Understanding Consumer Behavior for Fast Food Lanka Ltd: Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of consumer behavior within the context of Fast Food Lanka Ltd, a fast-food restaurant chain launching a new meal targeting children aged 8-16. The report examines the significance of understanding consumer behavior for the company, emphasizing its role in adopting modern marketing philosophies, developing relevant strategies, predicting market trends, and fostering customer creation and retention. It delves into the influences of cultural, social, and personal factors (motivation, personality) on consumer behavior, particularly concerning parents' perceptions of fast food. Furthermore, the report addresses the ethical issues associated with marketing and advertising to young children. The report also includes an executive summary, an acknowledgment, a table of contents, and figures illustrating key concepts. The core of the report explores the importance of understanding consumer behavior, cultural, social, and personal factors, and ethical considerations in marketing to children.

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Consumer Behavior

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Executive Summary
Consumer behavior is the study of consumers and the processes they use to choose, use (consume),
and dispose of products and services, including consumers’ emotional, mental, and behavioral
responses. It is important for any business in any industry as it helps to understand, analyze and
keep track on consumer behavior and allows the business to cater their demands in the required
quantity and quality on time. The purpose of this report is to understand consumers’ behavior in
Fast Food Lanka Ltd: a fast food restaurant chain which is specialized in fast food including
burgers, wraps and fried chicken products. The company is launching a new meal which includes
a small burger, fried chicken nuggets and some French fries along with a small pop drink of choice
(Soft-drink), targeting Young kids age between 08-16 years. The first part of the report gives a
detailed understanding on consumer behavior and its range of benefits for the Fast Food Lanka
Ltd. Also, the report determines the impact of cultural, social and personal factors to consumer
behavior when launching the new product to market. This is critical for the company as most of
the parents perceive fast foods such as burgers, fried and soft drinks are unhealthy for their
children. Furthermore, the report evaluates the design of the marketing activities, mainly the
promotions considering the ethical issues contextualized to the fast Food Lanka Ltd.

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Acknowledgement
The success and final outcome of this report required a lot of guidance and assistance from
many people and I am extremely privileged to have got this all along the completion of my
report. All that I have done is only due to such supervision and assistance and I would not
forget to thank them.
I would like to express my deepest appreciation to all those who provided me the possibility
to complete this report. A special gratitude I give to my lecturer, whose contribution in
stimulating suggestions and encouragement, helped me to coordinate my report, especially in
writing this report.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................ 2

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1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 5
Task 01 ............................................................................................................................................ 5
1. What are the significance of understanding consumer behavior to Fast Food Lanka Ltd? . 5
2. In the case of targeting the parents, discuss the possible influences of cultural, social and
personal factors (motivation, personality) in their consumer behavior. .................................... 10
2.1 Cultural factors ................................................................................................................ 11
2.2 Social factors ................................................................................................................... 13
2.2 Personal factors................................................................................................................ 14
3. Explain the ethical issues there may be in marketing and advertising to young children? ... 15
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 19
References ..................................................................................................................................... 19
List of Figures
Figure 1: Benefits of understanding consumer behavior………………………………………..09
Figure 2: Factors influence on consumer behavior………………………………………..……13

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1. Introduction
Fast food restaurants has being playing a vital role food and beverage industry over the past few
years. Due to the globalization and its impact, majority of fast food providers such as Pizza hut,
Burger king, McDonalds and such international companies has established their operation across
the globe including Sri Lanka. The impact of recent trends in fast food industry demands to offer
segment-specific products in order to better meet consumers’ needs (Kivela, 2019). Therefore, fast
food restaurants need more refined strategies in order to differentiate themselves from their
competitors and gain thorough knowledge of their customers.
Fast Food Lanka Limited operates as a chains of restaurants in Sri Lanka and specialized in fast
food including burgers, wraps and fried chicken products. The company is launching a new meal
that include a small burger, fried chicken nuggets and some French fries along with a small pop
drink of choice (Soft-drink) targeting Young kids age between 08-16 years. To compete with
industry giants, and to attract the target market segments, Fast Food Lanka Ltd must develop
effective strategies promote the products to target market. Also, identifying the possible influences
of cultural, social and personal factors on consumer behavior is vital for planning the marketing
activities, mainly the promotion. The following report will provide a detailed evaluation on
consumer buying behavior based on the given scenario.
Task 01
1. What are the significance of understanding consumer behavior to Fast Food Lanka Ltd?
Fast-food restaurants are an increasingly important sector of the industry. As one of the most
significant forms of globalization, fast-food restaurants have spread rapidly to major cities all over
the world in response to the changing habits of urban consumers (Schroeder and McEachern, 2015;
Tong and Wong, 2016; Xu, 2014). Such restaurants attracts consumers due to various reasons:
convenience and/or time savings, the opportunity to enjoying a family meal, the positive image
that they marketing considering youthful and modern food, their low price, wide schedules and
service speed, or even food offerings that are healthier and more respectful towards the
environment (Libremercado, 2016).

