post melamine consumer research - for cameron
TRANSCRIPT
Post Melamine Consumer Research In Application of Marketing Communication Strategy Development
For Cameron Pale & Medina (Pvt) Ltd.
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Content Executive Summary 02 Introduction 03 Methodology 06 The Findings 09
Degree of Awareness 09 The Response 12 Brands Involvement & Clearance 16
Conclusions & Recommendations 17 Appendix 19
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exeCutive Summary
This research is a result of an academic activity by Marketing Undergraduates at University of Kelaniya
as a requirement for the end semester exam in Marketing Research subject and in order to gaining
knowledge and experiences in the field. Thus the research activity is not directly involves and not
responsible with Cameron Pale & Medina or CBL except the basic guidance and ideas obtained for
academic purposes.
This research is about Post Melamine Consumer Perception towards the market specially relating to
CBL products and with the focus of developing future communications strategies for building long-term
loyalty in brands in clearance with Melamine involvement.
The research has conducted in two phases as discovering factors on consumers through a questionnaire
and validating the results through shop owners by interviews. This research is covering only 200 heads as
a random sample taken in Colombo and Gampaha areas.
We’ve divided the findings as Degree of Awareness, The Response and Brand Involvement & Clearance
on Melamine with the relationships considering degree of awareness, consumer involvement, nature of
responses and measuring success of past campaigns. For the summarized findings and conclusions &
recommendations please refer The Findings section in this document from 9th page onwards.
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introduCtion As for the requirement of a Research Project for our final exam in Marketing Research, our team was
thinking to do something different and interesting on an ongoing marketing issue. In this case, we
thought in selecting either some issue related with media industry or advertising. As a result, we were
able to contact Cameron Pale & Medina, a Sri Lankan Advertising Agency through Mr. Gayan
Jayasekaraarachchi who is a graduate of our department working as a Client Account Executive at
Cameron.
With the discussion and guidance we had with Mrs. Sharnez Abeyawardene and Mr. Gayan
Jayasekaraarachchi, we decided to do a research on Melamine issue related with CBL products and
general milk product category in focus to gather information for Developing Marketing Communication
Strategies for CBL as Cameron is the agency handling CBL marketing communication campaigns.
This document is organized mainly in two parts, the first section is containing information on a
descriptive way about this research and the second part of this document includes the research findings
in a summarized manner.
The Melamine Issue
Melamine is a chemical used in plastic related productions that is partially not healthy for human bodies.
When it insert into human bodies through foods, if it is a considerable amount, it won’t digest and
stored inside kidneys and after results in kidney related problems.
The source of melamine is from Chinese milk products. This was detected sometimes back and became a
major issue after increased incidents with child health issues especially in China and other Asian
countries. Further it became very serious matter after discovering that product produced from Chinese
milk products is likely to contain melamine.
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The Melamine Issue in Sri Lanka
Melamine issue made a big impact on food market in Asia. Similarly it affects Sri Lankan consumer
market in a big way. Most highly performing top food brands faced in this issue and still some are
struggling to find answers. There are number of aspects going on like legal and ethical consideration &
standards related with Melamine integration and the most important thing is the fact of losing their
loyalty in consumers where the brands that built for years in reputation.
What makes the situation worst in marketing terms is the beginning of testing operations by consumer
authorities on Sri Lankan food products. The problem got even worst when the start of sudden huge
publication in Melamine through Sri Lankan mass media. This scenario created huge consumer unrest in
milk related all food products and due to various reasons and strategies some products involved more and
some luckily involved in less with Melamine.
Especially the Biscuits and Chocolate industry is the most affected sector due to Melamine problem and
other milk related products like Milk Powder did not engaged very much. Even in the Biscuits and
Chocolate industry, only few top brands involved more and others did not highlighted in the scene. For
example, there was a huge discussion on Enda while Kandos stayed very silent in this issue.
