|
E.A. Mikhailova, M.O. Remizova
Faculty of management, course 4, specialty «marketing»
Scientific supervisors - Y.F. Popova,
candidate of economic science, assistant professor
O.N. Omelina, senior English lecturer
(Syktyvkar State University)
There is a description of the marketing research devoted to the analysis of beer consumers’ preferences in Syktyvkar and to the estimate of the competitiveness of the beer, produced by “Syktyvkarpivo”.
Let’s start with the fact that the beer market has always played a prominent role in the economy of Russia. It was considered that the beer market in Russia had a great potential of development, as the beer consumption per capita was rather low in comparison with most European countries. But nowadays some experts in brewing assert that brewing business is losing its attractiveness for producers, especially it concerns small companies.
All-Russian tendency of reducing output of beer can be seen at our local market as well. The company “Syktyvkarpivo”, which is the biggest producer of beer and soft-drinks in Komi Republic, experiences the same problems at the moment. One of the reasons of decreasing output is supposed to be a change in consumer demand.
The managers of the company realize the necessity of consumer orientation, that’s why they asked us to make a marketing research, which took place in June 2003. Our aim was to analyze consumer preferences in Syktyvkar beer market and to estimate the competitiveness of beer, produced by “Syktyvkarpivo”. By means of a structured survey we interrogated 400 people at the age from 15 to 65. What’s interesting, the share of people who don’t drink beer at all is 31%. That’s quite interesting, isn’t it?
During the research the following aspects were found out: the most popular beer producers, brands and package, purposes of beer buying, level of sensitiveness to the price, frequency of consumption, level of loyalty to definite brands, what consumers appreciate in beer most of all and some other aspects. On the basis of this information we revealed the interdependency between these aspects and socio-economic characteristics of the consumers.
And now we’ll describe these aspects in detail. According to the variants offered, we can observe the following tendencies: consumers under 40 years old buy beer for parties, for meetings with friends, as a rule; 30- and 40-year old respondents drink beer to be in high spirits. Besides, people over 30 drink beer because it is considered to be useful.
Figure 1. Purpose of beer buying according to the age
As for consumers’ preferences in beer brands, the most popular beer producer in Syktyvkar is the biggest Russian brewing enterprice - Baltic Beverages Holding, which controls such famous companies as Baltika and Yarpivo. In spite of this fact “Syktyvkarpivo” declares that its nearest competitor is Botchonok, a beer producer from Ukhta. Syktyvkarpivo itself takes the 2nd place in the rank of popularity.
Figure 2. Popular beer brands
As you know, there are national and foreign brands represented at the beer market. About 60% of respondents prefer the sorts of beer, produced by Russian brewing companies. But this tendency concerns older generation mostly, as for the youngsters - they tend to change easily from one brand to another. I should mention that there is no gender difference in brand preferences: men and women make similar choice, as a rule.
Figure 3. Preferences in brands according to the age.
In the course of our research we also asked the respondents to define “quality” of beer. For most consumers beer of good quality means fresh transparent beer with good taste and color. More than that, beer of good quality should be cool and in a convenient package.
As we have said at the beginning of our report, this analysis was made for the company Syktyvkarpivo. We must say, for last two years the image of this company has become negative because of unstable quality of beer and, as a consequence, there were a lot of complaints from the consumers. So we suggested the respondents express their opinion about the local beer according to the criteria of taste, price, constancy of quality, merchandising (that is laying-out of assortment in shops) and package design in the scale from 1 (unsatisfactory) to 5 (excellent). On the ground of the received data we formed 4 groups (the so-called clusters) of respondents who expressed similar attitude towards the syktyvkar beer.
Figure 4. Plot of means for clusters
The most numerous group includes those consumers who estimate the local beer as satisfactory (over 100 respondents). Then goes the cluster, comprising those respondents who give the lowest marks according to all criteria (there are 88 people). (this group consists of people at the age from 18 to 35 and makes up 35% of respondents). The highest marks, that is excellent, are given by the consumers from cluster of 23 people. The last group includes the rest of the respondents, who consider that the taste of syktyvkar beer is good, prices and quality - satisfactory, assortment in the shops and package design - unsatisfactory.
Table 1. Estimates
|
Criterion |
Cluster 1 |
Cluster 2 |
Cluster 3 |
Cluster 4 |
|
Taste |
4,00 |
3,92 |
5,00 |
1,53 |
|
Price |
3,44 |
4,03 |
4,61 |
2,23 |
|
Assortment |
1,28 |
3,47 |
4,13 |
1,74 |
|
Constancy of quality |
3,16 |
3,86 |
4,96 |
1,82 |
|
Design |
1,52 |
3,58 |
4,91 |
1,68 |
Thanks to this analysis we managed to define the target audience of the company Syktyvkarpivo, that is respondents who give good and excellent marks according to all criteria: they are men at the age over 40. So all efforts of the company should be aimed at maintenance of their loyalty.
The results of our research and the recommendations we gave were examined by the managers of the company and a number of measures aimed at increase in consumer demand were taken. For example, they developed some new sorts of beer; they changed the design (you can see it in any shop of our town as well); now they pay more attention to merchandising. However, all these measures haven’t brought any positive results yet. It’s obvious, that the results can’t be achieved so soon. At this stage it’s necessary to continue developing new ways of attracting and retaining consumers. Being marketers we recommended that more attention should be paid to measures in the sphere of public relations as the company needs to create a positive image among the consumers. Of course, it’s also important to improve the quality of beer and to increase measures on sales promotion. Only in this case the company will get the opportunity to become more competitive at the beer market of the region.
In conclusion we’d like to say that in conditions of competition it’s vitally important for any company to possess marketing information and the description of consumer behavior, therefore managers should know who their clients are and why these people choose their product, but not the competitor’s product. It’s preferable, if a company knows its consumers’ needs before its production begins. After a new product has been developed a company’s management is supposed to trace and analyze consumers’ needs regularly. The marketing research we have just described is an example of how it is possible to get knowledge about consumers, their needs and preferences. Such information is important for those companies that want to be leaders in the business.
|
