Is it possible for the old to resist Pepsi cola?

1

CONTENT

Introduction............................................3

Definition..............................................4

The study...............................................5

Discussions and analysis................................6

Suggestions.............................................9

Conclusion.............................................10

2

Introduction

Since Pepsi Company was founded in 1902, managers in this

company have always endeavored to improve Pepsi cola to

make it adapt to the changing market and then to seize

the market further. They occasionally distribute

questionnaires and make surveys to know about consumers’

psychology as managers attempt to change the production

method and find appropriate advertising ways to satisfy

consumers’ needs (Bowles Jr et al, 1984).

3

However, some surveys still indicate that the sale of

Coca-Cola is larger than that of Pepsi Cola. The factors

resulting in Pepsi Cola only in the second place in the

competition are diverse, however, this article only

explores whether the old group, which accounts for the

majority of population, especially in developed

countries, refuses this kind of soft drink or not and

whether the factor of health indeed plays a crucial role

in the old’ s purchase.

This article has been organized in the following way. The

definitions of consumer, consumer behavior together with

4

health are explained in the first part. In the second

part, an experiment is introduced about who has reading

nutrition labels habit and the findings are also listed.

The third and fourth parts are the extension of the

second one, that is, analysis of the findings and some

reasonable suggestions to the company. Therefore, the

third and fourth parts are the cores of the whole

article. The last part is my conclusion about the whole

article.

Definitions

Some important factors and their effects are analyzed on

5

the basis of explanations of their definitions. Schiffman

(1995) suggested that the term, consumer was always

divided into two different groups, that is, personal

consumer and organizational consumer. However, in this

article, the main focus is personal consumer which is

widely connected with ordinary people’ life. Schiffman

considered that Personal consumer was referred to a kind

of persons who purchased and used products or service for

the sake of their own use or transferring the values to

the other individual persons, for instance, as a present

to their relatives. In this situation, this kind of

6

persons was described as final consumer who tried to

occupy the value of products by alone.

It is also necessary to introduce the concept of consumer

behavior, because only this term, the definition of

consumer cannot analyze factors influencing consumers

exactly. Engel (1995) considered consumer behavior as a

process which involved making decisions and taking

actions for the sake of getting, using and disposal of

new purchases. According to this explanation, researchers

also emphasize on how to consume what consumers acquire

and how to deal with these products after consuming them.

7

This is due to the fact that the methods consumers’

dealing with consuming products and their attitudes to

the products will indicate the degree of consumers’

satisfaction and whether consumers decide to buy the same

goods again, which is beneficial for companies to change

marketing strategies. USA Marketing Association (AMA)

also gave a definition of consumer behavior, that is, the

function of the exchange was based on emotions,

perception, actions and context together with the dynamic

procedure that those factors above influenced each other

(Loudon & Della Bitta, 1988). This definition implies

8

that some reasons may affect consumers’ decisions and

those reasons are changeable and even affect each other,

more importantly, consumer behavior, in effect, is a

process of change.

As Ware Jr says in 1987, the definition of health had two

dimensions: quantity and quality. Quantity referred to

the life span, meaning people have less opportunity of

getting diseases and getting stuck in disorder and live a

healthy and happy life so that people lived a longer

life. However, in the developed countries, there is

merely no difference in life span, the quality is

9

introduced which means the quality of living

circumstance, healthcare and so forth. However, how to

live a health life and to avoid falling ill are people’s

primarily focus.

The study

Some researchers have claimed that health indeed had a

role in affecting consumer behavior. However, it is

necessary to test whether the old resist Pepsi Cola and

whether the factor of health gives rise to the

resistance. An experiment is operated by Ranilovic´

(2006) who selected 1,011 subjects that were all over 15

10

years old randomly by telephone and asked whether they

had nutrition labels reading habits and consulted reasons

why they had tendencies to do this.

