CONTENTS

Executive Summary .......................................................................................................................................................3 Industry Background......................................................................................................................................................4 Product Background: ACI pure salt ................................................................................................................................4 Objectives ......................................................................................................................................................................5 Broad Objective .....................................................................................................................................................5 Specific Objectives .................................................................................................................................................5 Scope .............................................................................................................................................................................5 Methodology .................................................................................................................................................................5 Primary Sources .....................................................................................................................................................5 Secondary Sources .................................................................................................................................................6 Limitations .....................................................................................................................................................................6 Target Market ................................................................................................................................................................6 Cultural Factors..............................................................................................................................................................6 Gender Factors ..............................................................................................................................................................6 Consumers Perception ..................................................................................................................................................7 Exposure: Deliberate .............................................................................................................................................7 Attention: Low Involvement ..................................................................................................................................7 Interpretation: Cognitive .......................................................................................................................................7 Memory: Schematic .......................................................................................................................................................7 Short Term memory ..............................................................................................................................................7 Positive Perception ................................................................................................................................................8 Negative Perception ..............................................................................................................................................8 Learning .........................................................................................................................................................................8 Group Influence .............................................................................................................................................................9 How branding helps on buying behavior .......................................................................................................................9 Branding of ACI pure salt .......................................................................................................................................9 Branding of Necessity Products .............................................................................................................................9 Positioning of Necessity Goods ...........................................................................................................................10 Branding as Iodized Salt .....................................................................................................................................10

Branding as Vacuum Evaporated Salt ................................................................................................................10 How Branding Beats Competition for ACI pure salt.............................................................................................10 How ACI pure salt Measures Brand Performance ...............................................................................................11 Current Shelf Coverage and Current Sales ..........................................................................................................11 Long Term Brand Vision .......................................................................................................................................12 Bridge between Consumers Needs and Product Benefits ..........................................................................................12 Motives for Choosing ACI Pure salt .............................................................................................................................12 Situational Influence ....................................................................................................................................................12 Temporal Perspective ..........................................................................................................................................12 Task Definition .....................................................................................................................................................12 Ritual Situations ...................................................................................................................................................13 Emotional Appeal ........................................................................................................................................................13 ACI Pure Salt as a Lifestyle Brand ................................................................................................................................13 What advertising and promotional programs can positively influence consumer behavior Error! defined. Bookmark not

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

INDUSTRY BACKGROUND
A daily commodity salt produced in Bangladesh mainly by a process of drying up seawater by solar heat, although the lixiviation technology is also in use to manufacture about 5% of the production. Salt was manufactured in Bengal as an indigenous product along a line of seacoast extending from Cuttock to Chittagong. The Malangies were the primary producers of salt from the seawater. The salt producing areas were in coastal belt of CHITTAGONG, NOAKHALI, BARISAL and KHULNA districts and the offshore lands. Production fluctuated from year to year due to natural calamities, variations in rainfall and changes in the terms of land lease. After liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, the Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation took up the task of developing the industry. It launched a Tk 13 million project supplemented by a subsequent UNICEF assisted Tk 22.6 million program. The salt production, however, never reached the pre-independence level and was only 696 tons in 1994 necessitating the import of 328 tons. Of the total available quantity of 1,023 tons, 666 tons was for household consumption and the remaining was for industrial purposes, mostly in TANNERY. (Habibullah) At present yearly salt consumption is more than 1.4 million tons according to the BSCIC (Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation) data but the actual demand is around 1.8 million tons including food and industrial purposes. Some 1.16 million tons of salt were produced until May 18, 2012 at the season end while the target of production was 1.450 million tons for the fiscal year (2011-12), according to the BSCIC. (Moni, 2012). From the preliminary reports of the Bangladesh National Nutrient Survey 2012, 57.6% of households are consuming adequately iodized salt (15 ppm), 80.3% of households ore consuming salt with some iodine (5 ppm) and 75.8% of the households are consuming packet salt. Currently most prominent salt brands are: ACI pure salt Fresh Salt Molla salt Teer Salt Meghna Salt Confidence Salt

