Awareness and associations

1- Explanation of the study and its objective

At a consumer based level, there is two core parameters that help to cultivate the brand equity : Brand awreness and brand associations. In fact Customer-based brand equity is defined as « The differential effect that brand knowledge has on consumer response to the marketing of that brand” (Keller, 1993).

With the aim to analyze the awareness and associations that Pringles and Lays generates in the crisps market, we (as editors of this blog) did a survey based on 100 answers of different persons from different backgrouds and culture and responding to different ages criteria (children, young and adults).

•    Definition of the population (Total = 100)

Asian	European	American and Canadian	African
20	30	25	25

From 12 to 18 YO	From 19 to 35 YO	From 36 to 50 YO
30	40	30

As shown in the tables above, the population is very mixed as crisps consumers are and in order to have a general point of view.

2 - Results

a-    Awareness

A high brand awareness about a product suggests that the brand is easily recognizable and accepted by the market in a way that the brand is differentiated from similar products and other competitors. Brand building also helps in improving brand loyalty, that explains the famous “Loyalty Beyond Reason”.

Top of mind Awareness
Among the 100 people, Lay’s is cited first by 45 people and Pringles is cited first by 35 people. 

Assisted Awareness
When we ask people with a list of crisps brands, and ask them if they recognize Pringles brand, 100% say yes, whatever the age, gender, and origin. Concerning Lay’s, 90% say no: the 10 people that do not recognize Lay’s are adults of 40-50 years old, 7 of them are from Africa (Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Senegal) and 3 others are from China.

Qualified awareness

• Pringles: When we asked people about products of this brand they know, 60% were able to cite the majority of the products of the brand. The majority was aged from 12 to 18 YO (20%) and young people from 19 to 35 YO (30%) – all origins included.

• Lay’s: When we asked people about products of this brand they know, 75% shown were able to cite the majority of the products of the brand. The majority were young people from 19 to 35 YO (38%); in fact 95% of young people were aware about it – all origins included.

The population aged from 12 to 18 YO seems to be more aware about Pringle’s product. However, adults seem to be more aware about Lay’s products.

b- Associations

Pringles
When we asked people about what the first three words that come to them when they think “Pringles”, the most frequented words are: “crunchy”, “party”, and “good packaging”. Something that retain our intention is that the “sour, cream & onion” combination was cited many times when the brand Pringle’s is mentioned, meaning that is the taste that has the most success at the extend to be an identification aspect of the brand!!

Lay's
When we asked people about what the first three words that come to them when they think “Lays”, the most frequented words are: “Tasty and delicious”, “quality”, “original”. The world Italian came back many time also meaning that Lays make people think about Italian tastes, the country that is the most famous about culinary delights: positive association!

3 - Recommendations

Pringle’s
Pringle’s Strengths: The brand for cool people that are looking for fun

-    The Packaging with Mr. Pringle’s as Mascot brings to the brand a good awareness.
-    The taste “sour, cream & onion” is the most famous, people seem to love it !
-    Pringle’s seems to attract “cool” people that love party and that are aged from 12 to 35 YO

Pringles has to play with its strengths using more the mascot, it can for example create a gamification using this brand’s mascot, that can attract this category of age and these people looking for “Fun”, these are cleary the main target that has to be retained.

Also, given the success of the “sour, cream & onion” taste, Pringle’s can use that for promotions, offering this taste at 50% for example if other taste are bought, in order to encourage people to discover the other taste (or the inverse, for each “sour, cream & onion” taste bought, another will be offered at 50ù of the original price!). That will not only make other taste bought bu it will also help to increase the volume of purchases.

Lay’s
Lay’s Strengths: The brand for People that want differentiation; that are looking for tase, innovation, and leisure.

-    Quality
-    Delicious
-    Original

Lay’s is considered more as a premium brand (comparing to its competitors and particularly Pringle’s), Lay’s is known as a brand that offer quality, new and delicious tastes. It’s for people that are looking for leisure.

Lay’s should take advantage from this positioning, targeting people from high social class, young and adult people. Its Key factors of success are quality and taste, it should insist on it and work for original taste coming from different combination and different culture “a potato that will make people travel the world”. It has to insist on the Italian and authentic aspect. It could be also interesting to create a new package, more original and diffrent, and more “luxuously authentic”. Also, given the category of people attracted by Lay’s, people that are looking for quality, it can be interested to innovate in ecological products, and invest and communicate on the natural aspect.

Sara ADLOUNI HASSANI