MARKETING STUDY:

BRAND PREFERENCE WITH REGARD TO DECORATIVE PAINTS
 

Introduction:

The study of consumer brand preferences provides an insight into how consumers arrive at the purchase decisions and the variables which influence their decisions. Once the influencing factors have been identified, the marketers can manipulate them so that they can induce more consumers for purchase decision. There are twos categories of Paints, decorative and industrial. Decorative paints consist of paints like distempers, oil paints and plastic emulsions which are used for painting exteriors and interiors of buildings. Industrial paints are made using Red oxide, Zinc, Bitumen, Aluminium and so on and are widely used in coating the white goods, cars, steel, domestic appliances, etc.

Objectives of the Study:

The present study is principally aimed at analyzing the consumer brand preferences. More specifically the study is intended:
• To analyze the demographic profile of sample respondents and linkage between the demographic factors and purchase decisions
• To investigate in to the usage pattern of decorative paints by different socio economic classes of society
• To examine the brand awareness of decorative paints among the respondents
• To analyze the factors influencing the consumer brand preferences
• To offer suggestions for improving the levels of consumer satisfaction with regard to decorative paints in the light of findings of the study

Methodology :

In this study the following Methodology have been adopted in drawing the sample respondents. A sample of 150 newly built house owners of twin cities of Andhra Pradesh, i.e., Hyderabad and Secundrabad was selected for the study. Of the sample size 60 respondents belong to apartments and others have constructed individual houses during the last six months period. Study has been conducted during the year 2006. A questionnaire has been administered to elicit the brand preferences of customers.

Data Analysis:

Data has been analysed by using the simple statistical tools. All the respondents have been categorized into four categories i.e., Business Men, Private employees, Government Employees, Professionals. The responses are analysed across five popular brands of decorative paints, viz., Asian Paints, Berger Paints, Goodlas Nerolac, Jenson & Nicholson, Shalimar and others. Data has been analyzed by constructing cross tables and percentages have been calculated. Income wise brand preferences, occupation wise brand preferences, age-wise brand preferences are worked out by Cross Tabulation Method. Reasons for Brand Preferences have been arrived at across select reasons like availability, reasonable prices, high quality, durability, status symbol, advertising, etc.

Major Findings of study:

The following are the major observations made in the present study:


• Best brands convey a warranty of quality. Most respondents (37.8%) preferred Asian Paints, followed by Goodlas Nerolac (27.20%). All the others are found equally preferred
• While income wise classification of data does not show any serious differences in brand preferences by high income groups compared to other groups, the occupation wise classification indicated that the more business men (51%) are preferring Asian Paints
• Among major reasons considered by the respondents with regard to their brand preferences, it is observed that factors like Reasonable Prices (21%), High Quality (23.5%) and Durability (21.8%) have dominated the other factors like Availability of variety of shares (only 9.24%), advertising (8.40%), etc.

Conclusions:

There is no single reason that is responsible for high brand preferences in Decorative Paints among the respondents. The demographic, socio-economic factors have not shown any major impact on this product. Only the Quality and Price seems to dominate the customer’s preferences in this regard.