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Its not just a cup of tea building consumer brand relationship
Its not just a cup of tea building consumer brand relationship
DOI 10.1108/EEMCS-11-2013-0208 VOL. 5 NO. 5 2015, pp. 1-31, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 2045-0621 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 1
Retailers played a critical role in the decision process of consumers and were big
influencers, and thus, were given a high margin to push the brand to consumers. The
market reports suggested that, although Surya Gold had few loyal consumers, others
experienced trials, but brand switching was high and consumers rarely returned back to it.
Jain knew that he and his team were investing a large amount to attract new consumers and
had even invested in enhancing product quality and packaging. Jain recognized that only
pushing the retailer may not be enough work, and a different strategy for growing and
sustaining their business was required. Also, developing a loyal base of retailers across the
nation was an expensive and daunting task.
Although operating in a small territory, Anubhav Jain was in constant touch with the market
and consumers. He regularly visited the retailers who were the most important link in his
business. All interactions with retailers and consumers told Jain that more than 60 per cent
Indian consumers were loyal to the taste of their tea. They were in a habit of buying certain
brands more because the taste suited their preferences and brand came second in the
decision process. Therefore, getting consumers to switch to a new brand was not easy
even with lucrative offers and appealing advertising. The new tea brands attempted to
enter as a trial brand into a consumer’s shopping basket and move to be the second brand
of tea purchased in a household.
With taste being the most important parameter for building loyalty, Jain’s job was even more
difficult. Jain believed that a good tea is the result of professional “art of tea blending”.
Surya Gold was blended using 20 different varieties of tea leaves. In the absence of tea
blending machines, the job was conducted by professional tasters who experimented with
different ratios to obtain the right color and the taste. As the entire process was dependent
on humans and was not mechanized, replicating the taste was a challenge. Jain knew that
it was difficult to achieve more than 95 per cent similarity among the two tea packets, and
hence, retaining the consumers was even more critical.
Jain’s brother, a business school student, sent him a copy of the case study by Susan
Fournier (Fournier and Yao, 1998) on consumer-brand relationships. Reading Fournier’s
study was a revelation for Jain about how brand loyalty for a relatively low-involvement
product could give a new dimension to the way he was doing his business. Fournier
suggested that consumers’ attachment to a brand lay at the core of all strong
consumer-brand relationships. Consumers may decide to purchase the brand based on
functional benefits or psychological benefits, but every brand choice has a self-concept
criteria attached to it. However, like interpersonal relationships between people,
consumer-brand relationships were also dynamic and changed over time. Fournier pointed
out that this was important for marketers to plan product launches and design
communication messages and loyalty plans to positively affect the shape of relationship
development curve and, hence, build the consumer-brand bonds, encouraging loyalty.
Getting deeper into this topic, Jain went on to read many more research articles on brand
loyalty and found that with the proliferation of non-differentiated brands in the marketplace,
consumers had begun to view brands as parity products. This was leading to price
becoming the deciding factor and, thus, destroying the feeling of uniqueness on which
brand loyalty was grounded. Given the abundance of choices coupled with brand
destruction practices such as price wars and continuous discounting, it was likely that the
era of brand loyalty, if it ever existed, was dead! But was it?
Consumer research
Fournier’s paper was very interesting to Jain, and he instinctively knew that Surya Gold
would benefit from primary research. Indian tea consumption was different from coffee
consumption in the West, as mentioned in Fournier’s article, but Jain knew that the
frameworks suggested could definitely be applied to the Indian scenario to design focused
marketing strategies. Indian consumers were habituated to the taste, which was
synonymous to their tea brand loyalty. Hence, qualified professionals with the capability to
conduct primary consumer research were required to unearth the deeper motivations
toward tea consumption. Jain hired VConnect, a consulting group who had expertise in
conducting qualitative research. The team started working on defining the research
objectives and recruiting respondents. Details of the same are presented in Exhibits 4
and 5.
Atul
Atul was a 50-year-old teacher, settled in Western India with his wife and daughters. As a
thinker and an analyst, he had appreciation for heritage and legacy and a disdain for
anything that defied them. As an intellectual, he placed great importance on process and
technique and was blessed with an ability for “attention to detail”. He, therefore, was very
particular about accomplishing every task – whether it was teaching, conducting an exam,
planning a party or preparing a cup of tea. Atul was a critic by nature and closely examined
any change or people before letting it or them into his life.