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As previously mentioned in the introduction part, the past few decades have seen several shifts in
how people purchase and consume food. In order to maintain the competitive advantage over
rivals, fast-food business managers need to understand the consumer preferences and then
incorporate those aspects in their marketing strategies (Abdullah et al., 2011). Not only that,
businesses exist and compete to create satisfied customers (Anderson and Fornell, 2000). In the
restaurant industry, providing a variety of fresh, healthy and innovative food is essential to gain
competitive advantage, attract customers and exceed their satisfaction in a consistent base to
succeed in the long-run (Qin et al., 2010).
Restaurants must also offer dining experiences that combine tangible and intangible elements in
order to meet or exceed customers’ expectations. Therefore, understanding consumer behavior is
vital for the Fast Food Lanka ltd as today people have become more socially sophisticated, and
consequently, they have become more demanding about their dining expectations. For an example,
newer generations are shifting away from the traditional foods towards the new, the innovative
and the exciting food and beverages: all of which are intangible qualities. In order to enact this
strategy, Fast Food Lanka Ltd needs to build trust with consumers, which is required for positive
outcomes such as customer loyalty, retention, purchase intention, willingness to act and overall
market performance. Further, following factors indicate the significance of understanding
consumer behavior to Fast Food Lanka Ltd.
Understanding consumer behavior
Allows to adopt modern marketing philosophies
Helps to develop more relevant marketing
strategies
Predict marketing trends
Creation and Retention of Consumers

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Figure 1: Benefits of understanding consumer behavior
1. Allows to adopt modern marketing philosophies
Due to the globalization and recent trends, new marketing philosophies are emerging in fast food
restaurant industry (Business Insider, 2018). Consumer behavior is an essential indicator when
developing marketing strategies for an organization and it concerns with modern marketing
philosophies as well. It allows the company to identify consumer needs and exceed their
satisfaction more effectively than competitors (Williams, 2018). It makes marketing consumer-
oriented. It is the key to succeed.
For an example: if we take fast food industry giant, Burger King’s marketing philosophy:
 Burger King uses demographic and geographic segmentation variables in order to cater the
changing taste & preferences of the consumers globally.
 It uses differentiated targeting strategy so as to address the needs of the customers
accordingly.
Thus, Fast Food Lanka can position themselves by considering on the serviceability &
convenience factors. Also, they are offering the new product to the market by mainly targeting the
young kids who are in between age of 08-16 years. Therefore, Fast Food Lanka can use the
demographic segmentation to attract potential consumers who are in between age 08-16 by
adapting effective advertisement strategies accordingly. This will allow them to be more

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innovative when catering to the target group, when identifying their likes and dislikes, to what
advertisement strategies that they are attracted to, changing taste preferences and so on. Therefore,
identifying and analyzing the consumer behavior when launching the new meal to the market will
also help the company to adopt more innovative and emerging marketing strategies.
2. Helps to develop more relevant marketing strategies
Marketing programs, consisting of product, price, promotion, and distribution decisions, can be
prepared more objectively and more focused. Marketing strategies can be more relevant if it is
based on the study of consumer behavior. Meaningful marketing programs are an essential
instrumental in realizing marketing goals.
For an example: consumer buying behavior is studied by consumer researchers and their aim is to
know why women buy moisturizers (to reduce skin problems), the most preferred brand (Olay,
L’Oréal), how often do they apply it (twice a day, thrice a day), where do the women prefer to buy
it (supermarkets, online) and how many times do they buy it (weekly, monthly).
Fast Food Lanka Ltd can targeting the people on the basis of demographic characteristics and
targeting the children and youth generation from upper and middle level people. According to their
taste preferences they can add variety of burgers including chicken, fish, pork, beef and etc. most
of the kids are preferring meals based on the attractiveness and colorfulness. Therefore, they can
use colorful papers to wrap the burger, add colorful packaging for onion or chicken nuggets along
with a verity of soft drink of choices. Meal pack can be named by an attractive name such as
“Combo Pack”/ “King Pack” or “Super meal” etc. this way they can promote the meal effectively
by obtaining the target market attention. For example, while targeting kids market, Fast Food
Lanka can utilize channels such as TV ads, school programs, social media posts and blogs targeting
young mothers as they are focusing on providing more health conscious meals for their kids. Fast
Food Lanka can promote the benefits of the meal, they can signify the happy family time they can
enjoy while having the meal to promote it effectively.
3. Predict marketing trends
Consumer behavior analysis will be the first to indicate a shift in market trend. For example, the
recent trend of consumers is towards environment friendliness and healthy food. This changing

