1.

Introduction

Because of market becoming very competitive, most of the companies are trying to follow
various strategies to ensure sustainability in the long run. In other words, they are trying to secure
and retain the market position in any means possible. But it is a known fact that the best way to
ensure market position is to design your product or service with the accordance to the need,
want and demand of the consumers. If there is any flaw in making a product considering the
design of delivery and/or the factors in accordance to the consumer behavior are not met, then
it becomes very hard for the product to survive the economic competition that follows the
launch. A very good example of a failed product is “Blackberry”

Although the design of “Blackberry” was state of the art and the encryption system if the phones
were very strong, the product couldn’t survive in the long run because they couldn’t truly deliver
what the customers wanted which was convenience (Worth, 2011). Ease of use and swift system
were some of the other things which mattered but they couldn’t deliver. Because Android came
and ensured the consumers were getting those Android wiped the market and took everyone
with them for a simpler journey.

As we can see, having just the USP sometimes isn’t enough and each of the companies need to
study their market in order to find what the customers want. That’s where the study of consumer
behavior comes in.

2. Company overview

For this paper, we have chosen Nestle as the company. Because of their international presence
and a very strong market researching strategy, studying consumer behavior of their product and
the structure of design behind it will become possible.
Nestle was founded by Henri Nestle in the year
1866 in Vevey, Switzerland. Primarily the company
used to sell infant food which at the time wasn’t
readily available everywhere. The foods available
back then weren’t that healthy either. With a view
to achieiving nutrition the company was created
(Nestle, n.d.).

After a lot of progress and line added to

theirroster, Nestle became the worlds biggest food company in 2014. They also achieved the spot
of second largest switzerland based company near that time.

In 1994, Nestle came to bangladesh with a similar view that they started their business with.
Although back then they didn’t have the full ownership of their operations, in 1998 they started
their commercial operations with 100% ownership.

Since the inception of Nestle, the product line has increased a lot and now Nestle has more than
2000 brands worldwide. In Bangladesh however they have approximately 20 locally active brands
and approximately 12 global brands which are imported (Nestle Brands, n.d.).

2.1. Frame of reference:

Nestle is working in the food
market where they are catering
to every type of food related
needs. Starting from simple food
item like water, they have
medical items like protein shakes
and multivitamin food products.
 2.2. Research Strategy:
As talked about before, Nestle follows an extensive research strategy when it comes to
interacting with the market.

The first thing that Nestle considers is their customers. They want to understand and serve them
always by adding value to what they are selling. According to their portfolio, they like to
understand the customer needs and trends as fast as posible and act on it (Nestle, n.d.). With the
largest R&D network in the food industry under their belt, Nestle wants to develop food products
that meet the convenience of the customers by letting them flexibly eating food and at the same
time get enough nutrients to keep themselves going (Nestle, n.d.).

Other factors that they focus in while coming up with the research strategy are growth, efficiency,
capital and value. With the help of these factors they achieve the product and innovation they
want to incorporate in the market. But the bottom line is always the trend and consumer demand
that is available in the market. If the consumers want something they come up with it. To do so
they always keep a close eye to the market and takes data from it in order to know about it. After
collecting the data they process it according to the food laws and practicality of the data. If the
data is usable and what the people want is achievable they will try to implement it with the
product that they are initiating. For example when coming up with the CofeeMate, they
researched and found out that the people from Bangladesh drink coffee in tight situations where
it is hard to go through the rules of making a cup of coffee. So they implemented ingredients
which will be able to make a cup of coffe faster than normal. Also they wanted to keep the values
of coffee intact.

3. Product Overview

The product we chose in order to evaluate Nestlé’s consumer behavioral study is “Maggi”
noodles. Maggi noodles is an international product which was first under the production of the
company under the name of Maggi, which was bought by Nestle in 1947. In the latter half of 19th
century Nestle came up
with the noodles patent and
created the Maggi noodles.
Although being an
international product, when
marketing the product in
Bangladesh, Nestle created
several research projects in
order to find out what the
people wanted from a noodles. A lot of the data was taken from the Indian market as the Indian
market was similar to the Bangladeshi one back in the early 2000.

3.1. Target Market:

the target audience of Maggi is kids, youth, working women (Ashley, n.d.). The kids and youths
were targeted because of the nutritional factors Nestle always tried to achieve. They wanted the
noodles to have taste which will make sure everyone likes it, at the same time they wanted to
have the nutritional values intact. The working women were targeted with a view to give them
more flexibility with creating nutritious foods for the family members. Because of people
becoming health conscious day by day, Nestle became health conscious with them too.

