Understanding Customer Behaviour Towards Coca-Cola: Key Findings

Perception

“Customer is the king”. This is the well-known rule and philosophy adopted by successful businesses across the globe. Businesses produce goods and services that are liked by customer. These offerings are priced effectively by keeping in mind the affordability of the target market. Post which, these products and services are marketed and promoted in order to reach out to customers and make a positive first impression. Even after the business has sold the product or service, consistent efforts are made to ensure customer retention and satisfaction.

A successful business truly revolves around the customer. Therefore understanding consumer behaviour and pattern is essential for the growth and development of any business. A customer’s buying behaviour is influenced by various factors including culture, social upbringing, needs, influences and external motivations. This report highlights upon customer’s buying behaviour, patterns, preferences and choices when it comes to buying Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is a leading brand in the flavoured soda industry and is well liked by people across the globe.

The purpose of the survey is to understand Coca-Cola customers better. The questions are aimed at identifying what motivates customers to buy the brand or what are factors that influence their buying decisions. Efforts have also been put to understand their culture and lifestyle better by asking the mood and the emotions they associate with Coca-Cola.

The survey has been designed with an online tool known as the Survey Monkey. The tool is unbiased and offers transparency of results.

The first step was to design a questionnaire with 10 questions. The aim of each and every question was to understand the customer and their attitude towards Coca-Cola in a better manner. The questionnaire was then distributed via an online link to random people who have recently purchased or consumed Coca-Cola. The survey has been filled by 24 people with a 100% answered rate depicting that none of the questions have been skipped. There was no known bias in terms of age, gender, caste, religion or race while selecting the participants.

This part of the report highlights upon the results of the survey. The combined data received from all participants gives us a deep insight about the buying behaviour and attitude of Coca-Cola customers. The data has been analyzed in order to understand customers better. The results of the survey and the key findings associated with it have been shared as below.

Question 1: What was your first motivation to buy Coca-Cola?

Option	Percentage of respondents
Advertisements	54.17%
Brand Ambassador	12.5%
Friends or family members	20.83%
Packaging	12.50%
Price	16.67%
Taste	20.83%

Attitudes

The aim of this question is to understand exactly which factors motivate customers to buy Coca-Cola. Before making any purchase, customers have several factors that motivate them to buy a particular product. These motivation factors may stem from family, friends, advertisements, unique packaging or really low price. Over 54% of the respondents mentioned that they are motivated by advertisements. Promotional activities by a firm play a significant role in motivating a customer to buy the product (Hill % Alexander, 2017). Therefore it can be stated that the brand’s advertising and promotion strategies are on point. The impact of advertising of any product on a customer is significant enough to create a positive first impression and encourage initial purchase. However, post that it is the responsibility of the brand to ensure that the product lives up to the expectations of customers. Besides advertisements, recommendations from friends and family members as well as taste of Coca-Cola also motivates customers to buy the drink.

Question 2: What is your perception of Coca-Cola?

Option	Percentage of respondents
Very Positive	41.67%
Positive	37.50%
Neutral	16.67%
Negative	4.17%
Very negative	0%

Customer perception towards a product is an interesting study. It is imperative to understand the mindset of customers, their attitude and perception towards the product. This would help the brand in understanding the nature of brand image that the product has. Customer perceptions are formed by the brand image that has been created (Lauritsen & Perks, 2015). There are various factors that help customers in establishing a perception towards a product. This includes the price of the product, promotion strategies adopted by the brand, the look and feel of the product as well as feedback from other customers.

Over 71% of the customer have a positive or a very positive perception about Coca-Cola signifying the positive brand image that Coca-Cola holds in the eyes of its customers. Perceptions formed before consuming the product and after consuming the product can be different. A positive perception of the brand is a result of effective advertising that set high expectations and the brand’s competency to fulfil those expectations in an effective manner.

Question 3: What is the primary emotion that you relate with Coca-Cola?