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market trend was observed by many brands including McDonalds. Based on the consumer
behavior, McDonald’s brought healthy food options.
For Fast Food Lanka, they can offer innovative healthy burger meals such as:
Offering Slinger burgers which are a blend of beef and mushrooms. These burgers may appeal to
more than the health conscious consumer who may still want some meat in their diet. It’s also cited
as one way of lowering food costs and alleviating the demand for industrial cattle farming
(Business insider, 2019). Also, they can be more innovative by creating fully plant-based burgers
that taste like meat with a lower carbon footprint.
4. Creation and Retention of Consumers
Consumer behavior is not just important to attract new customers, but it is very important to retain
existing customers as well. When a customer is happy about a particular product, he/she will repeat
the purchase. Therefore, marketing the product should be done in such a way that it will convince
customers to buy the product again and again.
For an example: Most of the customers of Burger King are in the age group of 15-40 years in
developing nations and in developed nation’s customers of all age groups prefers the Burger King
fast-food chain. Burger King competes on the basis of product choice, service quality,
convenience etc. These factors has been impacted on retaining customers in the long-run.
For Fast Food Lanka, adding a soft toy, coupons for the next meal, and adding them as members
in a digital platform of Fast Food Lanka will be motivate them to visit the restaurant again. This
will also impact on creating a loyal customer base for the company as well. Therefore, obtaining
consumer behavior can be considered as a vital factor for the Fast Food Lanka.
5. Help to gain competitive advantage over rivals.
Studying consumer behavior facilitates in understanding and facing competition. Based on
consumers’ expectations, Fast Food Lanka can offer products which will help to obtain
competitive advantages (Purdy, 2019). Thus it helps in improving competitive strengths of the
company. For an example, to maintain the competitiveness in the fast food industry due to its
famous and innovative products such as Hamburger, Whopper and many others which are helping
the company to increase its market share.

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Fast Food Lanka can maintain the competitiveness by adapting recent trend of consumers is
towards environment friendliness and healthy food. As mentioned above, offering Slinger burgers
which are a blend of beef and mushrooms is an effective strategy to maintain the competitiveness.
It’s also cited as one way of lowering food costs and alleviating the demand for industrial cattle
farming (Business insider, 2019). Also, they can be more innovative by creating fully plant-based
burgers that taste like meat with a lower carbon footprint.
2. In the case of targeting the parents, discuss the possible influences of cultural, social and
personal factors (motivation, personality) in their consumer behavior.
Consumer behavior is influenced by many different factors. A marketer should try to understand
the factors that influence consumer behavior. These factors, specificities and characteristics
influence the individual in what he is and the consumer in his decision making process, shopping
habits, purchasing. Following illustration will describe the factors impact when launching the new
meal pack of Fast Food Lanka.
Factors influencing consumer behavior.
Cultural
 Culture
Social
 Family
Personal
 Motivation

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Figure 2: Factors influence on consumer behavior
2.1 Cultural factors
 Culture
Cultural Factors have strong influence on consumer buyer behavior. Cultural Factors include the
basic values, needs, wants, preferences, perceptions, and behaviors have a larger impact on fast
food restaurant industry. Cultural influences lead to the difference in the habitual consumption of
fast foods and in traditions of preparation, and in certain cases can lead to restrictions such as
exclusion of meat and milk from the diet due to religion beliefs. Fast Food Lanka is offering the
new product for the young kids between ages 08-16 without any religion or nationality limitation.

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These cultural; factors are observed and learned by a consumer from their near family members
and other important people around them (Business Insider, 2018). Also, Sri Lankan society is
shifting their eating patterns to eat western style fast foods, which in return diminishes from the
traditional and cultural values of people and creates a noticeable shift from traditional foods and a
growing demand for western fast food (Daily FT, 2018). Also, there has been a kind of loss of
traditional values and eating behavior in people, particularly children.
 Subculture
Within a cultural group, there exists many subcultures. These subcultural groups share the same
set of beliefs and values. Subcultures can consist of people from different religion, caste,
geographies and nationalities. These subcultures by itself form a customer segment.
As a geographical group, Sri Lanka is changing their eating patterns western style fast foods, which
in return diminishes from the traditional and cultural values of people and creates a noticeable shift
from traditional foods and a growing demand for western fast food, especially among young kids.
(Daily FT, 2018). This is a good marketing opportunity for the Fast Food Lanka when launching
the new product to the market.
Based on the religion, Fast Food Lanka have to adjust their new product. Burgers include various
meat such as chicken, beef, pork, fish etc. based on religious beliefs some people may refuse to
eat meat related products. For an example, Most Hindus are vegetarian. The cow is viewed as a
sacred animal so even meat-eating Hindus may not eat beef. Therefore, Fast Food Lanka have to
offer alternative meat products for them. Further, cultural influences lead to the difference in the
habitual consumption of fast foods and in traditions of preparation, and in certain cases can lead
to restrictions such as exclusion of meat and milk from the diet due to religion beliefs.
 Social Class
Each and every society across the globe has form of social class. The social class is not just
determined by the income, but also other factors such as the occupation, family background, and
education and residence location (Adams, 2018). Social class is important to predict the consumer
behavior. Many findings indicate that, middle-class people generally have healthier diets than
lower-class people in Sri Lanka (Daily FT, 2019). Considerations that underlie choices of
foodstuffs may explain this class difference in eating habits. Also, lower-class mothers in Sri