Food Matters For Test Marketing

Relationship marketing in consumer markets: antecedents and consequences

Discuss about the Food Matters for Test Marketing.

Food marketing is similar to the marketing of other consumer products but in this case, the product of interest is food. A food marketer puts emphasis on brands; conducting consumer research, test marketing, strategies of entering into the new markets and segmentation among others. Some problems which needs to be taken care of is the marketing of food products which are perishable as well as when these products are available to the market, both of which depend of n the harvesting time. It is also crucial to understand the role of the parties involved in the sequential delivery of the product to the customers.

Sheth, Jagdish N., and Atul Parvatlyar. “Relationship marketing in consumer markets: antecedents and consequences.” Journal of the Academy of marketing Science 23, no. 4 (1995): 255-271.

On most occasions, the customers tend to lower their choices and in turn they focus their relational behaviors in an effort to make their consuming behavior and buying patterns. This then helps the customers to access information easily, lower the risks involved in buying and maintain a comfortable state of the mind. The social and family-related factor, religious beliefs, policies of the market and government regulations also enables the consumers to participate in other market behaviors. Therefore if the food marketers and the consumers can engage in a productive means of marketing of the specific food products. In some cases, this marketing can be ineffective especially if the marketers and consumers abuse such cooperation.

Sire, Istvan, Emese Kapolna, Beata Kapolna, and Andrea Lugasi. “Functional food. Product development, marketing and consumer acceptance—A review.” Appetite 51, no. 3 (2008): 456-467.

The author states that establishment of the understanding between health and nutrition resulted in the development of functional food and products. This consideration is likely to influence the ability of the consumers to purchase a given food. Therefore the manufacturers and those who practice value addition should perform processing steps which add the nutritional value to the food. As a result of this, the marketers have the reason to base their marketing on the health benefits derive from consumption of the said food. A food type can be processed such that it gives several nutritional benefits. One can consider getting one type of food as compared to buying several individual foods.

Zeithaml, Valarie A. “Consumer perceptions of price, quality, and value: a means-end model and synthesis of evidence.” The Journal of marketing (1988): 2-22.

Functional food. Product development, marketing and consumer acceptance—A review

The prices of foods are likely to influence the purchasing behavior and the ability of the customers to by a certain product and leave the other. At some point, the consumers look for the relationship between the quality of a food and its quality. This is because customers aim at getting the value of a product based on its price.  With regards to marketing, the marketers who draw a clear relationship between the price and quality of the food that they market are likely to influence the purchasing patterns. In some other situations, if there is no much difference in terms of the quality of food among several types of food, then price might not really have a significant role on the quality of the food. 

Harris, Jennifer L., Jennifer L. Pomeranz, Tim Lobstein, and Kelly D. Brownell. “A crisis in the marketplace: how food marketing contributes to childhood obesity and what can be done.” Annual review of public health 30 (2009): 211-225.

The author states that it is crucial for the marketers to mark boundaries between the types of foods that they have and the categories of customers. In some cases, it has been found that some foods are good for children while others are good for adults. Sometimes the marketers are asked not to perform marketing to the children because some junk foods have been associated with obesity in children. The author of this article states that the rate at which marketing of food is done to the children has been on the increase especially on the television, radios, mobile phones and the internet. Such foods could be having a high calorie but low nutritional quality hence causing unpleasant side effects. It is therefore good that each country, human rights groups and food industry to lobby for the barriers to be placed to reduce marketing of food to children.

Paul, Justin, and Jyoti Rana. “Consumer behavior and purchase intention for organic food.” Journal of consumer Marketing 29, no. 6 (2012): 412-422.

The debate of the importance of organic foods has received several reactions from the food consumers. Organic foods are foods which are grown using organic manure and employ the biological means of pest control. Such foods are preferred by the people but they are sold at very high prices while other times they are not available in most food outlets and stores. The use of chemical applications while farming has been associated with onset of diseases. Therefore a food marketer who advertises the organic foods and at affordable prices is likely to influence the purchasing pattern of the consumers. The author of this article found that the satisfaction of consumers by the organic foods was affected by several factors such as the availability and the education levels of the consumers.

Consumer perceptions of price, quality, and value: a means-end model and synthesis of evidence

Block, Lauren G., Punam A. Keller, Beth Vallen, Sara Williamson, Mia M. Birau, Amir Grinstein, Kelly L. Haws et al. “The Squander Sequence: Understanding Food Waste at Each Stage of the Consumer Decision Making Process.” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing (2016).

It is advisable that the consumers minimize the possibility of wasting food. However the author of this article notes that the cases of food wasting are rampant at all stages of food distribution including food marketing. Food wastage occurs when the consumers are face with decisions of acquiring food especially as a result of marketing initiatives. The author recommended that future studies be done to determine the level of food wastage at the pre-acquisition, consumption and disposal. Sometimes the prices of food commodities can be too low such that the customers find themselves buying s much of that food that then can consume. It is therefore good that the consumers are not moved so much by the marketing strategies of food industries leading to increased purchase and wastage of food.

