Analysis of Factors

Influencing Consumer
Buyer Behavior for Amul
Customer Acquisition and Retention



Submitted By
Hina Gupta E022
Nishank Jaura E028
Pallavi Kini E029
Arjun Krishnan E030
Divyanshi Pandey E038
Urvi Parikh E041
Prateek Vadodaria E053



Introduction to the project:
When purchasing any product, a consumer goes through a decision process. This process
consists of 5 stages Problem recognition, Information search, Evaluation of Alternatives,
Purchase Decision & Post-purchase behavior. A consumer may not act in isolation in the
purchase, but rather may be influenced by any of several people in various roles. The number
of people involved in the buying decision increases with the level of involvement and
complexity of the buying decision behavior. The consumer buyer behavior is broadly
influenced by four major factors Cultural, Social, Personal and Psychological.
Objective:
To analyze the various strategies used by Amul to leverage the following factors influencing
consumer buyer behavior - Cultural Factors, Social Factors, Personal Factors, Psychological
Factors - Motivation, Perception, Memory, Learning.
There are basically 3 parts to understanding the strategy that Amul has used, to leverage
consumer buyer behavior which can be represented as below:

There are various factors influencing consumer buyer behavior that are targeted by Amul
using various forms of stimuli including its product range, product promotion, pricing,
distribution etc. These stimuli are focused towards leveraging the social, cultural, personal
and psychological factors influencing the target consumers behavior directly or indirectly
(e.g. by influencing their peer group who could in-turn influence them) and orient them
towards choosing Amul as their purchase decision. In our analysis, we will be looking at the
various influencing factors that have been targeted by Amul and the corresponding stimuli
which have influenced people towards purchasing Amul products.


Stimuli
Influencing
factors
Purchase
Decision

Explanation of all the concepts in the thought process through Amul
Which of the below factors have been leveraged by Amul to influence consumer buyer
behavior? What strategies have been used by Amul to leverage these factors?
Cultural factors:
Culture is the fundamental determinant of a persons wants and behavior.
India is a country of vast cultural diversity and consists of various sub-cultural groups and
social classes. In the past few decades, India has experienced western influences and this has
had an impact on the eating habits and preferences of its people. Since its evolution, Amul
has focused on both the traditional Indian taste and the western influences on Indian food
preferences while launching its products and ad campaigns.
Amul has leveraged the diverse culture of India by designing specialized advertisements to
target specific cultural groups. For e.g. Amul used the following advertisements for its
product - Amul Lite. 1st ad - launched in south India, it shows the use of conventional bread
spread being used over Idli; 2nd ad launched to target north India, it shows how it is used
over paranthas and the 3rd ad launched to target the consumers influenced by the western
culture in India, it shows how it is used over garlic bread. Thus, by focusing on various
geographic regions and cultural differences, Amul is able to connect to the people of India
according to their varied needs and tastes. Below are some examples:

The Indian culture is known for its diverse
variety of food and eating habits. Amul has
leveraged this variety to its advantage by
offering products that can be used in
complement with the main food. In the above
advertisement, we can see how Amul has
complemented cheese spread with two
completely different food items like aloo
parathas and chaklis. Through its
advertisements, Amul is teaching its
consumers new ways of consuming its
products.
Leveraging the rich traditions and various festivals of Indian culture:
There are many rituals and traditions that play significant importance in the lives of Hindus.
For e.g. In the link provided, we can see that a mother is giving yogurt (dahi) to her son
before he leaves for his job. This signifies blessings and luck. Amul has captured this small
yet significant ritual as a cultural factor to influence consumers to buy its products.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbdk89-8v1M
During the festive seasons, Amul comes up with relevant themes for its advertisements. Also,
it has brought products in special packaging like Amul Avsar Ladoos for such occasions.


Indian culture consists of many sub-cultures including people from different religions, racial
groups, and regions. One factor that runs common across all these sub-cultures is
consumption of sweets. Amul has harnessed this fact and brought out its range of sweets and
products that can be used for preparation of sweets.


Social factors:
Family is the most valued institution in India. Amul through its various advertisements has
leveraged the strong family bonds and the roles played by various members of the family and
how Amul contributes in small way towards the making the entire family happy. Also by
associating the brand products with aspirational, dissociative groups as well as leveraging the
influence wielded by children, Amul has used social factors to influence buyer behaviour

Family:
Amul has traditionally leveraged the influence which children have on the buying behaviour
of the family. Over the years children have been main focus of the advertising campaigns of
Amul. The special place that children hold in the hearts and minds of the customer is the
reason why Amul chose a little girl as its mascot.



Another example of how Amul structured the products with reference to children is
Emmental Cheese - Cheese with Holes. This fact resonates clearly with children, who
normally first view cheese on TV cartoons. Hence, the strategy used here is to leverage
childrens demanding behavior.

