BRAND SWITCHING BEHAVIOR OF CONSUMERS IN THE HAIR CARE SERVICE

BRAND SWITCHING BEHAVIOR OF CONSUMERS IN THE HAIR CARE SERVICE

ABSTRACT 

This research work was an effort to investigate consumer brand switching behavior in the Enugu Metropolis hair care service market. The primary goals were: Determine how the marketing mix affects consumers who use hair care services’ brand switching behavior. Identify the element or variable that encourages brand switching among consumers of hair care services. On the basis of the aforementioned goals, four hypotheses were developed. The study’s participants came from the Enugu Metropolis’s consumer (users) of hair care services. The sample size was determined using Top Man’s Formula methodology. Simple tables and percentages were used to examine the data collected, along with personal interviews and questionnaires to elicit information from respondents.

According to the investigation, it was discovered that consumers are likely to stop buying their brands as a result of price increases. According to the researcher, pricing variations and changes, brand availability and brand unavailability for hair care services, and the need for a novel taste experience are the main factors that cause consumers to migrate from one brand to another. Thus, the researcher offered the following advice. Manufacturers should conduct a costly and thorough internal evaluation of their distributional strength, scope, and efficiency in all areas of business since this will reveal their areas for improvement. An extensive, thorough, ongoing consumer and market study should be started and maintained to minor  consumption pattern and trends of consumers.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

One of the most underappreciated and undiscussed factors in branding decisions that manufacturers and consumers of name-brand goods frequently face is brand switching. The nature of the products or the ambitions of the brand owner may have resulted in this predicament. To generalize a favorable and enduring brand preference and loyalty is typically one of them.

Branding, according to Mc Carthy and Perrault (1990:235), is the use of a name, word, symbol, design, or combination of these to identify a product. This definition covers the use of trade names, brand names, and essentially all other methods of product identification. According to them, medieval guides’ attempts to force artisans to put their profession on display led to the development of branding during the Middle Ages.

Almost nothing these days is unbranded due to the power of branding. Branding has emerged as a key product strategy for manufacturers and market leaders of the hair care services sector in the Enugu metropolitan.

Bamossy and Semenik As previously mentioned, in 1993, the most obvious goal of manufacturers and owners of hair care services in the Enugu metropolis was to brand their products in a way that would foster brand loyalty or positive brand associations, which largely explains the influence on a consumer to repeatedly choose a particular company’s product over alternatives. In order to increase customer loyalty, hair care service providers have over the years highlighted the advantages of their products through sales promotions, integrated marketing communications, and newer initiatives at  applying the social marketing concept.  All these are aimed at applying the social market concept. All these are aimed at getting the consumer past the point of brand non-recognition, product test or trial to the points of brand adoption. The consumer testing a particular brand and consequently adopting it, most probably makes a conscious decisions to test and use the new brand and thus abandons or discards the previous brand. By so doing the consumer exhibits a behaviours that is crucial and is the subject matter of this study and that behaviour is brand switching. Consumer brand switching behaviour should be as important as their brand preference to Hair care service manufacturers because any overt promotional appeal or overture aimed at generating brand preference among existing consumers inadvertently produce brand switching tendencies on response, within the same group of consumers. Consequently, it should be obvious to brand owners that if their brand is not creating brand loyalty, it is also not drawing much loyalty, which increases the likelihood that customers may switch to another brand. It is the goal of this study to identify the factors and variables that, directly or indirectly, led to brand switching among consumers of Hair care services with an emphasis on. Manufacturers will have the opportunity to protect themselves from vulnerability to brand loyalty-encouraging activities of competitors through an investigation into the nature of causative factors that lead to brand switching among consumers or users of hair care services.

1.2    STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Consumers often display three distinct types of purchase behavior, according to studies on consumer behavior. These purchase behaviors have significant marketing repercussions and include pricey problem solving, limited issue solving, and routine problem solving. The term “low involvement behavior” often refers to a circumstance where a consumer does not give his buying task much thought. This is known as routine issue solving. Apparently, Howard (1998). As a result of this behavior, consumers develop states that lead to repeat purchases and brand loyalty. For the majority, if not all, Nigerian manufacturers of hair care products, this is a desirable position.

On the other hand, consumers may choose to experiment with a different brand than their current one or respond to point-of-purchase displays that appeal to their emotions or the environment has little ability to solve problems. According to Hawkins et al. (1992), this circumstance leads to brand switching behavior among consumers. Brand switching behavior may also be influenced by how consumers react to other marketing mix stimuli, such as variations in brand prices, the effectiveness and effort of distribution strategies, and interactions between product design and quality.

1.3       OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The discovery and identification of brand loyalty and brand disloyalty (switching) as the dual effects of short-, medium- and long-term marketing plan overtures to the consumer makes it the primary goal of this study to:

1. Determine how the marketing mix affects consumers who use hair care services who switch brands.
2. Identify the elements or variables that encourage brand switching among users of hair care services.
3. Determine the relative advantages of the various brands listed for this study in relation to a certain market.
4. Determine the impact of consumer brand switching efforts on the rate at which various brands are consumed in the market under study.

1.4       RESEARCH QUESTIONS

For this study project, the following research questions were developed.

1. How many companies in Enugu Metropolis make hair care products?
2. How many markets offer hair care services in Enugu Metropolis?
3. Which component of the marketing communication mix is most frequently used to reach consumers.
4. How frequently do customers of hair care services move to different brands.
5. Is the market for hair care services segmented?

1.5       RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

The following hypothesis has been developed and will be put to the test in order to produce a clear outcome.

Ho: Customer service switching for hair care is not
pricing variations have a big affect.
Hi: Customers frequently switch hair care providers.
affected by pricing variations.
H0: Hair care services are accessible (distributional
Efficiency) does not play a significant role in customers switching hair care service brands.
H2: Haircare services are accessible (distributional
efficiency) play a significant role in consumers’ decision to switch hair care service brands.
H0: Consumers of hair care products have little brand loyalty
there is no service.

H3: Consumers of hair care products have little brand loyalty
There is service.
H0: Market control over hair care providers does not
hinders executives’ ability to advertise effectively.
H4: Market ownership for hair care services prevents
executives’ successful marketing efforts.

1.6       SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The results of this study are anticipated to be extremely beneficial to manufacturers and marketers of hair care services in the following ways.

1. It will make it possible for the manufacturers to pinpoint the elements that will lead to customer brand switching.
2. It will highlight the value of ongoing consumer research and market surveillance in a developing and fiercely competitive consumer market.
3. The study will also assist brand owners in creating marketing plans that will allow them to lessen the effects of brand switching by repositioning their goods to win customers’ loyalty. The study also aspires to be applicable to other consumer goods manufacturers engaged in competition with producers of similar goods such as

drinks and cosmetics.

Last but not least, the results of this study should also be useful to retailers, especially in articulating and rebuilding their buying and product policies so as to stock various goods and their close replacements in relative depth and breath.