PRODUCT BACKGROUND: ACI PURE SALT

In this report we are going to work with ACI pure salt from ACI limited. ACI pure salt was launched in August 2005 and marketed and distributed by ACI consumer brands and its network. ACI has set up its salt refining plant in Rupganj, on the banks of the Shitalakhya River. The plant produces refined iodized salt through Thermal Evaporation System. ACI has used technology from China Heavy Machineries Corporation (CHMC) in establishing the plant. The end product will be high quality, free flowing salt with even, crystallized grains. The iodine content of ACI pure salt will have a stability of more than 6 months. The project had been undertaken at a cost of approximately taka 32 crores. Within a very short period it has been enjoying the pride of being the leading brand. The best in its kind, ACI pure salt is vacuum evaporated, free-flowing and properly iodized. It is also very porous and free flowing. Iodine is coated in every single grain which makes it an essential product for the children. The absence of right

quantity of iodine in their food may cause mental disability to them. ACI pure salt has won the BEST BRAND OF BANGLADESH AWARD 2008 for unparalleled customer loyalty beating all the brands in Foods and Beverages category.

OBJECTIVES
Keeping in mind the instructions for this report, we have formulated the following two types of objectives:

BROAD O BJECTIVE
To understand consumer behavior of Bangladeshi consumers of the edible salt brand ACI pure salt Limited and to create a clear picture of the how this understanding is implemented in the market.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
To gain an understanding of the industry, company and product To understand the target market along with their social, cultural, psychographic and other features To evaluate customers perception of the ACI pure salt brand To understand the process by which ACI pure salt beats competition To understand how the brand fits into the lifestyle and self-concept of its consumers To see how the understanding of consumer behavior is implemented in branding through advertising and promotion To see how such branding results in positive performance and market leadership

SCOPE
The report will present an assessment of how the consumers of ACI pure salt respond to various advertising and promotion endeavors of the brand. It gives a brief needs assessment of the consumers of salt, a succinct overview of factors affecting consumers of all salt brands. The report also digs into the competition among the salt brands and the unique positioning of ACI pure salt in order to beat the market. The report will mainly be based on our interviews with industry specialists and will also contain some secondary research.

METHODOLOGY
The information used in this report were collected from both primary and secondary sources.

PRIMARY SOURCES
The primary research information was collected from our visit and subsequent interview with Mr. Quamrul Hasan who is a brand manager of ACI pure salt Limited. We also conducted a telephone interview with Mr. Rubayet Chowdhury who is a Business Manager for Teer Salt in order to gain a better perspective of the industry as well as of the competition. We conducted a small survey on people in the Aambagan area of Dhaka city among heterogeneous consumers. We conducted an online survey in which we got 88 respondents. The questionnaire is attached in the appendix section.

SECONDARY SOURCES
The secondary sources included various websites on the internet, our text book, and research journals available on the internet. It includes previous cases, newspaper articles and reports as well. The secondary research laid the foundation for us to have a knowledge base strong enough to go into primary research.

LIMITATIONS
There were several limitations that hindered the smooth completion and effectiveness of the final report: The company being very specific, there was hardly any secondary information available Lack of previous knowledge about the salt industry Limited amount of time available for the completion of report Busy schedule of interview able executives Lack of direct links in the salt industry

TARGET MARKET
Salt is a necessity item. Broadly everyone is the consumer of salt. But the purchasing decision is usually made by the male or the female in the house who does the grocery shopping. From a market point of view primary target market for ACI pure salt is , Lower Middle, Middle and Upper class. They are farily educated and use iodized salt. They form 65% of the market. They prefer health and well being over price when it comes to purchase of salt. Another The market price of iodized salt is more than double that of non-iodized salt. So the lower middle class usually goes for cheaper, loose packed non iodized salt. They form roughly 35% of the market. Price is a very importan factor for this class.