Reference Groups:
Amul has leveraged the social factor of association with reference group by showing the kind
of people consumer would like to associate or dissociate with.
For eg., the following ad shows that non-consumption of Amul Paneer will lead to frail health
by showing a wiry person being thrown away by slight push of the little boys shopping cart.
The mother points out to her son, that not consuming Amul Paneer will make him weak like
the lanky person:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W11eg81Q9Cc

For the product Amul Kool, the ad highlights the kool factor, co-relating the activities done
by young people (hanging out, adventure sports) with the consumption of Amul Kool. The
strategy used by Amul is that of Aspirational behaviour, linking Amul Kool with the in-group
of cool people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgSRYWvksmw




Eat milk with every meal Facebook Social Media Campaign

Capitalizing on the recent phenomenon of memes, Amul seeks to engage with the youth by
allowing them to create memes with photos of their Facebook friends. This is a novel way to
engage with the demographic, which heavily influences buying decision in modern India.


























Personal factors:
Amul deals with essential dietary products which are used by people across different age
groups and value systems. Amul has harnessed this wide usage by showcasing how its
products along with its different variants can cater to people with different needs.
Following are a few examples of how Amul has captured various personal characteristics that
influence a buyers decision:
Age and Stage in the life cycle:

Catering to the health needs of consumers belonging to different age groups: The
following ad for Amul Milk shows how milk can be consumed by people belonging to
different age and stage in their life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFKY1WB2yYU
Targeting three different age groups with the same product- e.g. Amul Calci+ - High
calcium content double toned milk
The stimulus for buying the product is the special health need of calcium intake for the
following age groups:
Pregnant women and lactating mothers
Old people with high risk of osteoporosis
Growing kids for growth of bones and teeth


Personality and self concept:
For the people who consider themselves gourmets or
who like to experiment with new flavour or who like to
associate themselves with international flavours, Amul
launched two variants of cheese: Amul Emmental
Cheese - the Swiss taste and Amul Gouda Cheese -
Dutch variety
The stimulus is the exquisiteness of the cheese and its
promise to offer international flavour. As the product
was the first of its kind in the Indian market, Amul,
through its advertising campaigns, showcased various
dishes and cuisines with which it could be used.
Lifestyle and values:
Health consciousness is gaining special importance in urban India owing to fast paced life,
pressure to perform, diseases caused due to sedentary lifestyle & growing awareness. Health
conscious people are reluctant to buy dairy products as they are high on fat content. Hence to
stimulate their buying behavior, Amul came up with low fat variants along with its broader
product categories.
For e.g. Milk category (1) Amul Taaza (low fat milk variant) & (2) Amul Calci+ (double
toned milk variant with high calcium content)
Butter category Amul Lite (low fat butter variant)
-The following ad of the product emphasizes this aspect and how it is a low cholestrol
product. This directly influences the health conscious customer and people suffering from
health problems to buy these products.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oOB7bYnCmM
Cheese category - Amul Health Spread (low fat cheese spread)

Dahi category - Amul Prolife (probiotic Dahi)
Amul promotes the health factor even in its regular products
which can be seen in the following ads of Amul Paneer-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W11eg81Q9Cc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyh8rVdlYbw











Psychological factors:
(I) Motivation
Freuds Theory
Sigmund Freud assumed that the psychological forces shaping peoples behavior are largely
unconscious and that a person cant fully understand his or her own motivations. What a
brand should do is to position itself motivationally in the consumers minds.
The brand Amul communicates a lot through the Amul girl, the punchline, its jingle, the
slogan - Taste of India, the patriotic feeling, use of humor, typical Hinglish (mixture of
English and Hindi) usage.
Maslows Theory:
According to Abraham Maslows theory, human needs are arranged in a hierarchy from most
to least pressing- physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-
actualization needs. People will try to satisfy their most important need first and then try to
satisfy the next most important need.
Physiological needs (food, water, shelter): Amul through its various products (milk, ghee,
butter) satisfies the physiological need of food of all consumers. Also, the first hoarding of
Amul that said: 'Give us this day our daily bread with Amul Butter' was a good example of
how Amul wanted to portray itself as being able to cater to the physiological needs of
consumers.
Safety Needs (security, protection): Amul has always given assurance to the buyer about the
quality of their products and also the assurance that the quality is being sold at a reasonable
price.
Social Needs (sense of belonging, love): The brands slogan The Taste of India instills a
patriotic feeling among the consumers. Amul butter ads portray a little girl in a polka dotted
dress symbolizing a true spokesperson of the masses with an infallible gut and a tongue-in-
cheek attitude.
Esteem Needs (self-esteem, recognition, status): Amul through its various products like
Amul Emmental Cheese (ready to eat platter cheese; goes best with wines & cocktails, it
has a Swiss taste), Amul Chocozoo (choco-bites with goodness of rich creamy milk &
delicious cocoa), Amul Gold (Standardized Long Life Milk) and Amul fresh cream (low fat
cream used to prepare fruit salad, ice-creams and sweet dishes).