Among the other respondents, Atul emerged to be the most knowledgeable tea lover, who
was passionate and particular about his technique for preparing the best cup of tea every
time. He took pride in his deep understanding and felt that tea was a subject which could
not be understood by all. A person needed to be evolved to understand and appreciate tea
in his opinion.
Atul described tea as his alter ego. Tea drinking was a habit he had cultivated at the age
of three, passed on to him by his father, who himself was a tea lover. In approximately 50
years of his association with tea, the relationship had only improved and now he had
around six to seven cups of tea in a day. Atul nostalgically described the ritual of having tea
at his home during his formative years and associated it to fond memories of family time.
He quipped, “Tea drinking was a celebration. Festivities came yearly but a good ‘cuppa’
gave a reason to celebrate each day”.
During his early years, his family had limited resources but still spent 15 per cent of the
family’s income on tea alone. He said, “Back then my mother used to buy the best of
teapots and teacups. After all, tea could not be served just any which way! I was an
absolute elitist as far as tea was concerned”. He fondly remembered how his mother used
to stitch and embroider the tea cozies herself and that those were her most intricate
collectibles. He took pride in still possessing some of those exclusive tea sets and tea
cozies (some of them being as old as 21 years) and using them once in a while to feel good
and pamper himself.
Atul felt that tea for him was not just for “waking up” but for “awakening”. “You woke up with
your five senses but awakening happens with the sixth sense – which was the culmination
point for five senses. Tea stimulated my sixth sense and awakened me into the next phase
of the day”.
Therefore, for Atul, it was not just the tea but time of having tea, which was equally critical.
He felt that tea was best enjoyed during the changeover time (dawn or twilight), as it
Manju
Manju was a 52-year-old married working professional settled with her husband and two
teenage sons. She was in a phase of life where she was as worried about settling her
children as much as she was about accomplishments at work. She was an achiever at work
and was affectionate, as well as empathetic toward her colleagues and subordinates.
Manju’s outlook to life could be aptly described as “comfort in chaos”. She was quite
disorganized but was excellent at finding her way in that chaos. She was comfortable with
it, or perhaps used to it; in fact, she took pride in her ability to arrange and bring order to
chaos even at the last moment.
During the interview, she came across as a worrier by nature and explained that it was
important to her that people in her life were always happy. An Indian by birth, she was
brought up outside India. According to her, she had an upbringing that made her
appreciate good and sophisticated things in life, and she credited her discerning tastes to
Madhav
“Tea reminded me of Mercedes Benz – the German automobile engineered to perfection.
Like the perfect car, a perfect cup of tea for me had to be done with all detailing. I was so
fussy about my ideal cup of tea that I could confidently say that almost no one could just
do it right”. Madhav, aged 42 years, a working professional, was a perfectionist by nature.
Usha
Usha was in her early 60s and had a doctoral degree. She was married, and her children
had flown the nest. She was in many ways independent, drove her own car and was quite
active in the Mumbai social circle. The thought of retiring or staying at home, was not for
her.
She grew up in North India and came from a family of top bureaucrats. Most of her
upbringing was at her grandmother’s home. Usha believed she had a “high social”
upbringing, and in hindsight, she felt that most of her preferences and tastes had been
shaped by what she felt and experienced at her mother’s and grandmother’s homes.
“When I was very young, I did not have to worry about buying anything, I only loved
reading. I got married at the age of 18 and started handling my own expenses for running
the home. That’s when a lot of my tastes formed and preferences developed and I would
still go back to my childhood, in my sub-conscious mind”.
Usha was exposed to tea drinking and the process of tea making at a very young age. She
watched her parents experiment with only the best tea brands. Lipton Connoisseur was one
such brand she remembered. “My father would bring the very costly looking Lipton
Connoisseur brand, then he would tell the cook how to prepare it. Most times he would get
it right only after many trials. It is then that I understood that buying the best tea was only
one part; preparing it was, however, an altogether different thing”.
But her real romance with tea started when she got married. It was only then that she
became brand loyal and realized the importance of the tea-making process. Initially, her
husband, who was a connoisseur of tea, would never be satisfied with her preparation. “It
was my mother-in-law who told me that there were only two brands of tea that they
consumed. She also told me about the three-minute golden rule for preparing tea. That the
tea pot should be warmed by rinsing it with boiling water, the leaves put in and then water
that had just begun to boil (not over boiled) poured in. The wait should be exactly three
minutes before pouring out the first flush”. That instruction marked the entry of Lopchu and
Lipton Green Label in Usha’s life.