CULTURAL FACTORS
The lower class segment usually eat more salt in their curry. They also eat extra salt with rice and chilli. A small portion of them use salt to brush their teeth. In general, all socio economic segments use salt also with traditional pickles, lemonades and baked pithas in addition to regular curry and meal. Some devout muslims consider eating a pinch of salt befor meal to be sunnah.

GENDER FACTORS
All though it is the females who usually cook at home, in predominant number of households in Bagnladesh it is still the males who carry out the grocery shoppings. But purchase decision of salt in terms of brand choice and amount is made by female. The trend is high in urban families where females do the grocery shopping. The bottom of the line is buying a salt brand tends to be a marginal decision making process and is made at the time or grocery shopping. However females in families other than in the lower income group, categorically state the need for iodized salt and the brand choice if it is not being used already in the family. In additon to using salt at home, the large number of restaurants and bachelor living hostels through out the country predominantly use male cook and the grocery purchase is made by the males.

CONSUMERS PERCEPTION
EXPOSURE: DELIBERATE
Consumers in Bangladesh treat salt to be an indispensable part of their diet. One consumer in our survey said, Eating meal even with ghee( butter) doesnt taste good if there is no salt..It becomes a habitual process to consume salt. ACI pure salt puts in a moderate effort to attract new customers and retain the old ones. Some of their efforts to enhance ACI pure salts exposure are TVCs Advertisements on first and third page of national dailies (Sample Provided on appendix) Sponsoring different public events like ACI pure salt on appendix) Using social media e.g. Facebook fan page

(Pictures provided

All of these are intended to maximize the random exposure to ACI pure salt. Mother company ACI has also a well-established website containing product information.

ATTENTION: LOW INVOLVEMENT

People usually come to know about salt as a product subtly in a subconscious manner from childhood from their various social intereactions. They cannot recall when exactly they recognized salt as a product or saw the first salt advertisement. However they all distinctly remember having seen advertisment for salt and heard of the importance of eating iodized salt. From our survey we found that the recall rate for advertisement and also the influence of advertisement on the pruchase decision of low income consumers is minimal.

INTERPRETATION: COGNITIVE
ACI pure salt emphasizes on their quality. From our survey we found that most people associate ACI pure salt with semantic meanings such as Pure, clean. Affective interpretation is observed to some extent with their emotional appeal pointing towards how ACI pure salt will help to build an intelligent Bangladesh.

MEMORY: SCHEMATIC
The memory building process of ACI pure salt is more schematic rather than episodic or semantic. They do not relate to specific events or situations. The basic perception of the brand name ACI pure salt specifically related to various concepts such as: Clean, Pure, Iodine.

SHORT TERM MEMORY

Since ACI pure salt salt is a low-involvement product, short-term memory will work here. To have the brand name in short-term memory following things have to be done: Increase the number of ad insertion and increase product visibility.

FIGURE 1 PERCEPTUAL MAP OF ACI PURE SALT AND ITS COMPETITORS

POSITIVE PERCEPTION
The positive perception that the consumers have about ACI pure salt are: Pure Clean Good packaging

NEGATIVE PERCEPTION
On the other hand there is some negative perception among the customers that was found in the consumer survey. They are: Expensive No efficient communication

LEARNING
Usually the buying process of good is exposed to the product then building the attitude about the product. Then comes the final purchasing decision. But in case of low involvement product thats different. People tends to exposed to the product, in second step they buy the product. Last step is the attitude building

phase.

GROUP INFLUENCE
From our survey among 88 respondents 62.57% of the sample population chooses ACI pure salt because of the influence of female member of their family mostly mother. On the other hand, none of responded towards neighbor or friends. . From this data, it can be concluded that the decision of buying ACI pure salt is totally individualistic decision. In most of the family females are buying decision makers. Since salt is a low-involvement & necessity product, reference group will not have influence on the consumers. But because of limited information of the consumers regarding the ingredients of salt some reference groups e.g. Doctors.

