Marketing Phenomenon

Pepsi-Cola was founded in the late 1890’s by Caleb Bradham. Then in 1961 Pepsi-Cola merged with Frito-Lay, establishing an overall company called PepsiCo, Inc. PepsiCo is the world’s second largest carbonated soft drink manufacturer and the largest packaged foods product manufacturer. Some of the company's well-known brands include Pepsi Cola, Quaker, Tropicana, Naked, Mountain Dew, Doritos, and Lay's potato chips. Under Chairwoman and CEO Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo has categorized their brands into three types: Good For You, Better For You, and Fun for you. PepsiCo’s products are distributed worldwide and is recognized in over 200 countries.
In the past decade, the trend for healthy eating has been making its way into America. Individuals have become more health conscious and the shift in their diet has had a huge impact the food, snack and beverage industry, including PepsiCo. “The trend of Americans making healthier lifestyle changes, such as eating better and exercising more, shows that the U.S. population is taking the necessary steps to becoming a healthier nation,” said Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of American Public Health Association(APHA). Consumers are paying closer attention to nutrition facts and the ingredients of the products they consume. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, American adults are eating better, making better use of available nutrition information, and consuming fewer calories coming from fat and saturated fat, consuming less cholesterol and eating more fiber. The nation's restaurants and food manufacturers have been pressed to offer more healthful items and provide more nutrition information to help people make better dietary choices. Some now post calorie counts on their menus, a move that will be required by the “Affordable Care Act”. The USDA conducted a study based on interviews with nearly 10,000 Americans, sampled in three cycles from 2005 to 2010. Respondents said they were eating meals with less saturated fat, lower cholesterol and more fiber, and reading nutritional labels at grocery stores more often.

As more and more Americans are taking steps toward a healthy lifestyle, PepsiCo has taken on the responsibility and commitment to sell healthier products. PepsiCo was already the first major brand to introduce a caffeine-free cola in 1982, and labeled their Frito-Lay brands with nutritional facts in 1981. They’ve also provided freshness dating to their products in 1993. PepsiCo had a fairly health-conscious approach to the market from the very start, which gives them a bit of a competitive edge now that the health trend is becoming more prominent in America. They added a new category called "Good for you", which represents its growing line of healthy products such as Sabra hummu Being a huge producer in the food industry.

Consumer Behavior Analysis
The two main factors we focused on while analyzing our target consumer group of college students ranging from ages 18-14, was motivation and attitude. We chose attitude because it can give us general information about the ways in which the students’ attitudes are formed, the different attitudes they hold towards healthy snacks, how their attitudes can be measured, and the process to change their attitudes. And the motivation can help us find out what do they actually need, the process that moves students to behavior in certain ways. We think through this way, we can get a very comprehensive understanding of why, when, and how our students consume or not consume the healthy snacks.
Attitudes:
Functional theory of attitude: Daniel Katz proposed a functionalist theory of attitudes, these functions serve people’s need to protect and enhance the image they hold of themselves, and help them achieve their basic goals. These functions help us to understand why people hold the attitudes they do toward psychological objects. We believe the utilitarian function impacts college