Abstract:

This paper considers the value of understanding people’s attitudes towards mineral water. Its concern is to assess whether behavioural intentions can be predicted from the Extended Fishbein Model and to explore the ways in which the components of this model can be used to appreciate the characteristics of different user groups (non users versus heavy users) and hence form an input for marketing strategy development. We open by considering the growth of the mineral water market in the UK, showing its potential compared with other European countries. The original positioning strategy behind the main brand, Perrier, was to enable the user to express their status values. However with increasing consumer demand and awareness of water pollutants, it is thought that mineral water brands now satisfy a stronger functional need. From 25 depth interviews we elicited salient beliefs and key referent influencers, which were used to build a model of behavioural intentions in the mineral water market, following Fishbein’s Extended Model. Based upon a further 100 interviews, we tested this model’s efficacy, and found from multiple linear regression that we could account for 75% of the variation in behavioural intention. Respondents were classified into non-users, light, medium and heavy user categories and using principal component analysis we investigated how these groups could be described in terms of their evaluated beliefs and social norms. Focusing upon the heavy user and non-user we considered how these groups differed and using discriminant analysis we were able to correctly allocate all respondents on the basis of their altitudinal components and social norms. We conclude by considering the value of these findings as an input to marketing strategy.