Answer

Critique of a Peer-reviewed Article Regarding Consumer Behavior

            The scholarly article that is the subject of this report was retrieved from an electronic data base as shown below:

Salman, F., Raza, F., & Manzoor, A. (2017). Salman, F., Raza, F., & Manzoor, A. (2017). Does the hedonic risk appeal in advertising, effect consumer behaviour? Journal of Business Strategies, 11(1), 147-172. https://search.proquest.com/docview/1925866823?accountid=45049

Overview of the Article

The purpose of the study by Salman, Raza, and Manzoor (2017) entitled Does the hedonic risk appeal in advertising, effect consumer behaviour? was to explore the relationship between hedonic risk, advertising, awareness of brands, consumer attitude and consumption of beverages among Pakistani youth. The central argument of the article which is the thesis is that there is a relationship between hedonism and products such as beverages such as Mountain Dew produced by PepsiCo and that consumer behavior is influenced by hedonic risk in beverage products(Salman, Raza & Manzoor, 2017).

The product that was the focus of the study was Mountain Dew, a non-cola soft drink manufactured by PepsiCo.  The research study sought to determine whether the risk shown in advertisements of Mountain Dew was also associated with pleasure and happiness among youthful consumers. The study sought to determine whether this affected recall of the brand, enhanced its consumption and improved consumer attitude towards it (Salman et al, 2017).  The first hypothesis of the article was that strong brand awareness, positivity in brand attitude and brand consumption is closely associated with the presence of hedonistic risk in an advertising theme of a given brand. The second hypothesis was that brand awareness, attitude and consumption among young males and females is affected by hedonistic risk in advertising themes of brands (Salman et al, 2017)

            The research design includes the target population, the sampling technique, research instruments, research procedures and data analysis methods that were used. The population of the study were educated 15-24 years’ old youth, living in the capital city of Pakistan, Karachi (Salman et al, 2017).  Quota sampling technique was used to select the sampling population of the study. This was a non-probabilistic sampling technique which was used due to unavailability of a viable sampling frame. Using the sampling technique, 384 respondents were selected.  The researchers used questionnaires as the primary data collection tool (Salman et al, 2017) 

The research procedure identified the objectives of the study which were closely related to the purpose of the study. Data collected was analyzed using frequency tables after it was cross checked against the original questionnaire and corrections made on mistakes during data entry (Salman et al, 2017). Of all respondents, 60% were male while females made up of 40% of all respondents. Regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between the different variables tested in the study.  The study found that there is a high correlation between advertising, brand recall, brand consumption and hedonic risk in advertising themes of beverage products among the youth (Salman et al, 2017)

            The study concluded that hedonic risk in advertising themes enhanced brand awareness among the youth. The study also concluded that the attitude towards a particular brand and its consumption were affected by hedonic risk in advertisements.  The study found that risk has a positive connotation among the youth in Pakistan (Salman et al, 2017) Overall, the research study concluded that between female and male respondents, brand awareness and attitude towards Mountain Dew was not different.  However, the consumption pattern of Mountain Dew was different between boys and girls.  The study concluded that young, street-smart males formed the largest portion of consumers of Mountain Dew in Pakistan. Brand recall and positive attitude were closely linked to the presence of Hedonic risk in brand ads. However, this was not associated with increased consumption of the brand among the youth (Salman et al, 2017)

The authors recommended that further research needs to be carried out to establish why high brand awareness and brand recall were not related to high brand consumption.  The researchers recommended that a qualitative approach be used for this type of research study. A further comprehensive study of brand equity of Mountain Dew was also recommended for a further research study as this study would shed more light on the consumption patterns of the brand and factors that influence it among the youth in Pakistan (Salman et al, 2017)

Relationship to course

            The article relates to the knowledge within this course and the text book in various ways. Firstly, strategic market planning involves understanding buying decisions and how consumer behavior affects buying decisions.  One of the key elements in strategic planning in marketing is preparing the marketing mix strategies. One of the marketing mix components is promotion (Kotler & Keller, 2016). Promotion strategies involves non-personal communication strategies among others of which advertising is a key component of this. For mass market products and services effective advertising plays a key role in pushing the products to achieve marketing objectives (Salman et al, 2017).

This article relates to knowledge in this course by assisting in understanding how to design advertising strategies which will ensure strategic marketing planning objectives are achieved.  It also helps in understanding how consumer behavior influences promotional strategies (Kotler & Keller, 2016).  The article relates to the textbook as it uses information on promotional strategies and consumer behavior in the text book in carrying research on the impact of hedonic risk and its relationship with consumer behavior. The article research process, methods, conclusions and methodologies relates closely to marketing research topic and content in the text book.  Information and insight on market segmentation in the text book is also used in the article. The article uses age as a marketing segmentation tool to define the market for Mountain Dew; the focus product in the study. It also uses behavioral characteristics as a market segmentation basis for the product that was the focus of in the article (Salman et al, 2017).

Critical Analysis of the Article

            This process did not make sense due to several factors. Firstly, the population of the youth in Pakistan is very high as about 64% of the entire population are below 30 years of age.  Generalizing research findings from a sample of 384 educated youths does not make logical sense. Secondly, non-probabilistic sampling technique did not eliminate biasness of the researcher. The research could not, therefore, pass the test of validity and reliability (Salman et al, 2017). Thirdly, the terms used may not have resounded well with the target market. Not many of the respondents possibly understood what brand recall was or hedonic risk among others. There is a possibility that respondents may not have provided correct responses to the questions asked (De Keyzer, Dens & De Pelsmacker, 2017).

The population sample was only drawn from one city Karachi, which was not realistic for a product sold across an entire country with many other large cities (Ju, 2017). Each city has unique environmental features which may influence consumption patterns of certain beverages which may be different from other cities. The population of the study was also too large for meaningful research and sampling to be done. The sample of the study was therefore not a representative sample of the entire populations and hence generalizing the research findings to the entire population was not sensible (Ju, 2017).

            Adequate data was not provided in the article to justify the findings made. It was not clear how many of the respondents actually drunk Mountain Dew beverage on a daily basis. The number of beverages sold in Pakistan are also not just Mountain Dew. The data did not capture the consumption patterns of other beverages. Generalizing results drawn from a study of just one beverage to apply to other beverages did not make sense (Ju, 2017).  The statistics were also not very supportive of the findings.  The formulas used to determine the statistical findings were not properly explained and analyzed. It was impossible to determine whether the statistical results were not massaged to reflect a predetermined view of the researcher’s opinions.  Generalizing the results to the targeted population was flawed and unrealistic (Ju, 2017).

A Value Assessment of the Article

Despite these flaws there is value that exists in the article that managers managing modern business in future can benefit from. Firstly, the article provides positive correlation between brand recall and brand awareness and hedonic risk in ads. Advertising is one of the main tools of creating awareness of a product in the market (Ju, 2017). Currently there is a lot of clutter in the advertising space as many companies try to push their products in the market. It is critical for companies to design ads that either appeal to rationale or emotional aspects of their products to stand out among the clutter and get noticed.  Using relevant information from this article a manager will be able to design ads that stand out in the market and which will help him achieve growth targets (Lovett, Peres & Xu, 2019).