THE INCIDENCE OF BRAND LOYALTY AMONG CONSUMERS OF CEREAL FOODS

THE INCIDENCE OF BRAND LOYALTY AMONG CONSUMERS OF CEREAL FOODS
 
ABSTRACT
This research was concerned with the incident of Brand loyalty among the consumer of cereal foods in Enugu metropolis, using Phinomar Foods in Enugu as case study. Given the background of the problems the study sought to know the existence and extent of brand loyalty among consumers of cereal foods, to determine the influence of prices of the products on brand loyalty, whether consumers perception of the attributes of the cereal foods influence brand loyalty for particular brands and such attributes includes thing as taste, Milk content sugar content dissolvability and nutritional value and finally to ascertain the extent company image and brand name influence brand loyalty. All the same, this study was restricted to six popular brands namely; Cornflakes, Golden morn Soy pops, Cocopops, White oat and Fruit Fiber. Further, among the objectives and significance of study was to investigate the existence of brands loyalty among consumers of cereal foods and to find possible solutions to the problems identified. This work was accomplished through the use of questionnaire oral interview, revision of previous work by different authors and the use of Top man’s formula to determine the sample size (288) and analyzed the findings by the use of Z-test method. At the end of the work, it was discovered that consumers are to a reasonable extent loyal to particular brand, price, quality, products attributes, company’s brand name and image exert a significant influence on the loyalty of consumers. Also, consumers have basic expectations in their favorite brands and are not naïve as advertisers would want us to believe. The orders of importance of the attributes to consumers are as follows: Nutritional value, Milk content, Taste Dissolvability and Sugar content. Based on the findings it was recommended that companies should focus on product quality and integrated marketing communication (IMC) on popular already existing brand names in the market. This will help sustainability of consumers’ loyalty.