Selected Psychological Factors as Predictors of Consumer Choice in the Milk Product Market

Abstract

Milk and milk products represent one of the most important components of a well-balanced diet. The average consumption of milk in 2017 in Slovakia was about 176 kg per capita. Because the consumption of milk and milk products is generally considered to be very important for human health, it is also important to convince consumers to buy these products. The presented paper deals with selected psychological factors that influence consumer behaviour when buying milk and milk products. We focused on 180 young consumers (20-45 years old) who belong to the generation Y and we studied the persuading power of selected tools of marketing communication (mainly visual aspects like colour, features of logos, overall look of packages, etc.) for milk. Several methods of psychological and marketing research were used in the study, specifically a personality questionnaire NEO FFI, semantic differential based analysis of profile, content analysis and an analysis of dependences (binomial logit). It was found that personality characteristics and the temperament structure of consumers influence their choices in the milk product market. Packages and logos of milk products are strong persuaders if they are associated with the offered products.