After all, the melamine issue more or less became a buzz handling issue than really a health issue because
of the uncontrollable publicity created that was hugely affected in loyal brands negatively in marketing
view point. After the initial stages, it discovered that the food product may contain Melamine up to
some level and it is not an issue if it’s under the safety level. But the massive destruction created in
consumers mind resulted in losing loyalty and trustworthiness for brands suddenly.
The Melamine Issue on CBL
CBL is among the most exposed food brand into Melamine issue in Sri Lanka. As a top performing
brand especially in biscuit industry, in the initial stage, there were many buzzes going on relating to CBL
along with other companies. But with the quick response with the huge campaign and public relation
strategies, it’s not wrong to say that CBL took the advantage of Melamine problem.
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Being one of the first companies which started their communication campaign stating non-integration of
Melamine into their products, it can be seen that CBL has managed to almost completely wipeout the
doubt situation with their brand in consumers mind. In this case, the quick response of CBL while other
competitive brands like Maliban remains silence; it resulted in an advantage towards CBL.
The Future Strategy in Melamine Issue on CBL
Even it is seen that CBL overall success in handling Melamine issue towards their brand, since this is a
matter of brand loyalty which is supposed to be a long term factor, further CBL has to fine tune its
strategies on this matter. For this case, CBL is looking into decisions like whether to continue the current
campaign or stop, if continue, what are the changes should be.
In developing future communication strategies on Melamine issue, CBL is looking for responses to their
campaign in a mass scale. In the process, this small research is done to capture a basic idea in consumers
to get a direction in developing a mass scale study.
In this research, we’ve focused on especially 3 key areas as Degree of Awareness, The Response and
Brand Clearance Status on consumers mind regarding Melamine, thus it explains a basic direction as
“What has happened?” in developing a mass scale study.
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methodology
As our major objective is to assess whether to continue or discontinue the current campaign and evaluate
the degree in to which they overcome this issue by formulating and implementing various contingence
agreements through various sources.
We found out that the management has concerns, due to
• Uncontrollability of mass medias and specially word of mouth spread
• Re establishing trust of our customers
• Long term loyalty development
• Do continuing or discontinue the campaign by ensuring its successfulness
Here the companies’ intension is to go with the assistances of large research study and our study would
expect to cater them an approach towards problem by identifying reasonable understanding.
Method of data collection
We selected to use, questionnaire for collecting fresh data for our research. So we ensure to give a higher
priority of collecting qualitative aspect of data which allow us to collect valuable insight of our
customers.
When preparing the questionnaire. We mainly consider about its validity to arise customer true feeling
or real life experience about melamine. So it’s developed by giving a greater priority to designing the
questionnaire. So all the factors have been taken in to consideration to arise the customer’s response with
a minimum or zero level of confusion.
Geo-demographic factors of the sample
We have selected a sample size of 150 general public and 50 retailers who lived around Gampaha and
Colombo. Mainly the focus is given to general public who made up their own consumption related
decisions and 50 of retailers are used to validate information through conducting face to face interviews.
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We believe that the dealers would have a greater experience on this issue. Because he is a critical own
evaluation and who represent the buyer role in purchasing FMCG products mainly such as milk powder.
Other 150 people or general public are also considered as a key to generating relevant information
specially when its compare to other regions in Sri Lanka. People who are living around the western area
has a good general educational background and a range of resourceful in terms of new technology,
infrastructure, technical assistance in many field and also the consumption pattern of them is consider as
a key determinant of why we select them. Whereas majority of sales were taken place in the western
province and therefore we could identified that it is the most suitable geographical coverage are to
conduct a directional study.
So general education of those selected segment is taken in to consideration where their ability of
understanding something, knowledge, intelligence are based on it.
Here the questionnaire has been developed in line with to achieve each of these objectives formulated on
our research. Here the enough care has been taken in order to ensure that all the aspects being covered.
