Interpreting consumer attitude towards milk alternatives : a purchase intention model for marketing success

Within an emerging market context, the purchase of dairy free milk alternatives is not well understood. The purpose of the article is to present a model within which purchase intentions of South African emerging market consumers can be interpreted, providing marketers with information on which product positioning upon market entry and continuous marketing strategies can be developed for the growing niche ultra-heat treated (UHT) milk alternative product category. Using a qualitative, exploratory-descriptive approach, data was gathered in-person and online from 35 participants through mini-focus groups and semi-structured interviews. Through inductive-deductive thematic data analysis, findings describe consumer purchase intention towards UHT milk alternatives. Productrelated factors comprising consumer product beliefs and product evaluation, as well as behaviourrelated factors such as expected outcome, social norm and control, were found to impact consumer purchase intention, leading to the development of the integrated attitude-intention model. The study has contributed to a better understanding of the milk alternative category within an emerging market that will assist marketers in improving the marketing strategies for this category where little was known about the milk alternative consumer.