Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University

The reason for confusion in grocery stores is the fact that many of the same types of food products are being marketed with different labels. Many packaging labels contain keywords such as “organic,” “farm fresh,” and “all natural.” Some products incorporate the use of images such as a picturesque farm or a “happy” cow. Using data collected from the surveys of 349 college students, this study examines student choices of food products based on organic and non-organic and brand and generic foods. Variables also examined include sex, health, and living arrangements. The results of this study can help provide an understanding about the mindset of the average college student while shopping at the grocery store. Based on the results there is evidence that students are significantly more likely to choose food products that are non-organic and generic. Based on the five variables used, sex and concern for nutritional value were the most significant in predicting a student’s purchase of brand and organic food products, while body mass index, frequency of looking at nutritional facts labels, and living arrangement were not significant.

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Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to knowledge of customers’ buying behaviour toward premium dog food by examining their brand associations and how these are shaped by using Bozita Robur as a case study. Background: Market for dog food has increased heavily during the last decades what made knowledge of underlying driving forces of dog food consumption crucial for dog food producers. Quite peculiar is a phenomenon of purchasing behaviour towards a product purchased but not consumed turning it into a more complex and dynamic object of study. Lack of coherent and conclusive research that offer an understanding of primary behavioural drivers and preferences of Swedish dog food customers makes it a good opportunity to continue investigating the dog food industry. Method: The study is conducted in the form of a single case study. A survey instrument is used to collect data on awareness and to identify behavioural beliefs and subjective norms of consumers, followed by phone interviews that uncover their attitudes towards dog food brands. Lantmännen Doggy’s brand Bozita Robur is used for this purpose. Data collected is further analyzed with the application of consumer behaviour related theories. Findings: The study has found that Swedish customers have built a positive image associated with premium dog food brands, where superior quality is the primary association. On the brand schema level, each of the premium dog food brands investigated holds specific associations in consumer minds, whereas the strength of these associations depends much on brand recognition levels. Bozita Robur, though less familiar among respondents, was found to have a positive brand schema and is associated with Swedishness and high quality. Customers of premium dog food brand actively search for information when making a purchasing decision towards a dog feed brand. In a product, they do value high nutrition content. Dog owners are influenced by various social groups, among which breeders and specialty store staff have the strongest influence when it comes to purchasing advice of the dog food brands.

<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to knowledge of customers’ buying behaviour toward premium dog food by examining their brand associations and how these are shaped by using Bozita Robur as a case study.<strong></strong></p><p><strong>Background:</strong> Market for dog food has increased heavily during the last decades what made knowledge of underlying driving forces of dog food consumption crucial for dog food producers. Quite peculiar is a phenomenon of purchasing behaviour towards a product purchased but not consumed turning it into a more complex and dynamic object of study. Lack of coherent and conclusive research that offer an understanding of primary behavioural drivers and preferences of Swedish dog food customers makes it a good opportunity to continue investigating the dog food industry.</p><p><strong>Method:</strong> The study is conducted in the form of a single case study. A survey instrument is used to collect data on awareness and to identify behavioural beliefs and subjective norms of consumers, followed by phone interviews that uncover their attitudes towards dog food brands. Lantmännen Doggy’s brand Bozita Robur is used for this purpose. Data collected is further analyzed with the application of consumer behaviour related theories.</p><p><strong>Findings: </strong>The study has found that Swedish customers have built a positive image associated with premium dog food brands, where superior quality is the primary association. On the brand schema level, each of the premium dog food brands investigated holds specific associations in consumer minds, whereas the strength of these associations depends much on brand recognition levels. Bozita Robur, though less familiar among respondents, was found to have a positive brand schema and is associated with Swedishness and high quality.</p><p><strong> </strong>Customers of premium dog food brand actively search for information when making a purchasing decision towards a dog feed brand. In a product, they do value high nutrition content. Dog owners are influenced by various social groups, among which breeders and specialty store staff have the strongest influence when it comes to purchasing advice of the dog food brands.</p>

Background: Consumption of sugary drinks (SD) among children is a prevalent public health issue that is exacerbated by the powerful marketing of such beverages to youth. Methods: A secondary analysis of the International Food Policy Survey Youth Wave 2019 was conducted to assess the impact of self-reported exposure to SD marketing within the past 30 days or SD brand advertisements on youth brand preference and brand recall overall, by country, and by age group. Ordinal, multinomial, and binary logistic regression were used to examine these associations. Results: Youth brand preference and recall were positively associated with self-reported exposure to general and brand-specific SD marketing within and across all countries. Both children and adolescents were similarly impacted by SD marketing. Soft drinks, sports drinks, and fruit juice brands were most commonly recalled by youth. Conclusion: Global marketing policies should consider older children and adolescents to adequately protect and support child health.