HOW BRANDING HELPS ON BUYING BEHAVIOR

BRANDING OF ACI PURE SALT
ACI pure salt obtained the BEST BRAND AWARD 2008. So we dug deep into the factors that enabled them to obtain this leadership and become the best brand. They are described as follows.

BRANDING OF NECESSITY PRODUCTS

The surprising fact about necessary goods is that branding that is done through TVC and print media has very little and almost negligible effect over current sales. It only establishes a meaning for the brand to communicate the features and to charge the additional price that they charge for those features. The additionally chargable price is also limited for necessary goods due to frequent government pressures to

keep prices within limits because commodity prices is one of the biggest political issues of our country. Also, it is unlikely that a consumer will pay a huge margin due to an investment intensive branding endeavour when it comes to necessity products.

POSITIONING OF NECESSITY GOODS

The salt brands of necessity goods like Teer and ACI use leveraged positioning. This means that they create a single positioning strategy for their universal brand name and position all the product categories under that brand name with that strategy. For example, Teer positions itself as healthy for all its categories. Again, you can get ACI Pure Salt as well as ACI Pure Gura Moshla in the market, where the marketing team of ACI is trying to position ACI as a pure alternative.

BRANDING AS IODIZED SALT

Nowadays, almost all major salt brands of our country brand their salt as iodized salt. Iodine is a micronutrient often present in the food supply of coastal regions. It is a mineral necessary for various physiological activities. Iodine deficiency, which affects two billion people worldwide is the leading preventable cause of mental retardation. Before ACI pure salt was introduced, ACI Pharmaceuticals were their predominant industry. Consequently, ACI was the first to introduce Iodized Salt branding. ACI claims that every single grain of their salt is covered with a coat of iodine. The funny thing about iodized salt is that most of the iodine gets evaporated in the air if it is provided with substantial amount of time in exposure to the atmosphere. This is because iodine is a volatile substance. Hence, it salt is not covered, iodine is lost.

BRANDING AS VACUUM EVAPORATED SALT

Nowadays, almost all major salt brands of our country use vacuum evaporation methods to manufacture their salts. This is the latest technology available. The benefit from this technology is that it makes the salt capable of being stored for longer amounts of time. However, such a feature is of no major advantage or utility to the consumer. So, branding of this feature is only a whitewash on consumers eyes. It works to give the impression of usage of state of the art technology and thus adding to their brand equity. ACI salt does not directly say in their communications that they use vacuum evaporation technique. So this is a scope they can utilize in the future.

HOW BRANDING BEATS C OMPETITION FOR ACI PURE SALT

ACI pure salt executives believe that the following factors play a significant role in forcing customers to use ACI pure salt instead of other brands: Strong predominant image of ACI brand The unique positioning of ACI as pure product

The truth about necessity products however is that only 10% of the market are brand loyal and it is only in posh areas that people actually ask for a specific brand. So how does ACI pure salt beat competition? It is by branding in two media which are much more important than print and electronic media when it comes to such products. They are: Dealers as a media Retailers as a media

Retailers increase sales by proposing a brand at the time of purchase. They propose those brands which give them higher margins and provide negative information about those brands which give them less profit margin. So, ACI pure salt gives retailers a competitive profit margin to beat competition. Another important effective branding aspect about retailing is Brand Visibility. It is done in two ways, viz.: Modern Trade with Super Shops Congenial Corporate Relations with Retailers

Modern trade is creating visibility and better placement of products in super-shops through negotiation, relationship building, etc. Also, Gondola Renting can be done to have dedicated shelves in super-shops. Super-shops now-a-days position all their products by calculating the maximum margin they can obtain from every inch of their shop. /Corporate relations with retailers are maintained by providing them with Panaplexes at the companys cost. Retailers are provided with competitive profit margin and encouraged to keep as much stock of ACI Pure Salt as possible. So, when a customer sees a huge stock of this brand in a retail shop, it is branded positively in his mind.

