Urban brand awareness and preferences for milk products: An empirical Study on Kolkata Metropolitan

The dairy market has been growing progressively over the years and is now bigger than the other food market but their lies a great state wise inequality in India in terms of consumption pattern of dairy products. Though Kolkata's economy is increasing through sectorial shifts from necessary food to high value foods but in terms of per capita expenditure, Kolkata remain relativelybehind. Consumers brand preferencesrepresent afundamentalstep in understanding consumer behaviour. A deeper understanding of such preference can help marketers’ better design marketing program and build a long term relationship with consumers. This warrants an empirical study for such specific rural pockets to help marketers improvise the dynamics of segmentation and marketing mix variables to capitalize their efforts to the fullest in rural markets. The present study was conducted in purposively selected Kolkata Municipality area to explore the rural consumer buying behavior through brand awareness and influence of demographic factors on brand preference. Kolkata Municipality area is divided into 16 borough and each borough consists of several wards. Hence, five boroughs were selected randomly and from each borough two wards were selected randomly. The results indicated that there were no statistical relationships between age, gender, education with dairy products preference. But there was statistical relationship between occupation and gender with the brand preference consumers in the Kolkata metropolitan in West Bengal.