Topic: CONSUMERS’ PERCEPTION ON PRODUCT QUALITY AND BRAND DILUTION ON VARIOUS SEGMENTS OF TOBACCO INDUSTRY IN BANGLADESH - AN EMPIRICAL STUDY TO IDENTIFY THE SCOPE OF IMPROVEMENT FOR BATB

Abstract:

Now a day’s quality of the products is the primary concern for the customers. Customers value their money and always prefer the quality product. Tobacco industry is a potential industry and its growth is also related with national GDP. About one percent of our GDP is used in consumption of tobacco product that’s why it becomes a huge market for the competitors of tobacco industry. As the cigarette is both competitive and controversial product so marketing of this product is very difficult. There are many tobacco companies in Bangladesh. Among them British American Tobacco Bangladesh (BATB) is a pioneer and leading multinational cigarette manufacturer followed by local manufacturer Dhaka tobacco. This paper tried to find out the relation with quality and brand dilution and brand dilution occurs broadly in FMCG industry. Brand dilution is the weakening of a brand though its overuse. This frequently happens as a result of ill-judged brand extension. Price cutting that increases sales volumes but moves a brand down-market can be similarly damage a brand. Brand dilution is an ever present risk for companies that rely on a strong brand for high margins. A company that owns a strong brand obviously wants to leverage it to sell as much as possible, but the very strategies used to purse this end often also brings the danger of brand dilution. However, there are three customers segments in tobacco industry. These are premium, medium and lower class group but brand dilution mostly takes place in the lower segments which is again the source of gaining maximum revenue. Customers perceive smoking as a matter of their social status. So packaging and other criteria like quality is