Preference determinants for soft drinks brands: An empirical study of Karachi market through mall intercepts method

Abstract

Since competition is getting intense in all consumable products in Pakistan, physical attributes of products now lack sustainability because they can be copied easily. What the firms now require is to create differentiation not only on physical attributes rather it should touch the psychology of the customers. We investigate the effects of psychological factors like customers’ nostalgic attachment, advertisements, quality and prices on consumer preferences of soft drinks brands. Data has been collected from 300 respondents at five shopping malls of Karachi through mall intercept method. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the developed model. The testing was done in two stages. Firstly, CFA of all the variables including the dependent variable consumer brand preference was tested individually and then CFA for overall model was tested. The results indicated that the overall model was significant. The results indicated that price was a significant predictor for consumer brand preference, followed by nostalgic attachment, quality and advertisements.