Consumer Behavior

Case Study on

Burger Battles

Group No.

Group Members Roll

No.

Email Id Contact Number

1. Kanika Hans 1122 Kanika.hans13@gmail.com 9650666564

2. Aayush Rastogi 1101 Mailaayush.rstg@gmail.co

m

8377829295

3. Tripti kaur Bagga 1154 Tripti.kaur15@gmail.com 8800757827

Date Due: 15th October, 2013

Date Submitted: 15th October, 2013

SUMMARY

India being a huge country and having a healthy growing economy many major western fast food

players have serious plans to cater to this huge population in their sights. The fast-food industry

is facing the long-awaited problem of saturation and therefore it is increasingly difficult to open

more restaurants, and it is harder to sell more hamburgers because if which industry’s big

players are at war to steal each other’s customers, enlarge their menus, and spawn new fast-food

concepts.

It is a highly competitive industry and consumers of these industries also switch a lot. Players

have to be very active in attracting customers and retaining them.

Burger king is one player which does very aggressive promotions and advertising, one its

commercial showed that people prefer Burger king’s sandwiches over Mc. Donalds and Wendy’s

and also showed that their patty is much bigger and better prepared than its competitive players.

To keep up with the competition players have started new items in their menus and also started

adding totally new menus.

Players have also started reaching out different places and geographies to keep up with their

growing objective. They have opened up in many different locations like at school campuses,

meuseums, zoos, bus-stations, airports etc. and as well as at smaller towns which were earlier

skipped or not given much importance for expansion and growth prospects.

Many smaller companies/firms have been acquired up by these big giants because of the

increasing competition in the industry for example, the Washington DC based Marriott

Corporation, owner of the Roy Rogers hamburger chain recently acquired Gino’s. Hardees

has purchased Burger Chef etc.

Questions & Answers

Q1. Discuss the various ways in which knowledge of consumer behavior can be useful to fast food

player companies. List & discuss. Based on your research elaborate on how -knowledge of consumer

behavior helped a firm / brand further its marketing effort in the real world. Please be specific.

Ans: The two major ways in which knowledge of consumer behavior can be useful to fast food players

are, (a) firstly, The knowledge of Customer Acquisition Process – as the case mentions that the fast food

industry is facing a problem of saturation and there is intense competition among the players and because

of this players are looking forward to new geographies and looking for new places where they can setup

new branches and expand. As they are expanding they should first try and analyze why people visit them,

what are the reasons because of which consumers are switching, why people make purchase them and

what are the reasons which leads a consumer to purchase their products.

(b) Secondly, the knowledge of Customer Retention Process- as there is intense and severe competition in

this industry and consumers are spoilt of choices. Competitors are always looking for ways to steal each

other’s consumers and therefore it is really important for the players to understand and find out ways in

which they can create loyalty among their consumers and retain them. They should try to create a value

for their products in the eyes of the consumer and should also deliver all the promises which they make to

the consumers.

(c) Players should also find out how was the consumers experience with them i.e. whether they liked the

food, ambience, service, whether they were satisfied, dissatisfied or delighted.

(d) They should also try to find out what else consumers are looking for. For eg. Whether consumers are

looking for more variety, qualityetc.

Knowledge of consumer behavior helped a firm / brand

Mc. Donald’s during the recession phase analyzed that it was expensive for consumers to pay huge

amount for fires and burgers separately and also at that time consumers were spending very

conservatively. So what Mc. Donald’s did was that it revised its pricing strategy and introduced many

economical meals out of which most of them were under rupees 100 comprising of fries, burgers and

beverages.