HOW ACI PURE SALT MEASURES BRAND PERFORMANCE

ACI Pure Salt measures Brand performance based on the following criteria: Market Share TRP of TV Commercials Retail Shop product visibility Volume of customer query about brand at retail level Super Shop visibility

The performance of ACI Pure Salt can be said to be brilliant due to their attainment of market leadership status and achievement of BEST BRAND AWARD 2008. Other performance is measured by monitoring customer purchase behaviour say just after a launch of a new marketing campaign. Marketing research teams are regularly sent to the field to monitor retail shop visibility, super shop visibility and customer query. ACI Pure Salt has been doing well in almost all categories. There are two motives with which ACI pure salt brands itself. These are Current Shelf Coverage and Long Term Branding Vision. They are described as follows:

CURRENT SHELF C OVERAGE AND CURRENT SALES

It is a surprising fact that Integrated Marketing Communications (IMCs) play very little role in the sales of necessity products like salts. They barely attract only 10% of customers as loyal customers and customers usually do not ask for a particular brand at the shop. They are only usually able to identify between iodized and non-iodized salt based on learning from their communications. Shelf coverage and sales is thus rather driven by distribution efforts, like relationship building, negotiations and

incentivization of retailers and dealers. Whereas current sales is driven by retailers. Necessity goods are of high demand so IMCs do not need to create demands either.

LONG TERM BRAND VISION

Since IMCs serve very little purpose in shelf coverage and current sales, a question arises that why ACI Pure Salt engages in IMC and incurs such costs. It does so because of their long term vision. It establishes the brand in the minds of people who are brand conscious and non-buyers now so that when they become regular buyers in the future, they would prefer this brand.

BRIDGE BETWEEN CONSUMERS NEEDS AND PRODUCT BENEFITS

ACI pure salt provides the target market with simple solutions for their daily need of necessary ingredient for cooking, which fit with the contemporary culture. ACI pure salt gives consumers the confidence of knowing that they are making the right choice. It gives them a greater sense of involvement and control, as well as guaranteed success and appreciation that ACI provides necessary iodine needed for their family members. They provide the sense of pureness among the consumers. Through providing the mothers with these benefits, ACI pure salt allows consumers to achieve their ultimate motive that is, providing their family members pure and iodized salt, on a regular basis, without having to compromise on anything else.

MOTIVES FOR CHOOSING ACI PURE SALT

85% of the respondents in the primary survey said they consumed ACI pure salt. When the respondents were asked about the aspects of ACI pure salt that they prefer most, a formidable 35.23% chose it because of Pureness and 30.7% because of Cleanliness It can be understood that the manifest motive behind the consumers choice of ACI pure salt is the quality. Consumers believe they can receive a good quality which they value most. According to Maslows hierarchy of needs, ACI pure salt involves fulfilling physiological needs (daily commodity), as well as esteem need (desire for premium and better quality).

SITUATIONAL INFLUENCE
Though situational influences play important roles in consumer buying decision making process, a product like salt has fewer influences as such since it is a must consume product.

TEMPORAL PERSPECTIVE
Consumers spend 0 to 30 seconds at maximum regarding information search on different brands of salt. Retailers play the key role in educating the customer of the brand during this timeframe.

TASK DEFINITION
Salt is bought for cooking purposes. They are used to make pickles. Bengali housewives sprinkle their magic(salt) to impress family members. Tasting salt is often used for this purpose. Other than that, salt is

also used for brushing of teeth by consumers in rural areas. The first being the dominant, the other task definitions are negligible. However, the task definition communicated in the TVCs of ACI Pure Salt is the maintenance of stable intelligence through salt consumption.

RITUAL SITUATIONS
Salt consumption increases during the Ramadan season where various spicy and salty snacks are prepared everyday for iftar. Thus, tradition has an influence on the volume/frequency of purchase.

