Abstract:
The purpose of the study was to assess the factors influencing consumers brand preference
and brand loyalty of sanitary napkin pad in Bahirdar University. The research approach
was quantitative and it used Survey research design. The sample of the study was 357
participants from a total of 5000 female students in the university with a 95.5% response
rate. The researcher employed stratified random sampling and simple random sampling.
The researcher used descriptive and inferential statistics to analyse and interpret the data.
The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 21 software was used to analyse
the collected data. Based on descriptive analysis students have a good trend for brand
preference and moderately for brand loyalty. based on inferential statistics, The independent
t-test result showed that there is a statistically significant difference between rural and
urban area students and no significant difference by age on brand preference, ANOVA
result showed that there is a statistically significant difference between brands of Sanitary
pads and no significant difference by income on brand preference. The Multivariate
regression showed that there is a statistically significant difference with consumer brand
preference and brand loyalty by factors (quality, price, advertising, reference group,
satisfaction, and brand image) all those factors have statistically significant difference on
outcome variables but the price has statistically significant difference only on brand loyalty
and no significant difference on brand preference. Stepwise regression results indicate that
the reference group is the most predictor variable than other variables for both outcomes.
According to this study as reference group is the major predictor variable, the company
should apply a referral marketing strategy. All stakeholders should consider quality, price,
advertising, reference group, satisfaction, and brand image of sanitary napkin pads. Quality
has less effect on the brand to be preferred and loyal this indicates there is no quality
Differentiation on sanitary napkin pad on current commercial markets.