Following you could see the intensions of why we select each of these questions and rational behind such
a selection, as follows;
The Structure of the Questionnaire
Mainly, there are 3 parts in the questionnaire as Degree of Awareness, Response and Brand Involvement
& Clearance in Melamine. Please see the appendix section at end of this document to refer the sample
questionnaire.
Degree of Awareness
This section of the questionnaire is to determine the degree of awareness in Melamine as it explains the
customer involvement in the issue and his or her exposure to the environment. As its collecting data
about Awareness, Source of Awareness, How it affect, in what products, Cause of Melamine through 1-5
questions. Here we’ve included falls answers also possible logical relationships that the consumers would
create in measuring the degree of awareness.
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The Response
The 6th and 8th question of the questionnaire focuses on the response resulted in consumer due to
Melamine issue. This question gives facilitate to understand the relativity between Degree of Awareness
and Response in consumers mind.
Brand Involvement & Clearance
As for the last part in the questionnaire, the 7-10 questions facilitate to extract the consumer’s idea about
the brand and its clearance on Melamine issues. By referring the responses here, can get a better
understanding of the success and failure of communication campaign especially in CBL and
development of communications strategies accordingly.
After by analysis all the possible relationships among the 3 main areas of the questionnaire, it can be
generate a good understanding about the post Melamine perception in consumers and future
communication strategies to be shaped accordingly. Since this is a pre-study, the information collected
through this can be use to direct the final mass scale study in deciding about the post melamine
communication campaign.
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the FindingS
Degree of Awareness
1. Sources of awareness
2. How it affect?
Our 3rd question is how melamine affects to the human body. But our idea is if someone says it is affect
as kidneys damage; he has a good knowledge about melamine. People who say it a poison; he has an
average knowledge about melamine and if someone says, it is affect as an inconsiderable or infertility; he
has a poor knowledge about melamine. According to our survey, we found
• 70% of customers said, melamine mainly affect to the kidney damage.
• 31% customers said melamine affect as a poison. Therefore they have average knowledge about
the melamine.
• 7% of customers said melamine affect as an inconsiderable or infertility. Therefore they have
poor knowledge about the melamine.
• 16% of customers have no any idea about the affect of the melamine.
Newspapers33%
TV & Radio37%
Word of Mouth20%
Posters8%
Other2%
Newspapers
TV & Radio
Word of Mouth
Posters
Other
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3. Which products consists Melamine?
Here we concern about how customer awareness of product. If someone says all these products (biscuits,
milk powder, chocolate, and cheese) consist melamine, they have a better knowledge. If someone says,
whatever these three products consist melamine, they have good knowledge about the melamine. People
who say; whatever two products have melamine, he has an average knowledge about the melamine. If
someone says, whatever one product has melamine, he has a lack of knowledge about the melamine. In
term of our survey we found,
• 21% of customers said all these products have melamine. So they have a very good knowledge.
• 44% of customers said three products have melamine. So they have a good knowledge about
melamine.
• 16% of customers said two products have melamine. Therefore they have an average knowledge
regarding the melamine.
• 18% of customers said whatever these one product has melamine. So they have a poor knowledge
regarding melamine.
• 1% of customer said these all products are not having melamine.
Good knowledge46%
Average knowledge31%
Poor knowledge7%
No Idea16%
Good knowledge
Average knowledge
Poor knowledge
No Idea
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4. How Melamine added to those products?
Through Our 5th question we find customers knowledge about how melamine added to those products.
If someone says melamine added through the Chinese milk, they have a better knowledge. People who
say, it is through a chemical leak, they have a average knowledge about melamine. If someone says it
happened through an old stock or through water, they have a lack of knowledge about the melamine
issue. Here we found,
• 69% of customers said melamine added through Chinese milk. So they have a very good
knowledge.
• 18% of customers are said melamine added through chemical leak. Therefore they have an
average knowledge regarding melamine.
• 13% of customers said melamine added through water and through old stocks. So they have a
lack of knowledge regarding melamine.
