Consumer Behavior Case Study on Burger Battles

Group No. Group Members Roll No. 1. Kanika Hans 2. Aayush Rastogi 3. Tripti kaur Bagga 1122 1101 1154 Kanika.hans13@gmail.com 9650666564 Email Id Contact Number

Mailaayush.rstg@gmail.com 8377829295 Tripti.kaur15@gmail.com 8800757827

Date Due: 15th October, 2013 Date Submitted: 15th October, 2013

SUMMARY

India being a huge country and having a healthy growing economy many major western fast food players have serious plans to cater to this huge population in their sights. The fast-food industry is facing the long-awaited problem of saturation and therefore it is increasingly difficult to open more restaurants, and it is harder to sell more hamburgers because if which industrys big players are at war to steal each others customers, enlarge their menus, and spawn new fast-food concepts. It is a highly competitive industry and consumers of these industries also switch a lot. Players have to be very active in attracting customers and retaining them. Burger king is one player which does very aggressive promotions and advertising, one its commercial showed that people prefer Burger kings sandwiches over Mc. Donalds and Wendys and also showed that their patty is much bigger and better prepared than its competitive players. To keep up with the competition players have started new items in their menus and also started adding totally new menus. Players have also started reaching out different places and geographies to keep up with their growing objective. They have opened up in many different locations like at school campuses, meuseums, zoos, bus-stations, airports etc. and as well as at smaller towns which were earlier skipped or not given much importance for expansion and growth prospects. Many smaller companies/firms have been acquired up by these big giants because of the increasing competition in the industry for example, the Washington DC based Marriott Corporation, owner of the Roy Rogers hamburger chain recently acquired Ginos. Hardees has purchased Burger Chef etc.

Questions & Answers

Q1. Discuss the various ways in which knowledge of consumer behavior can be useful to fast food player companies. List & discuss. Based on your research elaborate on how -knowledge of consumer behavior helped a firm / brand further its marketing effort in the real world. Please be specific. Ans: The two major ways in which knowledge of consumer behavior can be useful to fast food players are, (a) firstly, The knowledge of Customer Acquisition Process as the case mentions that the fast food industry is facing a problem of saturation and there is intense competition among the players and because of this players are looking forward to new geographies and looking for new places where they can setup new branches and expand. As they are expanding they should first try and analyze why people visit them, what are the reasons because of which consumers are switching, why people make purchase them and what are the reasons which leads a consumer to purchase their products. (b) Secondly, the knowledge of Customer Retention Process- as there is intense and severe competition in this industry and consumers are spoilt of choices. Competitors are always looking for ways to steal each others consumers and therefore it is really important for the players to understand and find out ways in which they can create loyalty among their consumers and retain them. They should try to create a value for their products in the eyes of the consumer and should also deliver all the promises which they make to the consumers. (c) Players should also find out how was the consumers experience with them i.e. whether they liked the food, ambience, service, whether they were satisfied, dissatisfied or delighted. (d) They should also try to find out what else consumers are looking for. For eg. Whether consumers are looking for more variety, qualityetc. Knowledge of consumer behavior helped a firm / brand Mc. Donalds during the recession phase analyzed that it was expensive for consumers to pay huge amount for fires and burgers separately and also at that time consumers were spending very conservatively. So what Mc. Donalds did was that it revised its pricing strategy and introduced many economical meals out of which most of them were under rupees 100 comprising of fries, burgers and beverages.