The document summarizes a student's internship project report for PepsiCo on analyzing brand affinity of retailers. The student surveyed 600 retailers in Kochi to measure their brand affinity based on Keller's Brand Resonance Model. 393 retailers scored above 75, indicating high brand affinity. Retailers with high affinity averaged 98% sales growth compared to -21% for low affinity retailers, showing brand affinity positively impacts sales. The student recommends improving merchandizing and retailer engagement to increase affinity.

1. BRAND AFFINITY OF CORE CLASS
RETAILERS AND ITS IMPACT ON
SALES OF PEPSI PRODUCTS
Cratto Tony
13BSPHH010160
IBS Hyderabad
PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt. Ltd

2. Contents
 Swot Analysis of PepsiCo.
 Theoretical Background.
 Topic Introduction.
 My findings.
 My suggestions.
 Briefing of My experience.

3. SWOT ANALYSIS

4. Strength
 Brand Value of PepsiCo
 Strong Distribution Network
 Huge Customer Base
 Backup of Media Advertisements
 Presence of a manufacturing unit in the state.
 80% Market Share (Survey Results, ac nielsen)

5. Weakness
 Promotional activities in State level are not up to the
mark.
 Rural markets are ignored and faces deterioration in
market share.
 Sweeter taste of Pepsi compared to competitor.
 Health concerns of consumers.

6. Opportunities
 International Brand image.
 Increasing temperature in the state and especially
cochin city.
 Consumerist culture of residents of cochin.
 Primary competitor do not have a plant in Kerala.
 Weak distribution network of primary competitor.

7. Threats
 Increasing number of competitors in soft drinks
industry.
 Losing grip in Core class outlets.
 Articles in newspapers regarding the health issues of
soft drinks.
 Increasing sales of local drinks and fresh juices.

8. Theoretical Background

9. Brand Affinity
Brand Affinity is actually a metric used by the firms to
determine how a customer will behave. Brand affinity
brings an emotional attachment with the brand for the
customers. A customer with strong affinity towards a
particular brand has high chances that he will purchase
only that brand.

10. Brand Resonance Model
Introduced By Kevin
Lane Keller,
Strategic Brand
Management.

11. Topic Introduction
The customers of PepsiCo are the retailers to which they sell their
products. It is observed that the thirsty customers of these
retailers are not so brand conscious while choosing a soft drink.
Even though brand awareness exists for Pepsi products,
consumers are not very brand conscious. They choose for any drink
because of their thirst. Curbing the thirst is the primary objective of
the consumers.
The brand affinity of the retailers (Pepsi’s Customers) plays an
important role here. If the retailer is pushing Pepsi Products, it can
make a huge difference in the sales figures especially in summer
season. But, the biggest challenge for Pepsi is the margin offered
to the retailers by the local players. The retailer will obviously try to
push the sales of local drinks as it is giving them higher margin. But
if Pepsi develops an affinity in retailers towards the brand, they
may try to push the sales of Pepsi products. So, the task is to put
up the Brand affinity of the customers over margin affinity.

12. Primary Details of Survey
 Universe :- Core class outlets of Cochin City
 Sample :- Core Class outlets of GMG
 Sample Size :- 600
 Primary Data Collection Method :- Interview Schedule

13. Project Report
 There were two primary objectives for my project and
they were:-
1. Find the Brand Affinity level of the Core Class
Retailers of Cochin City based on Keller’s Brand
Resonance Model.
2. Find the impact of Brand Affinity level of a Core
Class Retailer in his final sales.

14. 1) Finding Brand Affinity Level
My questionnaire was structured in such a way that each question was
related to any of the four phases of the resonance model i.e. identity,
meaning, response or relationship. To measure each step, there were a
few questions included in the questionnaire. Based on the questions
and answers received from each store, marks were given to each step
of the resonance model and for each step, the maximum marks was 25.
So, adding up the scores for each step in the resonance model gives the
score of an outlet out of 100.
After discussing with my company guide, I have set 75 as a
considerably good score for Brand affinity. The benchmark was set
after considering many factors like limitations of putting up SKU’s,
considering unavoidable customer grievances and certain other factors.