Very good knowledge
20%
Good knowledge43%
Avarage knowledge17%
Poor knowledge19%
No idea1%
Very good knowledge
Good knowledge
Avarage knowledge
Poor knowledge
No idea
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The Response
1. Did they add purposely?
In Here our research idea is how awareness relates to brands. If people who say businesses added
melamine purposely, they have a bad image about the brand due to melamine. And also, if they say
businesses not added melamine purposely, they have not a bad image towards the brand.
• 64% of people say they did not add purposely.
Very Good Knowledge vs. Purpose
• 29% of people say they added melamine purposely.
• 7% of people have no idea about that.
Good knowledge68%
Avarage knowledge19%
Poor knowledge13%
Good knowledge
Avarage knowledge
Poor knowledge
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• 55% of people say they did not add melamine purposely.
Average Knowledge vs. Purpose
• 31% of people say they added melamine purposely.
• 14% of people have no idea about that.
• 53% of people say they did not add melamine purposely.
Poor Knowledge vs. Purpose
• 28% of people say they added melamine purposely.
• 19% of people have no idea about that.
Yes29%
No64%
No idea7%
Yes
No
No idea
Yes31%
No54%
No idea15%
Yes
No
No idea
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2. Consumption Change
No: of respondents who believe, products
contain Melamine.
No: of respondents change
consumption.
% of consumption change.
Biscuits 74 36 49%
Milk Powder 79 44 56%
Chocolates 75 55 73%
Cheese 24 7 29%
This table clarifies Percentage change in consumption to the respondents’ knowledge on whether
product carries Melamine. Generally this shows significant consumption change to the customer belief.
It is further explain the correlation between above 2 is amounted approximately 9.3 which shows very
strong positive relationship.
As our objective focus on Biscuits, it shows 49% of change in consumption to their belief of those
contains Melamine. As it is a considerable change it directly relates to our requirement because it gives
the idea of message of “Recovered” to be focused on how big customer base.
This will give a hint on suitable advertising media to be used to reach those customers. Simply if it is a
big proportion Above the Line (mass media) tools can be used and if it is a small proportion of known
people Below the Line tools (focused tools-Leaflets, posters) can be used.
Yes28%
No53%
No idea19%
Yes
No
No idea
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Here majority of respondents, which means 38% have stopped or changed chocolate consumption.
When we were having some discussions with those people, we could understand that the reason for
stopping or changing the chocolate consumption is, banding Edna Company. Through media they got
to know that and as soon as they heard that news, they stopped or changed the consumption. The
second place goes to milk powder. That means 31% of respondents have changed or stopped the milk
powder consumption.
Degree of Awareness vs. Consumption Changes
According to our research findings, we have identified that 98% of people are aware of the Melamine
issue. But our problem was, we wanted to know that, whether those people are really know the issue or
not. In that context we could identify that, out of that much of 98%, only 1% of people have stopped or
changed the consumption. That shows us the people who are aware of Melamine issue, are really know
the exact situation. This is the same case regarding the shop owners too. Following pie chart will show in
which products, consumers changed or stopped the consumption more or less.
Biscuit25%
Chocalate38%
Milk powder31%
Cheese5%
Not changed1%
Biscuit
Chocalate
Milk powder
Cheese
Not changed
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Brands Involvement and Clearance
According to respondents view, knowledge and awareness, they come to different conclusions. Based on
their knowledge and awareness, different people think of different companies’ products which contain
Melamine. According to their views, this is how they think which companies’ products contain
Melamine.
Through media publications, people were awarded much about Melamine. With announcing the news
of banding Edna Company, they got to know that Edna Company’s products consists Melamine. That is
reason for such a situation. People guess Munchee products contain Melamine after Edna. Then a
considerable amount of people think that Anchor also consist Melamine. Rest low percentages of people
think that other products like Highland, Maliban, Kandos, Elephant House and Raththi contain
Melamine.