Wilcock, Anne, Maria Pun, Joseph Khanona, and May Aung. “Consumer attitudes, knowledge and behaviour: a review of food safety issues.” Trends in Food Science & Technology 15, no. 2 (2004): 56-66.

It has been found that the attitudes that consumers have regarding the quality of food affects their purchasing power. If they have a positive attitude, then they will purchase more and if they have a negative attitude they will purchase less of the particular food. These attitudes towards the food is said to be influenced by the by the socioeconomic status of the buyers as well as the demographic features. Therefore the marketing strategies by a food company should be based on creating a positive attitude towards the foods. The authors say that if the consumers are provided with the right information concerning a certain food type, they are going to build a positive attitude towards it.

Grunert, Klaus G. “Current issues in the understanding of consumer food choice.” Trends in Food Science & Technology 13, no. 8 (2002): 275-285.

The author states that when the consumers initially decide to buy a food, it is because they expect quality and for sure after they consume that food, they need to experience the value of that quality. The creation of quality expectations are based on the formation of a variety of brands and labels of the food so that they can bring a future prediction of what to expect from one food type from the other. An example is the use of genetic engineering which leads to the development of high attitude towards the food produced and hence influences the behavior of consumers. There are some other foods whereby a consumer does not see the quality of the food but before or after purchase. In such a case, the marketing team needs to take advantage of this situation and finally end up making them to buy the food.

A crisis in the marketplace: how food marketing contributes to childhood obesity and what can be done

Sillani, Sandro, and Federico Nassivera. “Consumer behavior in choice of minimally processed vegetables and implications for marketing strategies.” Trends in Food Science & Technology 46, no. 2 (2015): 339-345.

In this article, the author sought to determine how the consumer patterns for fresh cuts are likely to affect the intention of a customer to buy or not. There are some approaches which provide various drivers which affect the willingness as well as the attitude of a consumer to buy a certain type of food. The implications of the management team give a clear understanding the factors which affect the ability of a person to purchase the fresh cut products or not. The fresh cut could be appealing for consumption but in some cases they are expensive. However if the supply is continuous, the customers would get used to the prices too. If the marketers can use the assurance of a continuous supply of fresh food, they are likely to influence the purchasing patterns of the consumers. 

Teng, Chih-Ching, and Yu-Mei Wang. “Decisional factors driving organic food consumption: generation of consumer purchase intentions.” British Food Journal 117, no. 3 (2015): 1066-1081.

In this article, the author’s aim was to determine the effect of the information given by organic food companies to the customers through advertising. Therefore if trust is built between the food marketers and customers, they can develop a positive attitude towards the information given regarding the organic foods. This attitude is then translated into the intentions and use of the information that they perceive towards the purchase of organic foods. In this research, the author reports that the perceived knowledge has no significant impact towards the development of a certain attitude towards organic foods by a consumer. It is therefore important that organic food marketers capitalize focus on using the existing knowledge as a strategy of marketing its products so as to create more trust for organic foods by consumers.

Nikolova, Hristina Dzhogleva, and J. Jeffrey Inman. “Healthy Choice: The Effect of Simplified Point-of-Sale Nutritional Information on Consumer Food Choice Behavior.” Journal of Marketing Research 52, no. 6 (2015): 817-835.

In marketing of foods, the retailers of grocery products have been reported to join a fight against the development of obesity by providing seminars and programs aimed at wellness creation at their buying points. The author of this article therefore sought to find out whether such wellness programs by grocery owners were beneficial to customers or not. Therefore a scoring system was used to evaluate the effect of such wellness initiatives aimed at improving the health of the people.  The scoring system was designed to determine whether the offering of wellness programs had any influence on the shopping decisions towards certain foods. The authors therefore found that the health the information given at the point of sale by grocery owners helped the customers in making healthy food choices. This was demonstrated by a switch to high scoring products.

Feldmann, Corinna, and Ulrich Hamm. “Consumers’ perceptions and preferences for local food: A review.” Food Quality and Preference 40 (2015): 152-164.

In this article, the author sought to determine the perception of local foods by the consumers. This is due to an observed increase in the available information regarding the local foods and hence attracting the interest of consumers. Therefore there is need to determine whether the information delivered to consumers about local foods influences their purchasing patterns. This research found that the consumers did not view the local food to be as expensive as the organic food. As a result, the consumers were reported to have the willingness to pay a little bit more for the local foods. The food companies which can capitalize in provision of information regarding the availability of local foods are likely to influence the customer purchasing behaviors.

Conclusion

At some point, some distributors take it as their iniative to add value to the food products such that the value of what gets to the customer is higher than the initial product from the producers. The roles of the marketers and processors of food products offer convenience to the consumers although this might bring some rise in costs to the buyers. It is therefore important that consumers are given the correct information about foods by the marketers.