(II) Perception:
In marketing, perceptions are more important than reality, because perceptions affect
consumers actual behavior. People emerge with different perceptions of the same object
because of the following perceptual processes:

1. Selective Attention:
Attention is the allocation of processing capacity to some stimulus. Selective attention means
that marketers must work hard to attract consumers notice. Amul through its various
advertisements have built a social connection with people by including cues of various
social issues in its advertisements. Also, the Amul mascot and the tagline, Utterly Butterly
Delicious Amul is very recognizable, infact very catchy.
2. Selective Retention:
Majority of people retain only that information which supports their attitudes and beliefs due
to selective retention. Hence, theyre likely to remember good points about a product they
like and forget those of competing products. Therefore, marketers need to use repetition to
make sure that their message is not overlooked.
Amul captures headlines and news in such a way that the minute one sees them, they are
registered in the brain. It has been able to do this through-
Theme and style unchanged in nearly 50 years.
Reinventing itself every Friday (a new hoarding goes up at 90 locations across India)
Sylvester daCunha designed an advertisement campaign as series of hoardings with topical
ads, relating to day-to-day issues. Thus was born the Amul Moppet, a little girl who would
warm her way into a housewifes heart. Amul since then has been following different
promotion and advertising campaigns with Amul moppet taking central role in the
advertisement.
3. Subliminal perception:
To promote a brand, marketers embed covert, subliminal messages in ads or packaging.
Amul ads have witty one-liners which capture relevant events and that have caught the fancy
of the nation. This instantly creates a connect with the populace and helps them to identify
with the brand in a surrogate manner. The style of drawing is also very distinctive, and there
is instant recognition of the brand without even needing to take a close look.

(III) Learning:
Learning is the process by which, a consumer learns about the product/brand through its
experience by using the brand. So the good experience of using one of the products of the
brand leads the consumer to buying other products from the same brand.
For e.g. The good experience felt by consumers making use of Amul butter leads them to
purchase Amul cheese as well (when they want to buy cheese)
(IV) Memory:
Amul has always laid emphasis on heavy advertisements through its print ads, hoardings and
TV ads in order to reinforce its brand image.
Brand associations consist of all brand-related thoughts, feelings, perceptions, images,
experiences, beliefs, attitudes that become linked to the brand. Marketers aim is to make sure
that the products and service experiences create the right brand knowledge structures and are
maintained in consumers memory.
Throughout the 67 years of its existence, Amul has always been a very trustworthy brand.
By embedding social issues and celebrities in its ads, it has built strong brand associations in
consumers minds.

(V) Emotions:
Emotions play a very important role in consumer decision making in India. Amul through its
Taste of India tagline and various ad campaigns makes consumers feel proud.





Following are some of the Amul advertisements which encompassed various components of
perception:


1990s: Alleged Ties and shady financial
transactions between the then PM Narasimha
Rao and a pickle baron
July 2012
The landmark research findings about a new
subatomic particle, the Higgs boson or 'Godparticle,'
in July.



.


So as discussed above, the various specific stimuli used by Amul to influence various
factors of consumer buyer behavior through 4Ps are:
Amul mascot Amul girl
Product variety
Easy Access
High Quality Promise
National sentiment brand attachment
Promise of healthy and hygienic products
Affordable products
Heavy advertising
Strong distribution network
- 50 sale offices
- 5000 wholesale dealers
- More than 700000 retail dealers


Amul ad after the Delhi Rape case
(December, 16)
Aug 2012: India's MC Mary Kom
won an Olympic bronze medal for
boxing at the London games
Quote from scholarly research articles:

"An individual motivated to enhance or support his concept of himself would be
expected to accept the influence of a referent by associating himself with positive
referents and/or dissociating himself from negative referents."

Informational and Normative Social Influence in Buyer Behavior
Author(s): Robert E. Burnkrant and Alain Cousineau
Source: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Dec., 1975), pp. 206-215
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2489056



"However, many products project important nonverbal cues that must be seen, heard,
tasted, felt, or smelled to be appreciated properly. Indeed, in many consumption
situations (viewing a movie, eating at a restaurant, playing tennis), several sensory
channels operate simultaneously"

The Experiential Aspects of Consumption: Consumer Fantasies, Feelings, and Fun
Author(s): Morris B. Holbrook and Elizabeth C. Hirschman
Source: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Sep., 1982), pp. 132-140
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2489122





















Conclusion:
Amul has thus used various strategies to leverage many factors influencing consumer buyer
behavior. We have analyzed the stimuli that have been targeted by Amul and the
corresponding strategies employed to ensure final purchase of Amul products.
Social, cultural, personal and psychological factors have been leveraged across various
products and across all stages, from problem recognition to final purchase decision, which
has led to Amul becoming the market leader in milk products.
A mental map of the consumers helps to understand how the various strategies of Amul
have influenced their response to Amul products:













References:

Amul Corporate Website http://toi.amul.com/products.html

Informational and Normative Social Influence in Buyer Behavior
Author(s): Robert E. Burnkrant and Alain Cousineau
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2489056

The Experiential Aspects of Consumption: Consumer Fantasies, Feelings, and Fun
Author(s): Morris B. Holbrook and Elizabeth C. Hirschman
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2489122