15. 2) Finding Its Impact on Final Sales
I collected the outlet wise sales report of a distribution centre in
Cochin, named GMG. While my universe was all the core class outlets
in Cochin City, the outlets under GMG served as my sample. My
sample size was 600 and I had the sales figures of April 2014 and the
yago (Year Ago, Technical Term, PepsiCo) sales figures. According to
the information I received from the company guide, the sales in GMG
compared to yago for the month of April had a growth of around 50%.
Since the general trend of the distribution centre was growth
favoured, it is obvious that all the outlets with a brand affinity score
more than 75 should record a growth in sales.
The mean values of growth rate of all the outlets with Brand affinity level
more than 75 and less than 75 are taken and compared to find the impact of
the affinity score in sales.

16. My Findings

17. 400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Salience Level Score
20 to 25 15 to 19 10 to 14 5 to 9 0 to 4
Score
No: of outlets

18. 300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Brand Meaning Score
20 to 25 15 to 19 10 to 14 5 to 9 0 to 4
Score
No: of outlets

19. 350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Brand Response Score
20 to 25 15 to 19 10 to 14 5 to 9 0 to 4
Score
No: of outlets

20. 250
200
150
100
50
0
Brand Relation Score
20 to 25 15 to 19 10 to 14 5 to 9 0 to 4
Score
No: of outlets

21. A total of 393 stores among the 600 stores surveyed
have got a score of 75 and above. That means 65.5% of
the total Core class outlets in Cochin City has an
excellent “Brand Affinity Score”.

22. Extra Findings
Customers reaction on Merchandizing
85%
13%
2% 0%
0%
Excellent
good
Satisfactory
Bad
Very Bad

23. Customer Reaction on P3 Outlets
14%
17%
44%
21%
4%
Excellent
good
Satisfactory
Bad
Very Bad

24. Customer expectation on appreciation
85%
15%
0%
Personalized gifts
Cash Discounts
Verbal Appreciation

25. Part two
Measuring the Impact on Sales
Step 1
 Growth Percentage of all the stores are collected
from the sales report provided by PepsiCo.
 There are a total of 393 stores with a score of 75 and
more and the mean value of the growth percentage
of these stores is found from the sales report.
 According to the sales report,
 Mean Value = 98%

26. Step 2
 The second step is to find out the average growth of
all the stores which has a brand affinity score less
than 75.
 There are a total of 208 stores with a score less than
75.
 According to the sales report,
Mean value = -21%

27. From the experiment, it is affirmative that Brand
Affinity has a considerable impact in the sales figures.
The experiment has successfully proven that high
levels of brand affinity prompts the customers to push
pepsi products to the final consumers and by thus
improve the sales figures.

28. 100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
-20%
-40%
Growth Comparison among excellent outlets and poor outlets based
on Brand affinity.
Outlets with Brand affinity score > 75 Outlets with Brand affinity score < 75
Average growth

29. Further Details
 According to Keller’s Brand Resonance model, 393
stores among my total sample size of 600 are having
an excellent rating in Brand affinity.
 The average Brand Affinity score of the retailers in
Cochin is 78.1, which are again considered as
excellent.
 Pepsi has excellent Brand identity, Brand Meaning
and Brand Relation in Cochin City, while the Brand
response is poor.
 The reason for poor Brand response is due to the
prejudices in customers’ mind about the
preservatives added in Pepsi Products.

30. My Recommendations

31.  The first and major recommendation is that, Brand
building techniques should be also considered as a
part of ground level sales team.
 My research proves that increased level of brand
affinity results in more sales.
 My research has found out that “BETTER
MERCHANDIZING” from the PSR’s and “PROVIDING
PERSONALISED MERCHANDISE” as gifts can improve
the brand relations to a big extend.
 The customers should be made felt that selling pepsi
is important as they are also a part of the team.
 Making the customers much more associated with
the brand will make them more loyal to the brand.

32. My internship Experience
 Received excellent exposure in Ground level Sales
and distribution operations.
 Worked in three major distribution centres in cochin,
namely Marwa Enterprises, GMG Traders, Thannickel
Agencies.
 Got opportunity to visit the sales routes along with
the PSR’s and study the actual market conditions.
 Visited around 1500 stores in Cochin City and had
business communication with the retailers.
 Understood the real life challenges and threats of
running a sales team.

33.  I was included in gate meetings in DB points and
strategy meetings in the head office.
 Got on the job training on working in a sales team.
 Improved soft skills like Excel, Business
communication, Man Handling, Diplomacy etc.
 Excellent Corporate Exposure and organisation
analysis.

34. Thank You