers towards a particular product. Thus, it can be said that in the case of Pepsi and McDonald’s the companies need to forecast the demands of the customers.

In the case of Pepsi, the perception of the customers are determined to form the manner in which the people understand the nature of quality of the products. Customers cannot determine the quality of a product in an objective manner (Lee et al., 2015). Pepsi manufactures cold drinks that are good for the health and that contains no extra ingredients that can be harmful to the people. The specifications of the drinks are provided in the bottle and the customers expect consistency in terms of the ingredients of the products. Thus, deviation from the chemicals used for the manufacturing of drinks may have a different view of the customers. According to Papps and Quester (2016), such change in perception may have a negative impact on the strategies of the business.

On the other hand, in the case of McDonald’s, the perception of the customers is based on the quality of the food served by the company in comparison with the quality served by the competitors. This enables McDonald’s to remain aware of the competitors and ensure that it remains the best in the business. However, criticisms are received during the introduction of new products, as customers may not feel it lived up to the expectations. This is mainly because of the fact that the customers may have a high expectation from the company and the disappointment can bring about the extinction of the product from the company. For example, The Hula burger of the company was a failed strategy as the customers did not feel the fact that it lived up to the expectations of the quality of food served by McDonald’s (Mcdonalds.com, 2018).

Brand loyalty is the positive feeling that people have towards a particular brand. The loyalty of the customers encourages them to purchase the products that satisfy their needs. It also helps in making commitments to purchase from the same brand in the future (Cha, Yi & Bagozzi, 2016). However, certain factors exist that affect the brand loyalty of the customers. Factors such as quality and price of products are some of the factors that need to be considered before being loyalty towards the brand. Apart from this, it is also essential that the quality of the brand satisfies the customers and meet the needs. It has been seen that most organisations frame the business network based on the loyalty of the customers. These frameworks are known as the loyalty business model that is essential for increasing the loyalty of the customers.

In the case of Pepsi, the company have faced competitions from other soft drinks company like Coca-Cola. However, the loyalty of the customers is kept by the quality of drinks and the versatility of the drinks that are introduced in the market. The loyalty of the customers purchasing this drink mainly lies in the fact that the drink sponsors the sports teams and events (Zheng et al., 2015). Hence, sports enthusiasts are keen to purchase the drinks and remain loyal to the drink. This helps in establishing the positive behaviours from the customers, as they can be aware of the type of quality that is to be expected from the drink. Moreover, the use of celebrities as promotional tools acts as a strategic influence of the company.

The brand loyalty of McDonald’s lies in the fact that the customers remain aware of the quality of food served by the company for its success. The comparison is made with the quality of food served by the competitors. The fact that the company attracts children by providing toys makes it certain that the loyalty of the children exists with the company (Blut et al. 2015). In this regard, it can be said that the customers also consider the services provided by McDonald’s before being loyal to the company. This is mainly because of the fact that the restaurant provides self-service and need to be ready with the products so that customers can be treated quickly. According to Zablah et al. (2016), the company need to remain active in terms of quality in products and services to remain active in the market.

As stated by Saeidi et al. (2015) brand assets refer to the elements that are involved in establishing brand equity. The highlighted factors in the assignment that determines the brand equity form assets that help in the setting up business in a market. The loyalty of the customers is considered as the assets of a company as the customers are the main stakeholders for many of the brands. Hence, it is necessary that the organisations need to maintain a proper quality of products and services for gaining the loyalty of the customers. At the same time, it can be said that the patents, trademark and channel relationships are other brand assets that define a company (Hwang & Suh, 2018). In this regard, the brand assets of Pepsi and McDonald’s can be considered.

The brand assets of Pepsi consist of the relationship it maintains with television and radio channels. As stated, earlier the drink is associated with sporting events and celebrities that normally like to be promoted. Hence, collaboration with channels can help in increasing the reputation of the company and maintain its competitive advantage in the market. The trademark of the company needs to be from the ISO so that people trust in the product. Eisingerich et al. (2016) stated that the drink has to be free from any harmful elements and the best method to examine that is the certification received from the ISO.

In the case of McDonald’s, the brand assets lie in the fact that the restaurant needs to focus more on maintaining the loyalty of the customers and gain patent rights. Collaboration with other companies, particularly companies making drinks needs to be obtained so that McDonald’s can serve soft drinks with its food. It has been seen that Pepsi is one such company with which, McDonald’s share collaboration (Kim, Vogt & Knutson, 2015). The drinks served by the company consist of other soft drinks as well that makes it popular in the market. Thus, it can be said that the brand assets of a particular organisation are essential for the enlargement of a business.

Conclusion

Thus, it can be concluded that brand management plays an important role in the promotion of a company. Without proper branding, a company cannot gain international fame and continue with the success of the business. Brand loyalty and brand awareness are two of the most important aspects of an organisation and it is necessary that the customers are satisfied to ensure that such loyalty and awareness exists. Reputed companies need to ensure that the branding is done based on proper promotion so that customers can identify the changes that are taken place in a company and aim to make future business relationships with it. Companies like Pepsi and McDonald’s need to be well aware of the factors that influence the loyalty of the customers.

The analysis of Pepsi shows that the drink is one of the most popular soft drinks in the world. The longevity of the drink makes it more popular with the customers and therefore, it can be said that the drink has a huge fan base that helps in increasing its brand value. It has been seen that Pepsi provides sponsorships to leading sports teams and events and gain the loyalty of the customers. The perceived quality of the company is the fact that the flavours of the drinks need to be harmless and the customers need to recognise the value of the product based on the quality it serves in the market. Apart from this, maintaining relationships with the customers via channels can help the company to maintain its interaction with the customers. Thus, brand management of Pepsi is important for maintaining its image in the market.

At the same time, it can be concluded that in the case of McDonald’s, the company need to focus more on the price and quality of products. One of the biggest advantages that McDonald’s and Pepsi have is the fact that people are well aware of the brands and thereby, the popularity of the company is continuously on the increase. It needs to get the patent rights to collaborate with other companies so that it can align its market. The fact that it collaborates with Pepsi increases its possibility of being the leading restaurant that serves food and soft drinks to the children and other target customers. Thus, it can be said that maintaining a proper brand management can help McDonald’s to improve its market position.

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