Making Sense in Marketing–Sensory Strategies For International Quick Service Restaurants

Abstract

"Given the importance of Sensory Marketing in the field of QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) industry, the objective of this paper is to identify the key sensory factors that influence customers’ selection of a fast food restaurant. The purpose is to find out the factors in order of influence to answer the question of whether sensory factors play any significant role in the choosing a fast food restaurant. For this quantitative study, data of 1600 respondents were collected through structured questionnaire from four international fast food chain restaurants (KFC, McDonald, Domino’s and Subway) across four cities (Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad) of India. To meet the research objective and to test the hypothesis statistical tools; Factor Analyses and Multiple regression were used. Factor analysis revealed three components, namely: Sensory influence, Promotional influence and Monetary influence, due to their high factor loadings. Further, multiple regression analysis results indicated that the Sensory factor contributed significantly to the model followed by Promotional factor and Monetary Factor. This study concludes that Sensory Factor is the most influencing factor for customers to select a fast food restaurant contrary to the belief of Promotional and Monetary factor. This study not only adds to theoretical insights of the literature of Sensory marketing but also recommends its practical implications to the marketing managers and practitioners of the QSR industry.