WHAT ABOUT PASTA…
The last months during Ad & Pr Lab, we — HitTheRoAD Team — have been working on a really significant and interesting project. We had the opportunity to attend “Market and New Media Research Lab” course, where we learned in depth about research methods -qualitative and quantitative- and had the chance to enhance our knowledge and skills in this field.
So, during class sessions, we were asked to conduct a research in any market we wanted by using a mixed methodology (qualitative and quantitative). More specific, we as a team, chose to focus and analyse the Greek Pasta Market. Firstly, we managed to do a qualitative research with face to face interviews and then a quantitative one by creating an online questionnaire -through Survey Monkey platform -with 10 question.
Not only did we collect important data about the pasta brands Greek market has but we also came across peoples’ beliefs and different opinions about pasta. Then after having all the data from the online results we carefully designed an explanatory and fun to the eye Infographic in order to present in a more amusing way our statistics and graphics from our qualitative analysis.
Before we start discussing our research’s outcomes, let’s observe in general the Greek pasta market. It is consisted of small number of brands, where the competition among them seems to be high. The most significant are BARILLA, MISKO, MELISSA, MAKVEL, PRIMO GUSTO and the most traditional, HLIOS. The most famous of them all are BARILLA (43.3%) and MELISSA (36%). Pasta market is assumed to have a lot of opportunities. Pasta products are easy to find, low priced, have a long expiration date and can fulfil everybody’s needs (due to variety in flavour and shape). Thus, the market has also threats. The new food habits, the healthy trends and the rise of biological products can cause a problem to the classic pasta products.
Furthermore, in order to represent two contradictory brands and in order to represent them in an understandable and fun way, we decided to create two personas for BARILLA and HLIOS.
On one hand we have Nicolas representing BARILLA brand. He is a young man, that loves to travel. He is open minded and lives to Napoli, Italy. He is in his early 30’s in a relationship and he is a chef for a living, in a result to be closely related to cooking and therefore pasta! Due to the nature of his job he travels a lot and he is always looking forward for new experiences. On the other hand, we have Tasia representing HLIOS brand. She is an old lady, leaving in Athens, Greece. She is in her early 60’s and she is the model of what we can call a « Greek grandmother». She is very caring, something that usually emerges in her cooking. You can call her conservative because she likes to use the old-traditional ways in her cooking.
LETS TAKE A LOOK IN OUR MIXED METHODOLOGY…
1. Qualitative Research
We first conducted a qualitative research. According, to our analysis and through the focus group we examined, the majority of people we asked were Greek women between 20 to 40 years old. They mostly choose to eat pasta because it is supposed to be an utterly fast and easy kind of meal. They also find BARILLA as the most popular pasta brand because of its quality and renown. After collecting this data, we created and handed out to them a list with the most known pasta brands in the Greek market with different pasta styles and flavours, asking them to categorise them as far as nutrition value and taste are concerned. We pursuant to their answers and we created the following positioning map.
In this particular positioning map, we studied the nutrition value in relation to the taste (pleasure) of the product that gives to customers. Comparing various brands of pasta in respect to these two characteristics it seems that pasta, which has high nutritional value and pleasure is the classic spaghetti and other classical options such as rigatoni. According to our qualitative analysis there are also brands that focus more on the nutritional value rather than pleasure (first quartile) and brands that they lack of both nutritional value and taste (fourth quartile).There is also a second positioning map with the same characteristics that shows the type of customers that choose these brands and products. On first quartile there are people that make the classic choice because it is easier to find at supermarkets or just because they want to go with the safest choice. The Bodybuilder’s Choice (second quartile) is for people that care about their fitness. Last but not least The CheatMeal Choice (fourth quartile) is for special occasions or simply for those who put their pleasure first.
2. Quantitative Research
Generally speaking, quantitative research, helps researchers better to analyse results and therefore draw more substantial conclusions. Specifically, our team created an online questionnaire consisted of 10 questions about peoples’ preferences in pasta and their criteria of choosing brands.
From the answers we received we saw that over the 80% of the participants were 18–28 years old, while the majority of them were women. As far as the criteria of choosing their pasta brand and products, quality and nutritional value were considered the most important. Also, many of the participants seem to care about price and range of products whereas fame and origin of pasta were judged indifferent by the majority. We also studied the frequency people choose to eat pasta. The vast majority of respondents seemed to love consuming pasta, 1–2 times per week !!
Continuing to the next question of our online survey, we decided to take a closer look to the mostly known pasta brands in the Greek market. More specifically, the participants verified and confirmed the initial research of the focus group and answered that BARILLA, MELISSA and MISKO are considered the most popular pasta brands in Greece, with the first two to take the lead of the market. In a few words, if we asked the consumers, which pasta brand they trust the most, 4 to 10 they would have said the BARILLA brand, 3 to 10 MISKO brand and last 2 to 10 MELISSA brand.
After that, we placed a number of significant criteria about the price, the quality, the nutritional value and the range of the products, in order to identify the vast gap between the two main brands, that we have analysed from the beginning of our research, BARILLA and HLIOS. In the BARILLA case we came to the conclusion, that the brand is selected and preferred by the largest part of the mass market, based on the criteria of the product’s quality. On the other hand, HLIOS brand is not among the first options of the consumers, due to dispassion and disinterest in all of the criteria available. That’s why, we decided to make a suggestion and provide a solid solution to the HLIOS pasta brand, in order to increase the loyal customers and raise brand awareness. More specifically, we proposed a full rebranding, by targeting mostly in a younger customer audience, with age balloon 18–28 and 29–39.
Last but not least, the question about the current situation of COVID-19 took place and revealed, if and in which amount, the pandemic had an impact on the customers’ pasta choices and preferences. The 64% of the people we’ve asked answered that the criteria of their choices didn’t change, during COVID-19. But if we consider that nearly the 40% of the customers’ affected by this situation, soon we’ll see that it is truly a huge number of the mass market.
OUR INFOGRAPHIC…
HitTheRoAD Team: Eva Anagnostakou Christina Dry Stella Zachou Fani Papageorgiou Evi Titiki Migena Tsouka Dorina Papanikitopoulou