Clearance
As far as the recovery actions are concerned, the results are somewhat changed. In this context, Munchee
is at the front. According to majority of respondents’ view which means 38%, think that Munchee has
taken reasonable steps to recover their bad situation. With regards to the recovery actions, Edna
Company has got the second place. That means, people think that, more than Edna, Munchee has
recovered their bad situation. Around 4% of respondents are having no any idea regarding the recovery
actions taken by companies.
Munchee27%
Maliban7%
Kandos5%
Edna47%
Raththi5%
Anchor9%
Munchee
Maliban
Kandos
Edna
Raththi
Anchor
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ConCluSionS & reCommendationS
After going through the analysis data and the information gathered through interviewing shop owners, it
seems that the general idea matches the research findings as this is a pre-study which focused on a very
small sample size comparing to the related mass population. We found out these following factors which
is more considerable in getting an approach to a mass scale study.
1. Credibility of medium
This is very important, because handling Melamine issue is not about advertising, it’s about public
relations. In public relations, the credibility, trustworthiness feeling towards the message source is very
important. According to the findings, 37% of the sample has got aware about Melamine through TV &
Radio, 33% through Newspapers and more importantly 20% through word of mouth.
But in recovering the bad perception in consumers, it is good to select most credible sources like Worth
of Mouth and Newspapers. Specially, as this is a highly involving subject, story type word of mouth
campaign would play a considerable role in shaping consumers mind.
2. High Involvement Vs. Low Involvement
Here we noticed that, some people needs assurance feeling while some people needs specifications
through logical reasoning in clearing their minds about Melamine involvement in brands. As for the
findings, 64% of the sample who has a good knowledge and high involvement in Melamine issue saying
that companies added Melamine purposely while 53% of the sample who has a average or poor
knowledge saying companies did not add Melamine purposely.
This is a considerable factor in designing communication strategies that there are two kinds of people has
to be cover. As above, the low involvement people needs assured feeling in consuming the product and
the high involvement people needs technical specifications through logical reasoning in clearing the
brand in their mind.
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3. Generalizing the problem
As Melamine affected to entire milk related products, generalizing the problem is also a good strategy
that can be done collaboratively with all brand owners. By collaborating all major players in the market,
the credibility of the message is very high, thus best results in public relations.
In another way, since it is common to all, ignoring the issue also could be a good strategy because may be
trying to communicate would create unwanted awareness towards the problem. As an example, only 5%
of the sample thinks Kandos would have Melamine while 27% believes Munchee has Melamine and
47% believe Edna has.
4. Future Strategies
As we understands, most of respondent in our sample believes that Munchee has cleared them self in
Melamine. But since this research is conducted within a very small sample in a very specific area that
people would have more exposure towards the active environment, in designing future strategies, we
recommend that going for a mass scale study is a better option with the focus of long term loyalty
development towards CBL.
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Customer Survey on Melamine Issue Department of Marketing management
University of Kelaniya
1. Do you know Melamine? Yes No
2. How could you know? Newspaper TV and radio
People Posters
Other: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………
3. How it affect? Poison Kidneys damage
Inconsiderable Infertility
Other: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………
4. What kind of product consist Melamine? Biscuits Milk powder
Chocolate Cheese
Other: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………
5. How Melamine is added to those products? Chinese milk Old stocks
Chemical leak Through Water
Other: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………
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6. In what kind of products you change the consumption due to the Melamine problem? Biscuit Chocolate
Milk powder Cheese
How did you change: …………………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………………
7. In what company`s products consist Melamine? Munchee Highland
Maliban Kandos
Edna Elephant House
Raththi Anchor
Other: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………
8. Did they add Melamine purposely? Yes No
9. What products have already been solved this issue? Manchee Highland
Maliban Kandos
Edna Elephant House
Raththi Anchor
Other: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………
10. How could you believe that? …………………………………………………………………………………………………….……….………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………………………