3.2. Reason for choosing it:

Most of the international companies when going multinational, don’t bother with a proper
customer behavior analysis. They keep their traditional working formula and initiates their
business in a new country. Because of successful formula being already possessed by the
company as a gift of experience, some of the times it works out. For example, in electronics
market the companies don’t really go for an extensive analysis before going in a particular market
and it worked out for most of the companies until today. But another pole of the example can be
Uber. Uber became successful in a lot of countries and went to capture the Chinese market where
they lost to a company called “Didi”. Although “Didi” was much less experienced and Uber was
much more, still they lost because of not doing market research and consumer behavior research
in the Chinese market before joining.

Nestle on the other hand however has a reputation of going through a structured consumer
behavior research before initiating a product or going in a market. When they first came into the
Bangladesh market they did extensive research with the market data of India and Bangladesh.
The same type of research was done by them when working with Maggi noodles. That is exactly
how they come up with the “2 minute noodles” marketing strategy.

Because of Nestle’s strategic decision process and research, the company was primarily chosen.
The product was chosen because of the market research and branding being put into making the
product work. We know that the color yellow has become one of the staple for noodles industry
because of the success of Maggi. We wanted to incorporate that success with the research of
consumer behavior.
 4. Consumer Behavior & Maggi

For the consumer behavior part of Nestle for the product “Maggi”, 4 different part of consumer
behavior have been considered. They are the internal factors, the external factors, self-concept
and lifestyle and last but not the least, the customer decision making process. The following
diagram shows how they affect the marketing and ultimately the buying process of the
customers.

Figure: Conceptual Model

4.1. Internal Factors

4.1.1. Perception

When positioning the product in Bangladeshi market, Nestle found out that people of Bangladesh
has unique perception towards not just noodles but towards all the instant cook able product. As
the current situation suggest that company like Kazi Farms or AG food are doing great business
by selling readymade food products, back then it was different. People of Bangladesh liked to
cook food from the absolute raw material rather than use something which was makeshift.
Nestle knew it would be hard to market something which was exactly like that. They wanted to
change the perception of the people towards the said type of food. To do that they tried to prove
there were no technical different between the type of foods. Also they created a contingency
plan of if they fail to create an appeal to the Bangladeshi mothers that the food is same or similar,
they would try to create extra value in this readymade food products.

4.1.2. Memory & Learnings

When talking about food products it is important to provide value in order to become embedded
in the consumer memory. If a food product doesn’t create value through taste or nutrition the
customers will not learn or try to learn about the food product and keep the name in their
memory. Which later on will lead to changing and adjusting their food habits according to the
newly learned product.

Nestle learned that, in Bangladesh people will try out newly arrived food products most of the
times but will only keep in mind the food products that delights them through some sort of
criteria. They ranked some specific criteria when researching on the memory part of the
consumer behavior. They found out that the food product has to be influential in either of the
followings:

 Cost
 Taste
 Nutrition
 Speed
 Convenience
 Availability

If a food product can somehow lead one or more of these criteria. People will ty to learn about
that food product and keep it in their memory. They wanted to become a part of the customer’s
long term memory also where they will be able to be stored and retrieved from the memory.
 4.1.3. Motives

Most of the times the motivation behind any bought food products have some specific
motivations in Bangladeshi people’s minds. Nestle found out that most of the times people buy
food products for superior taste or fast hunger solution. This gave them the generic ultimate idea
of working with the concept “2 minute noodles”. While researching they found out most of the
people, if given enough convenience will not even care about anything else. They will sacrifice
nutrition, even taste if the food gives them an easy way out from extra work and other hustle.
This is truer for the working mothers as they are busy and they have to go through a lot of
problems when making food for their family members. And if some type of extra value is
promised with the convenience provided in the first place, people will become more motivated
in trying out the food product.

Another motivation factor is cost and if a food is too costly when it comes to providing value,
people will not be motivated that much in buying the product. So they wanted to motivate people
through cost as well. This gave them another idea of “Maggi” 5-taka pack as well which will be
talked about later.

4.1.4. Personality

When it comes to food products, readymade foods are also considered more by the busy and
working class people of the country. As housewives tend to make foods by hand more and they
do not care about readymade foods, it will be hard for Nestle to market Maggi noodles in that
portion of the market.

Another personality factor was the different preference of people. Some of the people will always
prefer handmade food because of the perception of food not being healthy or hygienic enough.
For a long time outside food has been considered as junk food and a lot of the people didn’t
support that. Another part of the market will consider taste as a superior factor to all the other
factors. Some of the people just prefer the food cooked by their mothers or wives. So there are
different personality issues when it comes to the marketing of a food item and there will always
be this issue.

Nestle just tried to cater one group as they targeted the working class educated people. They
could have marketed “Maggi” to other personalities but they didn’t want to dilute their promise
or become the followers.