After collecting data, analyzing by building models, the

result was that people who were over 55 years old tend to

read nutrition labels on the food packaging, which

accounted for 42% in the total percent. In contrast, the

young below 25 seldom read. Meanwhile, 80% participants

also mentioned their reasons why they read nutrition

labels on the packaging, in summary, there are three main

reasons, namely, curiosity (35%), health counseling (17%)

11

and hope for eating healthier (30%). Interestingly, these

reasons were so strongly related with age that young and

low-educated subjects considered curiosity satisfaction

as their main task while the old and educated

participants tend to choose hope for health diet as the

reason to read nutrition labels.

Discussions and analysis

It is acknowledged that health food and regular exercise

can efficiently prevent chronic diseases from happening,

such as high blood pressure, obesity and so forth.

Nutrition labels is a useful tool to help people to find

12

more healthy food and remove some food junk. Therefore,

nutrition labels is so linked to the pursuit of health

that persons reading nutrition labels are more likely to

live a healthy life than those who do not. It is also

evidenced in some earlier studies (Satia et al., 2005)

that highest educational office lady, students paid

attention to read nutrition labels in order to keep fit

and need a special diet to become healthy. Grossman

(1972) also calculated data via operations and

formulations to find that the investment in health

program was higher with the increase of the age, because

13

of life cycle which is inevitable to make persons grow

old and finally leave them in poor physical conditions.

At the same time, as the bottle of Pepsi cola(No.122978)

says, Pepsi cola contains a great deal of Carbohydrates

and 1g Carbohydrate produces 4cal energy. Therefore, a

bottle of 600ml Pepsi cola totally produces 400cal

energy, which is occupied with three tenths of the basic

need every day. It means drinking Pepsi cola a lot may

causes obesity and then obesity can lead to high blood

pressure and some other chronic diseases which can reduce

the year people live. Another important point is that

14

more Caffeine is involved in Pepsi cola, which can

combine with other elements to convert into a substance

to affect digestion of Calcium which is a crucial element

to reinforce our skeleton (Tahmassebi, 2006). Thus, it is

not extremely suitable for the old and the young to drink

Pepsi Cola. From the point of these arguments, it seems

that people over 55 years old are more likely to resist

Pepsi cola for the sake of health.

Energy Protein

Carbohydrate

OfwhichSugars

Fat OfwhichSaturates

Fibre Sodium/Salt

TypicalvaluesPer100ml

182KJ(43Kcal)

Nil 10.7g 10.6g Nil Nil Trace Nil

Per250ml

445KJ(107Kcal)

Nil 26.5g 26.5g Nil Nil 0.1g Nil

15

Ingredients: Carbonated Water, Sugar, Color (Caramel

E150d), Phosphoric Acid, Flavorings (including Caffeine).

From a packaging of a bottle of Pepsi, No.122978.

However, the result reveals mentioned above that the old

as well as educated persons read nutrition labels in

order to pursue health, which means, due to not accepting

compulsory education, even if the old person is over 55,

he maybe do not emphasize on health lifestyle and then

accept Pepsi cola instead of resisting it. The another

study can help us understand completely.

In Paul and Rana’ study conducted in 2012, by means of

16

distributing structured questionnaires to almost 1000

persons who encountered in the street accidentally, they

exploited whether education was associated with the

willing of purchasing organic food and then analyzed the

data carefully. By comparing with these data and building

mathematics models, they found P value of education was

0.02 which represented there existed a strong link

between buying organic food and education in mathematics.

Furthermore, the result interprets that education is

positively linked to purchase, in other words, the longer

time people study in schools, the more organic food they

17

buy. It also reveals that higher educated persons pay

attention to health and try to balance their nutrition

via a healthy diet. This is due to the fact that they

become literate to read and know what the food packaging

says and search for more information related to health.,

what is the most important that they acquire a great deal

of knowledge about health, understand the importance of

health and develop a habit of willing to understand more

gradually. That is the reason why some companies launch a

short education program to strength potential consumers’

awareness of health and replenish nutrition knowledge

18

which is beneficial for their products promotion.

Suggestions

In conclusion, there are two main groups resisting Pepsi,

namely, the old focusing on health and the old as well as

well - educated persons. In order to attract the first

group successfully, new types of Pepsi cola should be

innovated by Pepsi Company, which do not include

unhealthy components. In past 5 years, managers of Pepsi

Company has already been aware of this trend and then

launched Pepsi Extreme which includes less Carbohydrate.

