Abstract
M.A. (Strategic Communication)
The aim of this research was to explore how brand consumers use the consumer decision journey to determine the legitimacy of fast food brands.
This study is relevant in terms of exploring whether the consumer decision journey together with the new vocal consumer has any influence on the brand legitimacy of fast food brands and the possible implications this could have on the way these brands are perceived and /or perform.
Fast food consumers are the backbone of the fast food industry and are the major stakeholder that has inherited a lot of power and hence influence over various aspects that concern the fast food industry. Consumers belong in a social system with ongoing, shared meaning driving perceptions through shared interactions, although meaning remains personally constructed and/ or relevant to the individual or individuals that are exposed to it. South Africa has amongst the lowest life expectancy in the world with South Africans becoming more overweight and are placed third in the world obesity ranking according to Compass Group Southern Africa’s 2011 report (News24, 2013). On the other hand, it has emerged in this era that South Africans are becoming more and more aware of the necessity to eat healthily and exercise to ensure a healthier lifestyle. A consumer’s power to influence through the possession of information and unbound communication, is a tool so powerful that nothing is able to be disguised by industries such as the fast food industry. Consumers have preferences, opinions, ideas, scrutiny that filter all over the public sphere, they may have the power through the consumer decision journey, to influence the legitimacy of fast food brands.
A literature study showing existing literature and approaches previously undertaken around fast food brands, brand legitimacy and the consumer decision journey will appear in this paper, followed by a methodology that explains in detail the interview process that was used to collect data that involved eight participants in the Gauteng region; at Southgate, Northgate, Eastgate and Westgate Malls where two participants were selected from every mall and interviewed.
Findings illustrated that fast food consumers have emotive feelings towards the fast food brands they consume and generally buy fast food based on how the food tastes, the food being quick to prepare and saving the consumers time, as well as them responding to a momentary craving where they seek satisfaction through the fast foods they eat.
Consumers made very little reference to fast food brands being unhealthy, although they indicated that they feel that the information about fast foods is highly inadequate, making the consumer uninformed about the fast food they consume. This occurrence did not seem to perturb the fast food consumer as they tend to turn a blind eye to the potential effects of fast foods. However ignorant...