Option	Percentage of respondents
Energetic	29.17%
Happy	16.67%
Celebratory	37.50%
Sharing	8.33%
Negative emotions	8.33%
No emotions	0.00%

Every brand has certain emotions associated with it. The emotion that a customer associates with a brand may be different from the emotion that another customer associates with the same brand (Keller, 2016). It is essential for brands to understand and identify the emotions customers are associating with the brand. If the emotions associated with a brand are positive then the likelihood of purchasing the product also increases. Customers rarely purchase products that they do not feel positively about (Hudson et. al., 2015). Besides personal experiences, these emotions are developed among customers through advertising, promotions and characteristics of brand ambassadors.

Motivation

Over 91% of the respondents associate positive emotions with Coca-Cola. These positive emotions include those of sharing, happiness, joy, celebration and energy. This is a sign of a largely positive brand image of Coca-Cola. It must be noticed that Coca-Cola ads are very creatively curated which touch upon important things like social issues, family values and friendships. It is because of such advertisements that the emotions associated with Coca-Cola as a brand are highly positive.

Question 4: To what extent do you relate with the brand personality of Coca-Cola?

Option	Percentage of respondents
Very highly	29.17%
Highly	45.83%
Average	25.00%
Low	0.00%
Very low	0.00%

There are several human characteristic and attributes associated with every brand. These human elements in a brand combine together to form a brand’s personality (Peretz & Supphellen, 2015). For a brand to be successful for customers and attract a large number of customers, it is important the customers relate with the brand personality of the product. 75% of the respondents believe that they relate with the brand personality of Coca-Cola.

Association with a brand’s personality ensures high levels of customer retention and loyalty (Das, 2014). A brand’s personality attributes can be infused with the brand through effective advertising and promotion strategies.

Question 5: On what occasions do you consume Coca-Cola?

Option	Percentage of respondents
Happy occasions	54.17%
Sad occasions	4.17%
Daily	20.83%
After a tiring day	20.83%
Can be used to cheer someone up	29.17%

The aim of this question was to understand the social values that customer associate with the brand. Understanding the occasions on which customers consume Coca-Cola helps us understand how customers perceive the social value of the brand. Some beverages can be consumed with family while some are consumed while a work out. Either way it is important to understand when customer consume the product and their behaviour associated with Coca-Cola. This would help the brand in formulating advertisements and promotions that would encourage the behaviour further.

The survey results depict that over 54% of the people prefer having Coca-Cola in happy occasions. Therefore the brand can encourage the same attitude further by advertising and promoting the beverage as something that is consumed when people are happy. Besides this, close to 30% people have mentioned that Coca-Cola can be effectively used to cheer someone up.  

Question 6: Why do you prefer Coca-Cola over other brands?

Option	Percentage of respondents
Price	25.00%
Packaging	8.33%
Taste	33.33%
Advertisements	20.83%
Brand Ambassador	4.17%
I do not prefer Coca-Cola over other brands	8.33%

Like every other industry, this industry is also facing severe competition. In the presence of such a cut throat competition, it is important to differentiate products from those of other brands (Gopaldas, 2015). In order to understand what truly differentiates Coca-Cola, it is essential to identify why customer prefer Coca-Cola over other brands.

Group and individual differences

The survey results demonstrate that close to 33% of respondents prefer Coca-Cola because of the great taste that the brand offers. 25% of the people prefer Coca-Cola because of its price. Besides these, the product’s packaging, advertising and brand ambassador also have an impact in dictating consumer preference in the flavoured soda industry. Only 8% of the people mentioned that they do not prefer Coca-Cola over other brands. This reflects positively on the brand as over 91% of the population continues to prefer Coca-Cola owing several reasons.

Question 7: Are you a loyal Coca-Cola customer?

