Viability of Values and Attitudes Concerning Purchase Intentions and Benefit Attribution for an Organic Sport Drink

The following contribution describes a product development case study for an isotonic organic sport drink in which the value factors of GfK Sinus Milieus have been applied. The underlying research question is, if the prescribed values are a viable tool to differentiate buyers and nonbuyers of organic food in respect to purchase intention in the case of sport beverages. The authors furthermore investigate the importance of “organic” or other product features for fitness oriented consumers. The paper draws on data from a survey in Austrian and German fitness centres with a total of 400 respondents. Purchase intention was indirectly measured with a Conjoint analysis, for the influence of values and factors on the purchase intention an analysis of variance was applied. Results illustrate, that the GfK values and attitudes factors are a viable tool to differentiate between shoppers and non-shoppers of organic food. Our study has shown that the necessary factors to differentiate purchase intentions are varying over product categories. Furthermore a use of single factors is not recommended, only a combination of them is able to differentiate consumers in respect to their purchase intention. Further research would be required to facilitate full understanding of the complex decision making process with regard to different product categories of organic food products. This research indicates that a combination of attitudes and values at the same time influence purchase intention. Furthermore values and attitudes differ among product categories and buying situation.