If managers want to seize market further, they should

19

modify existing products and make these products

healthier.

Aiming to the second group, Pepsi managers can hold a

consumer education program, because the educated persons

have a strong willing to learn new things (LaForge,

1989).During the program, Pepsi managers are advised to

broadcast Pepsi cola’s beneficial aspects of components,

for instance, Caffeine in cola can remove persons”

fatigue and keep brains clear in order to make a

concentration and to think critically. Meanwhile,

20

managers should insist Pepsi cola’s core culture and its

primary target market, that is, the youngsters and the

culture created to attract the youth. Since according to

the definition of consumers, one kind of consumers

purchases products to satisfy other’s needs (Schiffman,

1995), thus, it is interesting to imagine that as the

most popular soft drink among youngsters, it attracts the

elderly to buy Pepsi cola for their grandsons or

granddaughters to delight them, because the elderly

usually have strong desires to live in a happy family and

endeavor to do numerous things to maintain family bonds

21

(LaForge, 1989).

Conclusion

Generally, the old are not addicted to Pepsi cola,

however, by the experiment mentioned above, it clearly

presents that the over 55 years old and educated persons

are more likely to resist to Pepsi cola, because the

majority of them develop a habit of reading nutrition

labels which is strongly related to the health, in the

meantime, Pepsi cola contains many components which are

damaging to health, the educated persons emphasize on

health and they have the capacities of reading and

22

understanding these information.

Some suggestions are proposed for Pepsi Cola Company to

attract the old. The first one is to innovate some new

and healthier types as the focus the old consider is not

the sense of exciting the soft drink offer, but the

healthier diets and the sense of comfort. The second

point is to attract the young continuously in order to

appeal the elderly, because the young usually do not have

the ability to earn money, as long as they eager to

purchase Pepsi Cola, they will demand it from the old. In

this way, can Pepsi cola Company seize market further.

23

REFERENCE

Engel, J. F., Blackwell, R. D. and Minard, P. W. (1995).

Consumer Behavior. New York: the Dryden Press.

Grossman, M. (1972, Mar-Apr). On the Concept of Health

Capital and the Demand for Health. Journal of Political

Economy,Vol. 80, No. 2,, pp. 223-225.

J.A.,Galanko,J.A.and Neuhouser,M.L. (2005). Food

nutrition label use is associated with demographic,

24

behavioural and psychosocial factors and dietary

intake among African Americans in North Carolina.

Journal of the American Dietetic Association,Vol.105 No.3, pp. 392-

403.

Jasmina Ranilovic ， Irena Colic´ Baric. (2011). Difference

between younger and older populations in nutrition.

British Food Journal,Vol.113(1), pp. 109-121.

Jr, J. E. (1987). Standards for validating health

measures: Definition and content. Journal of Chronic

Diseases,Vol,40,Issue,6, pp. 473-480.

Justin Paul,Jyoti Rana. (2012). Consumer behavior and

purchase intention for organic food. Journal of Consumer

Marketing,Vol,29,No.6, pp. 412-422.

JW Bowles Jr, NH Pronko. (1948). Identification of Cola

beverages: II. A further study. Journal of Applied

Psychology.

LaForge, M. (1989). learned helplessness as an

explanation of elderly consumer complaint behavior.

Journal of Business Ethics,Vol.8,, pp. 359-366.

Loudon, D.L. , Della Bitta, A.J. (1988). Consumer

behavior : concepts and applications. McGraw-Hill series

in marketing.

25

Satia,J.A.,Galanko,J.A.,Neuhouser,M.L. (2005). Food

nutrition label use is associated with

demographic,behavioural and psychosocial factors and

dietary intake among African Americans in North

Carolina. Journal of the American Dietetic

Association,Vol.105,No.3, pp. 392-403.

Schiffman, L. G. and Kanuk, L. L. (1995). Consumer Behavior.

New York: Prentice Hall.

Tahmassebi, J. (2006, Jan). Soft drinks and dental

health: A review of the current literature. Journal of

Dentistry,Volume 34, Issue 1, pp. 2-11.

26