Europeans more responsive to brand than price

(AFP) – The majority of European consumers respond more to the brand of product than its price when making a decision on a purchase. These findings were published after research was conducted in nine European countries by the Insitut GFK (Growth from Knowledge), a French research institution.


Decisions made in this manner are particularly prevalent in the case of alcoholic drinks where 67% of people questioned indicated that they chose “always the same brand or another made by the same company”. The percentage drops a bit for the three other sections surveyed (groceries, clothing, electronics), notably for “clothing and shoes” (55.4%).

Most of the Austrian and German consumers that were surveyed indicated that for each item, excluding alcoholic drinks, they chose “the cheapest brand or, in principle, the cheapest product”.

More than a half of French, Spanish, Polish, Italian, Dutch, British and Russian always gave priority to the brand of a product.

The study was carried out the GFK, an institute for marketing studies, in nine European countries with a sample of 10,300 consumers representative of the of the 428 million consumers older than 14 (or 15 in some countries).