Exploration of gender differences in bottled mineral water consumption: A projective study of consumer's perception in Brazil

Abstract

The bottled mineral water sector is strategic to countries like Brazil and understanding the factors that guides the purchase and consumption by men and women becomes vital to the product's commercial success. In this context, projective techniques are important tools to comprehend the consumers' perception and to the development of target strategies of marketing. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the gender differences about the bottled mineral water's perception through using Word Association (WA) alongside with the Partial Least Squares—Discriminant Analysis (PLS‐DA). The results demonstrated that from the 12 listed categories for the product, the most common were: “necessity,” “well‐being,” “quality,” and “appearance,” and it was possible to identify through PLS‐DA the main differences (p < .05) between genders. The bottled mineral water consumption by the female public is possibly directed to necessity and well‐being, despite practicality, while the male public made the purchase and consumption of the product associated to brand and informal places. Yet, it was realized that the product's presentation and quality parameter were highly impactful in the consumers' attitudes from both sexes. It is highlighted that the WA and PLS‐DA tools, used together in an innovative way, contribute to the deep acknowledgment about the bottled mineral water's consumption, and their application can be expanded and adopted routinely in marketing research and in the new marketing strategies. Practical applications This study brings relevant information about the factors which should be considered by consumers at the moment of purchase and consumption of bottled water, emphasizing the differences by gender, with the advantage of the results being obtained using simple sensory methodologies, as the Word association task which taken in account the consumers' perception and evaluated for multivariate approaches, as Partial Least Squares—Discrimination Analysis. These findings should be considered to bottled water industry to elaborate marketing messages to increase their sales in an effective way.

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