The impact of internal and external switching motivation
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
Authors
Date
2019
Department
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Mcode
Degree programme
Marketing
Language
en
Pages
46 + 1
Series
Abstract
This study identifies the factors that consumers take into consideration when switching brands for external and internal motivations in FMCG. The research is small-scale quasi-experiment qualita-tive research. The participants are observed in a brand switching situation and recorded by video in Finnish grocery stores. `Brand switching’ has been studied in academic marketing literature from 1970s onwards (Bass, 1974) in several different contexts, such as clothing industry (Michaelidou & Dibb, 2013) and high-technology market (A.Emmelhainz & Stock, 1991; Michaelidou & Dibb, 2013; Msaed, Al-kwifi, Ahmed, & Al-kwifi, 2017). Academic literature has studied both internal and external motivations (Hoyer & Ridgway, 1984; Michaelidou & Dibb, 2013) as drivers of brand-switching behaviors. These studies investigated brand switching with mass surveys or analyzing quantita-tively large databases to find out brand switching outcomes or reasons before and after purchase situation (A.Emmelhainz & Stock, 1991; Bansal et al., 2005; Michaelidou & Dibb, 2013; Msaed et al., 2017). This study differs from existing researches by investigating brand switching in simu-lated brand switching situation in real grocery store. This is an exploratory study to map out the possible factors that are considered while switching. The research findings offer fruitful base for further and more comprehensive research on the most important factors. The main findings of this research were the importance of package design which was observed differently depending internal and external motivation. With internal motivation, participants fo-cused to emotional factors like trustworthiness and country-of-origin image (COO). In this case ‘trustworthy’ referred to those factors that increased consumers’ trust in a brand; for example premium mentions or professional package design. COO refers to factors such as the origin of raw materials and perceived country of origin of the product, often referred to packaging with cues such as “French roast” in coffee market. In external motivation, functional factors such as func-tional values, and brand-familiarity were more important.Description
Thesis advisor
Mikkonen, IlonaKeywords
brand switching, fast-moving consumer goods, switching motivation, package design