EMOTIONAL APPEAL
ACI pure salt does not appeal to the emotions of the target market rather lets the customers decide and gather cognitive knowledge about their quality and then make a choice. Thus t hey dont resort to emotional appeal by showing an ad of sick person and try to state that without ACI pure salt someone will be sick.

ACI PURE SALT AS A LIFESTYLE BRAND AND SELF-CONCEPT

A product often takes a part in the lifestyle of the consumers as an essential. ACI pure salt being the top of the brands serves as a premium material for cooking and food products. An everyday necessity doesnt just fill in the lifestyle as a nutrient value but has a knack of being the image of the lifestyle too. The target market that ACI pure salt holds on not just consume it through a prepared recipe but also views it as the brand which suits their value and needs. The self-concept that they believe in is highly influenced through the essentials they use. ACI pure salt being at the core of the daily needs for the consumers does exactly the same to the cooks or the eaters as a Ferrari would do to a car lover. ACI promotes itself as a brand creating peoples concept a bit better for salts and relating the image of its premium product to consumers lifestyle.

ALTERNATE EVALUATION AND SELECTION

choice usually There are other competitive brands in the market like Molla salt, Fresh salt and confidence salt. Choosing ACI pure salt is more of an Brand extension to rural market Free Offer Packaging Field Activation Push Sale Strategy than an attitude based choice. The target market, despite having different importance factors, considers the following evaluation criteria:

Quality - this involves whether the quality of salt reflects the desired outcome of the customers. ACI pure salt emphasizes on quality from the very beginning. The cleanliness and pureness is satisfactory. Although the price is higher than the other existing brands target market usually go for quality over price.

RECOMMENDATIONS
More than 35% of households in Bangladesh still do not use iodized salt. They belong to the low income rural class. Price is the most important criteria in their purchasing decision calculus. To get them started to using ACI Pure iodized salt, the following activities are suggested: 1. Introduce low priced brand extensions for rural market. 2. Free Offer: To create a purchase drive offers a steel spoon free with every pack. For a rural household a spoon can be a high impact show of gesture and is a needy item. 3. Packaging: Extend the benefit chain. Package the salt in plastic container which rural households can later use to store other edibles. 4. Field activation: Execute publicity stunts in village school playgrounds with projectors projecting a entertainment fiction where Bangla cinema celebrities through the story endorse using the iodized salt brand. Such models have been carried out by Bangladesh government successfully to propagate female education in rural areas. 5. Since salt low involvement purchase behavior Push sale strategy should be deployed. A majority of consumers simply purchase the salt brand/type suggested by the grocery. Hence groceries must be given an additional commission to vouch for the product.

CONCLUSION TAKEAWAYS EXPERIENCE RECAP

While working for this term paper, we were exposed to a wide array of information regarding ACI, ACI pure salt and consumer behavior. Salt is a daily commodity. We have it every day, but we had no idea that so much thought went into the making of a single product. Our interviews with the customers helped us understand their expectations from a Salt. Also, we were able to analyze their motives, buying behavior, group influences and other psychological factors which influence their behavior. The interviews with the past consumers helped us in understanding the weaknesses of the brand. Finally we come to the main objective of this term paper: understanding consumer behavior. This undertaking of ours helped us understand how marketers are applying the concepts of consumer behavior every day in every way. Lastly we were able to use our own judgment and knowledge gained throughout the course to understand the current condition and also provide some feedbacks.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Habibullah, M. (n.d.). http://www.banglapedia.org/HT/S_0045.HTM. Retrieved from Bangladpedia.org. Moni, S. H. (2012, 06 16). http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=133150&date=2012-06-16. Retrieved from Financial Express.

APPENDIX
PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES OF ACI PURE SALT

CONSUMER SURVEY SURVEY QUESTION

Here is the consumer survey that we carried out in http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/W7TPNPX

SURVEY RESULTS