Market ResearchTo understand the market forCadbury, Hershey’s andFerrero Rocher

Submitted By:-Sougata Pansougatapan.1627@gmail.com

Abstract: Market research is any organised effort to gather information about target markets

or customers. It includes social and opinion research, is the systematic gathering and interpretation of information about individuals or organisations using statistical and analytical methods and techniques of the applied social sciences to gain insight or support decision making.

This research is conducted in order to understand the target markets or the customers for chocolates, particularly for the brands ; Cadbury, hershey’s and ferrero rocher. We aim to analyze the preference of the customers and reasons for analyzing their liking or disliking for these brands.

Introduction:• Chocolate consumption is gaining popularity in India due to increasing prosperity coupled with a

shift in food ,Cocoa requirement is growing around 15% annually and will reach about 30,000 tonnes in the next 5 years.

• Chocolates are today consumed by people of all age groups and it has also become best gifts at all celebrations . This is the reason the chocolate industry is day-by-day growing in India.

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• Cadbury is a British multinational chocolate major. It is handled by Mondelez India (earlier Cadbury India). Cadbury was established in Birmingham, U.K. by John Cadbury in 1824. Cadbury entered India in 1948 and started its operations by importing chocolates. Today, Cadbury is the most loved and most widely sold in India. According to Euromonitor International, Cadbury accounted for 55.5% of the total chocolate sales in India during 2014. Dairy Milk is the flagship brand of Cadbury.

• Ferrero is an Italian food and beverage company founded in 1946 by Michele Ferrero. The company started its business in India in 2004 and has gained a considerable ground in the Indian chocolate industry within a decade. It is famous for its unique taste defined by its main ingredients – creamy filling, a crunchy wafer and a hazelnut centre. Ferrero India was the third biggest chocolate brand in India as it held 5% market share in 2014. Ferrero Rocher is the flagship variant of Ferrero India.

• The Hershey Company is the largest producer of quality chocolate in North America and a global leader in chocolate and sugar confectionery. Headquartered in Hershey, Pennsylvania, The Hershey Company has operations throughout the world with more than 12,000 employees. With revenues of more than $5 billion, Hershey offers many iconic brands such as HERSHEY'S, REESE'S, HERSHEY'S KISSES, KIT KAT, TWIZZLERS and ICE BREAKERS as well as the smooth, creamy indulgence of HERSHEY'S BLISS chocolates.

OBJECTIVES OF STUDY:• The main objective of study of the market for Cadbury, Hershey’s and Ferrero

rocher is to analyze:• To understand preference of people• To understand buyer behaviour regarding these brands• To analyze the reasons for the liking or disliking a particular brand.

Research methodology:• Population – Chocolate consumers

• Type of research -Primary research

• Method- Qualitative method

• Tool- questionnaire

• Sampling- random

Likeability: there is high likability for chocolates as around 85.8% of the total sample have a high likeability for chocolates. This ensures that the market for chocolates is really strong.

According to the questionaire conducted , mostly people prefer chocolate bars over all other forms of chocolates; i.e. 62.5%.

Consumption rate: almost 70% of the sample consumes atleast chocolates once a week, while 19.6% consumes daily. This helps in analyzing the opportunity in the chocolate industry.

Reason for purchase: the above figure helps in understanding the mindset of people buying chocolate. Today, chocolates have replaced gifts by around 20%, while 20% of people consume chocolate as a snack itself, which further provides for opportunity for chocolates that can be consumed as a snack.

As much as about 82% of the total sample buys chocolates from nearby general stores. This helps in understanding why the market for Cadbury is far more than Hershey's or Ferrero rocher which is not available in general stores.

Preference : according to the sample, taste is the most important factor which decides the preference of chocolates, which is around 50%, followed by brand and sweetness. Here we realise brands play an important role in buying behaviour.

What comes next in the Indian atmosphere is the ingredients for chocolates, based on the food habits of people, i.e. vegetarian or non vegetarian. Lastly people also agreed that attractive packaging influences them to buy.

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Most preferred brand: undoubtedly, Cadbury rules the market with a share of 38%, followed by Ferrero rocher , which attacks 27% market share, while other brands like amul, nestle etc constitutes 20.7% .Hershey’s is only able to capture 13.8% of the market.

Reason for preference of a particular brand :

We can conclude from the above figure that taste is the most dominant factor which influences the buying behaviour of the customers. While they also look for variety and ease of availability.

In Indian market, dark chocolate and milk chocolates are the most preferred flavours and solely constitutes of around 40% of the market preference.. Hazelnut, fruit and nut and roasted almond follow the league with around 9% preference each.

Brand loyalty: 40% of the people are not ready to shift to another brand and are not bothered for price while buying chocolates, hence demonstrating the loyalty for these brands.

But 62% of the people can be made to shift easily, on the basis of price.

What comes to your mind when you first think of Cadbury??

What come to your mind first, when you think of Hershey's?

What comes to your mind when you first think of Ferrero rocher?

Conclusion:

• Cadbury is undoubtedly the market leader, due to taste, variety and ease of availability. While Hershey's is lesser known is Indian market for chocolates and more for syrups due to unavailability in the nearby stores. Ferrero rocher is more known than Hershey's and is considered to be tasty and expensive chocolates.

We figure out that the availability of Hershey's and Ferrero rocher is one of the key factors which lowers their market share. While price is not that big an issue for people, if the distribution is improved, the market share can be improved.

Biblography

•http://www.indianmirror.com/indian-industries/chocolate.html

•https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1O4Bo_4IWjOkbD9kevgzX9qAHIU2ajGRSPOCtGJFW0VU/viewanalytics