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This dissertation, Fresh from the Factory: Breakfast Cereal, Natural Food, and the Marketing of Reform, 1890–1920, challenges dominant depictions of industry and environmental activism as adversarial by investigating producers who sought to reform capitalism with a new consumer good. Cereal companies at the end of the nineteenth century became some of the first manufacturers to distribute ready-to-eat food to consumers nationwide. Breakfast cereal’s ubiquitous advertising spoke of the virtues of “natural food” made in some of the country’s most impressive factories. Aimed squarely at women, this advertising preached the virtues of machine-made “natural food” by associating it with nutritional science, religious imagery, and stereotypes about the closeness-to-nature of women and racialized people. Selling a vision in which people could “return to nature” without going anywhere, industrialists persuaded consumers to pursue communion with nature by buying and eating packaged breakfast food. Breakfast cereal manufacturers became some of the world’s largest food processors— and among its most widely-read nature writers, health authorities, and social reformers. Fresh from the Factory follows the production and promotion of cereal as it developed in the early twentieth century. The first chapter tracks the cereal industry’s emergence out of a natural food movement that warmed to mass commerce over the nineteenth century. This movement’s spokespeople claimed to alone know what God, interchangeable with Nature, wanted people to eat. God’s authority proved useful for breakfast cereal producers, too, in branding their goods as “natural.” Subsequent chapters follow breakfast cereal from nature to table. To sell natural food, cereal companies spread new definitions of nature. These depictions rarely included plants or farms, instead emphasizing factories as the source of breakfast food and distribution in packages as the key to its freshness; in company nature writing, it was electric power, machinery, and pasteboard boxes that best mimicked the Garden of Eden. As cereal reached the table, consumers, regulators, and writers embraced, criticized, or even litigated against the product. Men often satirized the expensive grains in garish boxes, but many women found in cereal a more promising cure for sick children and arduous housework than the country retreats then favored by literary nature writers. By the early 1900s, breakfast cereal had become an American staple food, altering the country’s relationship to nature, cities, and the consumer economy. The dissertation ends in the 1920s. By this point, the federal government did more to protect national health, more people bought prepared packaged foods, and vitamins and calories had ascended over religion-infused ideas about nutrition. Still, the breakfast cereal industry’s ideas of nature persisted, and so the dissertation concludes by reflecting on continuing links between reform, business, and nature. I intend for scholars across fields to find this dissertation useful in considering how industry and the environment shape each other and the capacity of capitalism to reform itself.

Despite the negative effect of the global financial crisis the Czech market with organic food is growing rapidly. In the past ten years the consumption of organic food increases as well as its product line. The label bio covers almost every kind of food. There has been also an increase in awareness concerning the organic food and people start asking questions about the origin of the food. Organic food is no more the issue of a narrow group of consumers, but it is going mainstream now. The main goal of this thesis is to analyse the specificities of Czech market with organic food which will help the Jacoby Company to adapt its marketing strategy on Czech market with organic food and beverages. The main tools of the thesis are the research of the purchase behaviour of Czech customers and the research of competitive organic beverages in the main retail chaos in Czech republic.

This thesis deals with brand perception by children, specifically in children's food segment. The aim is to analyse this brand perception by children and confirm or disprove the hypothesis regarding this issue. This thesis is divided into two parts, the first of which deals with the theory and the second verifies this knowledge in practice. The first chapter of the theoretical part is devoted to brand and its role in marketing, the second one deals with strategic brand management and types of particular strategies. In the third chapter marketing segmentation is discussed and the fourth one describes children as a specific market segment, also in relation to brands. The last chapter deals with brand research and its techniques. The practical part includes the research, of which results provide the qualitative knowledge about brand perception by children in this specific category.