Ever since then, Usha herself became a connoisseur of tea. From the time her husband was
a young trainee, they had been drinking the best tea. Even when times were bad and
income was limited, they never compromised on the brand of tea. Earlier, when they were
in the north of India, it was difficult to get a steady supply of Lopchu, and they drank Lipton
Green Label, which had slowly dropped in quality. After shifting to Mumbai about 25 years
ago, she switched her tea brand to Lopchu, as it was easily available and had never
changed it since then.
Another brand that she had tried during their stay in London was Earl Grey, especially with
bagmoy flavor, in which the oil was strained the tea bags and was extremely relaxing and
released very subtle flavor. “This to my mind was the ultimate relaxant in tea, sometimes
even better than Lopchu. Flavor was most important; as without the flavor, mental relaxation
did not happen. When you drank tea, it should be as if someone was combing your hair and
Subramanium
Subramanium, popularly known as “Mani” by his colleagues, was in his early 50s. He was
currently a business consultant based in Bangalore after retiring from a successful career
in the Middle East. Born to a middle-class[12] family in Kerala[13], as the eldest of three
siblings, he grew up imbibing values of integrity, moral and trust. After being a successful
businessperson, he was now pursuing his interests in music, passionately learning about
Hinduism and dedicating his time to a social cause.
Mani led a simple routine-oriented life, and his day started with reading the newspaper
along with having his morning cup of tea. The fresh golden brew with just a spot of milk
mildly sweetened and perfectly done by his wife was something he looked forward to each
day of his life. His morning cuppa was very special, as this was “his own time with himself”
when he withdrew into a complete solitude and enjoyed every sip of tea. “Probably that was
why I craved for tea every time I saw a peaceful scenery, mountains and rains or just
wished to connect with nature. At all those times I relished my tea in the privacy of serene
sanctity. I was sociable only after my morning tea and never discussed household issues
or any other topic as I organized myself and planned my day while I had my morning cup
of tea. By the time I finished reading my newspaper, I was ready for my second cup of tea,
which I enjoyed with my family”.
Mani started drinking tea when he was eight years old, as a late afternoon drink. “Being
from the southern part of India, coffee as a beverage dominated. Tea was not an important
beverage and the family was indifferent to the brand of tea used at home”, he said. His tea
consumption gained momentum when he shifted to a hostel for higher education. Even in
those days, he used to have whatever was served and was not particular about any specific
brand. “It was when I started visiting tea estates as part of my Chartered Accountant
training, that I understood the process of tea cultivation, processing, brewing, tasting, et
cetera. It was there, that I tasted the best tea I ever had. It was far away from the milky
concoction I was familiar with. I began drinking almost seven cups of tea a day”. Although
coffee remained his morning companion for many years, he gave it up at the age of 36
years, due to migraines. Lipton was the brand of tea that stood on the kitchen shelf at that
time. He could not really find a reason why Lipton was used, but he thought that was so
because Lipton and Brook Bond were the only two brands available then.
Mani preferred his tea in the traditional steel tumbler, probably because that was the exact
measure he wanted for himself. He consumed hot tea with all his senses. The aroma, the
color and the fresh taste of tender leaves together contributed to his tea experience. He
bought only leaf or granulated tea brands. “Tea should be best consumed black, brewed
light and if necessary with a drop of milk”, he declared.
During his business meetings, he started tasting Earl Grey, Dilmah and other expensive
varieties of tea, and it further gave rise to his dissatisfaction with Lipton. It was then that he
and his wife (whom he trusted with his tastes more than himself) embarked on a journey of
Swati
Swati would conjure up the image of a really hot cup of tea and its fragrance whenever she
felt the need to pep up. But clearly, for this 38-year-old, drinking tea was to do with the time
of the day. For this mother of two young children, tea drinking was a matter of habit and so
much so that the timings were absolutely fixed – 6.30 a.m. (at home), 10.00 a.m. (at work),
4.30 p.m. (at work) and 6.30 p.m. (at home).
