Brand Consciousness of BOP Consumers in South Africa

Abstract

Bottom of the pyramid (BOP) consumers are not just basing their purchase decisions on price and affordability but on the value derived from good-quality brands. Hence, this study assesses the brand-consciousness of South African BOP consumers in terms of brand awareness, differentiation, recognition, loyalty, trust and preferences for leading brands. The aim is to understand the brand consciousness of the South African BOP market so that suitable brand management strategies may be formulated to profitably serve the needs of this market. The population (2 556 422 elements) included BOP consumers living in relative poverty within the rural areas of South Africa from which a sample of 600 subjects was drawn using area sampling. Data was collected using a self-development questionnaire whose psychometric properties were statistically assessed and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings reflect that there is a high degree of brand awareness amongst BOP consumers, the majority of BOP consumers are able to easily differentiate between the various brands based on the brands’ logos, design and/or coloring, a significant segment displays brand loyalty which alters when price becomes a factor for consideration and BOP consumers lack trust where new brands are concerned and prefer good quality brands. Furthermore, BOP consumers’ brand consciousness and purchase decisions are influenced by education and income respectively. It can also be concluded that the majority of South African BOP consumers are brand-conscious; hence, brands play an influential role in their consumer decision-making process. Beneficial recommendations are presented for business organizations.

Role of word-of-mouth communication in consumer brand relationship initiation and maintenance: insights from the bottom of pyramid markets

“…This was expected since WOM alone is unlikely to directly lead to committed long-term relationships. This may be so since strong CBR develop over time through numerous interactions between consumers and brands (Oodith and Parumasur, 2017). Therefore, a single interaction between the consumer and the brand (Fournier, 1998(Fournier, , 2009Sreejesh, 2014) or a single instance of positive WOM from friends or relatives may not be enough to maintain a committed consumer brand relationship.…”

Multi Criteria Decision Making based Approach to Assist Marketers for Targeting BoPs Regarding Packaging Influenced Purchase during Covid-19

“…But due to its huge importance we have used it as a separate element. Consumers like BoP are significantly getting impacted by this element as with their extreme limited income they have to make purchase [51,46] Information Helps to display product characteristics like expiry date, usage instruction, ingredients, name of manufacturer, country of origin, logo etc. It significantly affects purchase intention [52,50].…”