Option	Percentage of respondents
Yes. I do not buy any other brand.	45.83%
No. I keep trying products from different brands.	45.83%
Usually. But if it is not available then I buy other brands.	8.33%

 

In the process of understanding consumer behaviour, it is important to identify if customers are loyal to the brand or not. A loyal customer can bring in more customers by effective word of mouth publicity and other forms of influence. Brands consistently work towards ensuring high levels of customer loyalty. It is difficult to ensure high brand loyalty from customers in this industry owing to the low price and frequent usage of the product. 54% of the respondents accept that they are loyal to Coca-Cola as a brand while the remaining 45% mentioned that they prefer to try new brands. In order to ensure higher levels of customer loyalty, Coca-Cola can improve its distribution strategy and make sure that the beverage is largely available. The shelf space occupied by Coca-Cola should also be monitored. Besides this, certain offers and discounts must be given to customers in the form of loyalty points in order to encourage repeat purchase and brand loyalty.

Question 8: What has been your biggest influence to buy Coca-Cola?

Option	Percentage of respondents
Social media	45.83%
Friends	25.00%
Unique taste	16.67%
Price	0.00%
Packaging	12.50%

Customer behaviour is largely guided by the influencing factors in the customer’s lives. Social media largely influences customer’s buying preferences and priorities (Felix et. al., 2017). Influencer marketing strategies are adopted by brands in order to increase sales. Over 45% of the respondents believe that social media plays a significant role in influencing their attitude and behaviour towards the brand. Besides social media, 25% of the respondents have been influenced by their friends to buy Coca-Cola which goes to show that the customers of the brand are also actively promoting the brand through word of mouth. The taste and packaging of Coca-Cola also has a positive influence on the brand’s customer’s behaviour.

Question 9: The price of Coca-Cola is?

Option	Percentage of respondents
Expensive	4.17%
Value for money	83.33%
Inexpensive	12.50%

The pricing strategies adopted by any brand play a significant role in guiding the customer’s behaviour towards the brand (Nagle & Muller, 2017). Over 83% of the people believe that the brand offers significant value for their money and over 12% people believe that Coca-Cola is inexpensive. This throws light on the effective pricing policies adopted by the brand. In the face of increasing competition, effectively pricing a product is very important in order to ensure long term market sustainability.

Culture

Question 10: How likely are you to recommend Coca-Cola to others?

Option	Percentage of respondents
Very likely	37.50%
Likely	41.67%
Neither likely nor unlikely	16.67%
Unlikely	0.00%
Very unlikely	4.17%

The most important contribution of a brand’s customer in the growth of the brand is the word of mouth marketing attempted by customers. Profitable customers for a brand are those that will not only buy the product themselves but will also encourage others to buy the product. This is important for brands to understand. Effective branding and brand positioning strategy will encourage customers to recommend the brand to others (Groeger & Buttle, 2014).

Over 78% of the people are either likely or very likely to recommend Coca-Cola to others. Only close to 4% people are unlikely to recommend Coca-Cola others which is a relatively small number. This goes to show that the brand has been able to acquire a strong base of loyal and profitable customers. Especially with the advent of social media, every customer has a reach and the opinions of customers can significantly impact the behaviour of other customers (Jain, 2015). After customers infuse word of mouth marketing, it becomes an even bigger responsibility of the brand to live up to the expectations of customers.  

References

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Gopaldas, A., 2015. Creating firm, customer, and societal value: Toward a theory of positive marketing. Journal of Business Research, 68(12), pp.2446-2451.

Groeger, L. and Buttle, F., 2014. Word-of-mouth marketing influence on offline and online communications: Evidence from case study research. Journal of Marketing Communications, 20(1-2), pp.21-41.

Hill, N. and Alexander, J., 2017. The handbook of customer satisfaction and loyalty measurement. Routledge. United Kingdom.

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Peretz, A. and Supphellen, M., 2015. Brand Personality and the Utilitarian Brand. In Marketing in Transition: Scarcity, Globalism, & Sustainability (pp. 406-406). Springer, Cham.