“I was addicted to Society brand of tea for almost the last 10 years. The brand came into
my life with my marriage. Occasionally, Red Label entered our kitchen, but that was only
when Society was not available. No one liked any other brands at home. Society had a
good flavor and was granular, which meant it would not be as strong as the dust tea”. Her
experience had been that a smaller quantity of Society tea was required to prepare a cup
of tea, so even though it was more expensive than some of other tea brands, overall, it
equalized on budget. She did all the household grocery shopping herself and ensured that
Society was the brand of tea that was brought into the house every time.
She believed that “good” tea was when the tea leaves were boiled with milk and sugar for
just the right amount of time. She learned the method of making tea from her mother, and
the brand that was used in her house was Girnar. The “tea” discussions brought back her
childhood memories of getting up in the mornings to the wonderful aroma of tea being
made by her mother. “I still love to get up to that beautiful aroma of tea! It is such a habit
with me that I feel empty if I miss my morning cup of tea”. Meanwhile, Swati’s mother also
shifted from Girnar to Society, as the store selling Girnar, which was closer home, had shut.
A confident and independent woman, Swati loved to travel to places with natural beauty.
Swati lived in a joint family home with her in-laws. She and her husband were the only
earning members and, hence, responsible for all expenses. She made a place for herself
in the new family, after marriage, comfortably. “I got along very well with my mother-in-law
as we were very supportive of each other. Home environment was peaceful and calm. My
children came to me when they had a problem. I think my cool and calm personality made
me approachable”.
In most other aspects in her life, Swati was open to trying out new products and brands and
then made her choice, be it other consumables in the kitchen, durables or personal care
products such as soaps and shampoos. She admitted that, although she continuously used
a particular brand, she kept buying and trying new ones intermittently.
Rajesh
Rajesh was a 29-year-old student staying at his business school campus. He came from a
middle-class family settled in a small town in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Before
enrolling for the management program, he had been working for an information technology
company, for almost six years. Rajesh left his parental home at the age of 15 years to study
further and then stayed away while he was working. Living away from his family for almost
15 years had made Rajesh very independent in his decision-making. “I was a simple and
a fun-loving person, who wished to live life on his own terms. I derived happiness from small
things in life and never forgot to enjoy a rainy day or a serene sunset, however busy I was”,
he says.
During conversation, Rajesh mentioned that Andhra Pradesh did not have a tea/coffee
drinking culture, as these beverages were considered a waste of milk, which could be more
effectively utilized to make curd and butter. However, with the new generation becoming
more mobile, things had changed, and tea and coffee were slowly entering Andhra homes.
Rajesh’s mother was a typical traditionalist who despised tea, while his paternal family
members were nouveau tea and coffee lovers. As his mother did not know how to prepare
tea, his father used to prepare it and that is how Rajesh had his first encounter with tea.
“Though my mother resisted many a times, my father used to make a small cup for me and
the entire experience of having tea with him made me feel grown-up”.
Tea became an important part of Rajesh’s life when, at the age of 16 years, he started living
in a hostel. “It was my first time out of home and I felt the need to be a part of social
gatherings and get recognition and affiliation with people”. According to him, most of these
gatherings happened over a cup of tea, and thus, it was imperative for him to make tea a
part of his routine. “Tea was not an important drink for me personally but it was a way for
me to get acceptance to social groups; hence I was not particular about any brand or a
specific taste”.
“Over time, I started noticing the nuances of tea, like taste, aroma, color, flavor, et cetera.
I also noticed the difference in the tea I had at home and in the hostel and slowly,
developed a preference for specific aroma and color”, he stated. After a few years, tea
ceased to be just the medium to be included in groups for Rajesh, as he started initiating
the tea drinking ritual himself, both in social settings and in solitude. He would prefer to walk
down to a restaurant serving good tea rather than having a tasteless concoction at the
college canteen.
“My affair with 3 Roses tea began when I quizzed my father about the difference in quality
of tea served at home viz-a-viz the tea he drank outside. My father was a tea connoisseur
and he had tried varieties of tea. He told me that 3 Roses was the best available brand and
it had to be different from the rest. From then on 3 Roses was my brand”, Rajesh said.
Rajesh gave a lot of importance to his father’s opinion in all aspects of life, whether it was
education, job, expensive purchases or maybe just the tea. He felt that his father always
gave him the best advice and, hence, was very confident about the tea brand
recommended. Rajesh considered himself completely loyal to 3 Roses. “I had been
drinking this brand for the last 12 years and 3 Roses scored high on all three – color, aroma
and taste”. He vividly remembered the 3 Roses advertisement he had seen during
childhood, which spoke of these three attributes of a good tea, and now, for him, tea was
What to do?
