Análise comparativa dos reforços informativos e utilitários no comportamento do consumidor em relação a marcas próprias e marcas de fabricantes

Abstract

The supermarket chains have great representation in the Brazilian economy, maintaining considerable growth rates and for the increase of sales, the trade of the own brands was visualized. The general objective of this research was to analyze the influence of informational and utilitarian reinforcements on the consumer behavior of routine products of own brands versus manufacturers’ brands with application of the theoretical model Behavioral Perspective Model (BPM). Three studies were performed, one descriptiveexploratory and two experimental. In Study 1, consumers from six shopping malls in Goiânia answered a questionnaire to measure informational reinforcements on own brands and manufacturers' brands based on the MKQ and compare the behavior of consumers in the two sponsorships in three products (degreaser, lasagne and cookies). In Study 2, forty students, from three Stricto Sensu graduate courses at two universities, who are responsible for routine grocery shopping tasted pieces of chocolate vanilla cookies from own brands and manufacturers' brands to evaluate them for taste, texture and quality and to measure their evaluations in relation to the utilitarian reinforcements of the brands in the blind tests and to analyze, in the process of consumer decision, the influence of utilitarian and informational reinforcements in the revealed brands test. In Study 3, forty students from three undergraduate courses (Psychology, Speech and Audiology and Aeronautical Sciences) of a university participated in an experimental task through an applicative that allowed to measure the equivalence value of the own brands and other manufacturers’ brands of minor MKQ in comparison to the products of a brand of high-priced and informational reinforcement level (MKQ) to analyze the correlation level of the manufacturer's brand MKQ and the MKQs of the other brands, in addition to assessing the level of prediction of the relative MKQs on the values of equivalence. The results of Study 1 indicated that the brands with the highest level of knowledge and quality were the manufacturers’ brands, reflecting consumers' willingness to consume products from manufacturers’ brands rather than from own label products. Study 2 revealed that in the revealed brands test the manufacturers’ brand, with the highest level of informational reinforcements presented the highest quality, taste and texture averages, and also showed a low discriminative control of stimuli for the own brands. The blind test did not show significant differences between the manufacturers’ brand and own brands, indicating that the brands have similar utilitarian reinforcements, indicating that they can be easily replaced among themselves in functional terms. In Study 3 it was found that relative prices and relative MKQs of cookies, degreasers and lasagnas were related to a small group of participants, with relative prices increasing systematically with increase in MKQs. For the other participants, there were non-systematic variations or constant relative prices for different relative MKQs. The present data can provide subsidies for brand positioning and to indicate to consumers the gains from controlling for functional properties of the products.