Factors Findings
Perception Only supports readymade food products if
they are convenient or adds extra value.
Perception of junk foods and unhygienic
foods still exist.
Learning & Memory Will try out new product, but will only
include something that can delight them in
their long term memory.
Motives Motivation lies behind more taste or less
time consumption when it comes to noodles.
Personality People tend to prefer homemade food.
People with skeptic personality will try to
avoid foods from outside.
Table: Brief Internal Factors
 4.2. External Factors
4.2.1. Culture & Subculture

Culture is a complex sum of different knowledge, belief, tradition, morality, law etc that people
acquire as part of a society or group. Cultures are very important in a group’s perception of
purchasing a product. for example, how they eat, sleep or lead their lives in general are very
different. For example, Bangladeshi people and the entirety of Indian Sub-continent in general
have culturally been accustomed to slow cooking food. They would take their time to prepare
their foods. This is especially true for their consumption during dinner and lunch. However, the
people of this culture do not have much preference when it comes to consumption of snacks or
in between foods. Maggi took advantage of this and provided a product that is easy to cook. This
is extremely suitable for making children a quick morning meal, tiffin or even a return to home
snack after school or outdoor activities during the afternoon.

Maggi has also effectively tapped the market that find pleasure in mixing up recipes to create
something of their own. By making the Maggi “2 minutes’ noodles” very basic and easy to cook,
Maggi has opened themselves up to people who can experiment with Maggi noodles and add
their own touches and flavors to the acclaimed noodles.

4.2.2. Social Class

Social class refers to the people who are in the same level of societal position. Social class can be
defined by different things like income, heritage, success, fame, occupation etc. the social class
can be divided into many other things which can also be considered under the influence of a
social group. These can also include things such tradition, religion, types of holidays,
entertainment etc.
Foods like noodles is mostly supported by all of the social classes as the food is pretty much
everything neutral. If given enough value people from all the classes will accept noodles as a food
and Nestle knew that.

4.2.3. Family

Family plays a huge part in influencing a consumer’s purchase pattern. It is the most important
primary group for consumers to handle. Family can pass down traditions and cultures that can
carry on to their children. even if they do not carry on, it can still influence the behavior and
purchase patterns of its consumers. there are also decisions that change based on if it is taken in
consideration of a joint family or a nucleus family. With families becoming more nucleus as time
progresses, there are different ways to attract and influence consumer purchase decisions.
Families also can be divided into targets as the Instigator, The Influencer, The Decider, The
Purchaser, The Consumer in the purchase decision making of the family.

Maggi targets their advertisements towards kids. In the advertisements Maggi shows that a
loving mother provides their children with Maggi noodles. it also promotes itself as a fast to cook
noodles children can have during breakfast, afternoon snack or even during tiffin period. it also
touches on the working mothers who can quickly create noodles due to its instant nature. this
helps them balance their everyday working life with family life as well. these factors influence
the parents to buy Maggi noodles for their children.

4.2.4. Reference Groups

Reference group can also play a part in influencing a consumer pattern. Reference groups are a
part of a group of individuals that can be compared to. The members in the reference group
influence the decision of each other. Reference groups can be divided into multiple groups. These
are as followed
  Primary Group: Consists of people who has strong connection
 Secondary Group: Made of members with weaker connection
 Aspirational Group: Made of people who are aspired
 Dissociative Group: Made of people who are hated

As from before we know that noodles will be carried out to be a tiffin or snacks ty of food, it will
mostly be part of the primary and the aspirational foods. Primary group members generally
influence others in consuming the same type of foods or products. Whereas aspirational groups
will influence others such as friends and bosses will influence their friends or subordinates in
following a similar lifestyle.

Secondary group generally doesn’t influence anyone in following someone else’s path. And as
the name suggests dissociative groups will push people away from consuming something that
the other person consumes.

So Nestle tried to work with exactly the two groups that will work out.

4.2.5. Demographics

Demographics directly relate to social class and sub cultures. But with demographic we choose
to look at a specific demographic to understand their point of views and decision making. These
Demographics can be divided into many parts such as age, sex, occupation, wages etc.

Readymade food products such as noodles are mostly neutral of these segments as well. People
from different age will consume noodles in order to eliminate hunger. Other segments are
similar. The only segment that can create a bit of reluctance is occupation. As light occupation
holders will again go for slow cooking foods rather than noodles.
 Factors Finings
Culture & Subculture Although the culture supports slow cooking
foods as foods are perceived to be a part of a
gathering, the snacks part or quick hunger fix
part is open for foods like noodles.
Social class Noodles as a food is social class neutral.
Family Nuclear families who will accept fast cooking
and need extra meals such as tiffin and
snacks will prefer noodles.
Reference Groups Primary groups (families, mates) and
aspirational groups (friends, coworkers) tend
to influence others in consumption of
noodles type of foods.
Demographics Noodles are segment neutral. The only
segment that can create influence is
occupation.
Table: Brief External Factors.