Tea drinking is a culture in India. With more than 90 per cent of Indians buying packaged
tea, the tea bag culture was still in nascent stages as against the other countries where tea
bag penetration was higher. Tea drinking was closely linked to Indian culture and traditions;
hence, deeper consumer understanding was required for framing marketing strategies for
various regions. Taste palates varied across the country with unique taste, color and aroma
preferences. For instance, South India had a strong preference for strong and dark tea,
whereas North India was inclined toward taste and aroma rather than color. As a result,
South India mainly sold the dust tea, whereas North preferred leaf tea. The Western market
of Gujarat and Maharashtra preferred good-quality packet tea. The flavored tea market was
also growing in India due to increasing health consciousness and also rising disposable
incomes among the younger generation.
Jain understood and appreciated that each respondent had a distinct personality and their
individual way of looking at life and drinking tea (refer Case Exhibit 4), but he sensed that
there was some connection between the two. The respondents’ association to tea and their
brand(s) was of varying levels and depth. He had never fathomed that loyalty would be so
hard to define. Further, besides the taste of tea, there was the big question of whether
loyalty was for the tea, for the brand or even for the tea-making process (as he observed
in some cases)! Which kind of consumer should Surya Gold target? In addition, how will the
marketing activities differ, depending on the choice? Or, if he targeted all kinds of
consumers, then how could he strike a relationship with them?
Notes
1. Qualitative research is a method of inquiry used in different academic disciplines, social sciences
study and market research. Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of
human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior. The qualitative method investigates
the why and how of decision-making, not just what, where and when. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Qualitative_research)
2. Crush, Tear, and Curl (also Cut, Twist, Curl) is a method of processing black tea, similar to that of
orthodox tea manufacture. Instead of the leaves being rolled as a final stage, they are passed
through a series of cylindrical rollers with hundreds of small sharp “teeth” that crush, tear, and curl
the tea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crush,_Tear,_Curl).
3. In this instance, it is important to note that the respondents were not a “sample”; therefore, their
selections were not governed by sampling rules.
4. Their approach involved three distinct interviewing stages, following Lincoln and Guba’s (1985)
approach to naturalistic inquiry. The first stage comprised the “orientation and overview” to
References
Fournier, S. and Yao, J. (1998), “A case of brand loyalty”, HBS 9-598-023, 9 September.
Figure E1
Table EI
Leaf tea Dust tea
Market share (%) 65% 35%
Table EII
Consumer Quote
Atul “Appreciating tea was not everyone’s cup of tea. You needed to be evolved
and intelligent to know its real essence”
“I felt as though I had been talking about my first love - my first girlfriend
today. I felt so nice and fresh”
Manju “Choosing a particular brand of tea for myself was the last thing on my
mind”
“My actual personality was a confident self and I was most confident talking
to anyone. While at the other times, I was like a typical housewife who did
not assert herself, lived only for the family and was superstitious”
Madhav “Tea was like a ceremony, a ritual and so it could not be casual. Tea for me
meant respect. Respect not just for tea but also for the person who had
made it, as it took a lot of effort! For me tea was sensory pleasure and an
experience, which made me more focused within. It was like meditation”
Usha “Very few people made tea the way I did. Process was an integral part of
the entire tea experience and without that even the best tea brands can
taste terrible. I was proud of the fact that the process I followed brought out
the best in the brand. That, according to me was the way the best brands
should be made”
Mani “Tea was always my constant companion; it was like my own baby who
lightened up my day. It refreshed me and comforted me. A nice cup of tea
brought fond memories of my early years and those visits to tea estates. The
images of early morning sunshine, lovely breeze and fresh aroma lingered
on with me”
Swati “I always loved to get up to that beautiful aroma of tea, rather than the
irritating aroma of cooking! It was such a habit with me that I felt empty if I
missed my morning cup of tea”
Rajesh “3 Roses was my buddy, my partner in crime; who refreshed me,
understood me and whose company brought back a lot of memories to
elevate me. I could never get bored of it. It was my friend for life”
Source: Prepared by authors
Corresponding author
Renuka Kamath can be contacted at: rkamath@spjimr.org