Marketing strategy comparison between Thai brand and international brand for premium coffee business under customers' perspective : case study in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Abstract

The purposes of this study are to compare customers’ perspectives on the marketing strategies for coffee business between Thai and international brands and to study the consumer behavior in coffee business related to consumers’ personal backgrounds. The participants of this study were 400 random consumers who buy coffee both of Thai and international brands in Muang Chiang Mai. The data was collected by using questionnaires and the data evaluation was done by using SPSS program for windows. Additionally, the statistics used for the data analysis were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, t-test, and ANOVA. From this study, it is found that, out of the total 400 participants, the consumers of Thai brands are accounted for 206 people and the consumers of international brands are accounted for 194 people.

Most of the consumers that prefer Thai brands are female, 36-45 years of age, working as employees or freelancers, have income ranges below 10,000 THB per month, and have highest qualification at bachelor degree. They drink coffee everyday in the morning, Black Canyon is their favorite brand, drink coffee because the taste of it, the price of the coffee that they prefer to pay for is below 30 THB per unit, they buy coffee at tourist attractions mostly, coffee shop that has air condition is their prefer, friends have influence on their decisions about the coffee shop they choose, the additional service that they want from the coffee shop is internet, and majority of the consumers know the coffee shops from promotional activities at the selling points. Most of the consumers that prefer international brands are male, 16-25 years of age, they are high school /college students, income below 10,000 THB per month, and have highest qualification at bachelor degree. They drink coffee everyday in the morning, Coffee World is their favorite brand, drink coffee because the taste of it, the price of the coffee that they prefer to pay for is 30-39 THB per unit, they buy coffee at tourist attractions mostly, coffee shop that has air condition is their prefer, friends have influence on their decisions about the coffee shop they choose, the additional service that they want from the coffee shop is internet, and majority of the consumers know the coffee shops from promotional activities at the selling points. Marketing strategy for Thai coffee brand and international coffee brand are different. The most important marketing strategy for Thai coffee brand is to deal with product factor while the most important marketing strategy for international coffee brand is to deal with promotional factor. However, both of the consumers of Thai coffee brands and international coffee brands do not give varying importance to the promotional methods specifically; premium goods, corporate social responsibility and environmental concerns. Moreover, the study about consumer behavior that related to marketing strategies under different consumer backgrounds find that the differences in general information of customers of both brands has affected on the differences of customer behavior in coffee business about their preferred shop layout.