• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.109-116
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• 2016

Purpose - This study investigates the purchase pattern relating to soybean products in Korea. Specifically, the effect of branding based on a regional name was analyzed in terms of consumer purchase frequencies. The primary purpose of this study is to understand why family characteristics affect product selection for a regional brand in the soybean food category. Research design, data, and methodology - We used data collected by the Rural Development Administration (RDA) of Korea. The RDA has monitored agricultural food consumers for years in order to obtain purchase records. Panel participants live in regions near the capital city of Seoul, Korea. Examining data from January 2010 to May 2016, 667 families were selected for analysis. The final data set was 1,335,402. Each purchase item by each individual family was aggregated to a countable weekly observation. To analyze the data set quantitatively, zero-inflation regression was adopted, which was appropriate to avoid biases from overly dispersed observations. Results - We hypothesized the effects of regional branding from the viewpoint of the family characteristics. The first hypothesis was that the number of children would be positively associated with the purchase of a regional brand of soybean products. The result strongly supported this hypothesis. The second hypothesis was that the number of family members would be negatively associated with the purchase of the soybean products of a regional brand. Based on empirical analysis, we concluded that this hypothesis was partially supported. The third hypothesis was the presence of an interaction effect between the number of children and the family size, which was supported by the results. As a supplementary analysis, we also tested mean-variance differences in terms of categories and regional branding with corporate branding. Conclusion - The results of this study provide insights for regional branding strategies in agricultural food management. This study appears to be one of the seminal studies trying to analyze purchase patterns from longitudinal observations. In addition, this study adopted variables characterizing family lifestyle. This study confirmed that children and family size should be considered when soybean product brands are introduced.