Abstract
This research
seeks to explore “The impact of promotional activities on the purchase of company’s
product using Nigeria Bottling Company Plc. as a case study. It has other
objectives such as exposing how promotional activities impact positively on the
purchase of a company’s product and the effect these promotional activities
have on the purchase of Nigeria Bottling company’s product. Primary data were
gathered via the administration of questionnaire and personal interview to staffs, consumers
and distributors of Nigeria Bottling
Company’s product to help seek opinions on the research topic. Among the
findings were that promotional activities have a significant effect on the
purchase of Nigeria Bottling Company’s product, it has a positive impact on the
purchase of the firm’s product etc. The researcher based on her findings
therefore recommended the use of promotional tools by companies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page i
Certification ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgement
iv
Table of
Contents v
List of
Table vii
Figure viii
Abstract ix
Chapter One: Introduction 1
1.1
Background to the Study 2
1.2
Statement of the Problem 3
1.3
Research Questions 3
1.4
Research Hypothesis 4
1.5
Purpose of the Study 4
1.6
Scope of Study 5
1.7
Significance of the Study 5
1.8
Limitation of the Study 6
1.9
Operational Definition of Terms 7
Chapter Two: Literature Review 10
Introduction 10
2.1
Nature of Promotion 10
2.2
Marketing Communication Process 12
2.3
The Promotional Mix Elements 17
2.4
The Goals and Tasks of Promotion 44
2.5
The Classic Model of Promotion 47
2.6
Selecting the Promotional Mix 50
2.7
Measuring Promotional Results 55
2.8
Summary of the Chapter 55
References
57
Chapter Three: Research Methodology 58
Introduction 58
3.1
Research Design 58
3.2
Population of the Study 59
3.3
Sample and Sampling Techniques 59
3.4
Validation of Instrument Used 60
3.5
Method of Data Collection 61
3.6
Method of Data Analysis 62
Chapter Four:
Data Presentation, Analysis and Discussion 63
Introduction 63
4.1
Data Presentation and Interpretation 63
4.2
Data Analysis
and Testing of Hypotheses 75
4.3
Discussions of Findings 87
Chapter Five: Summary, Conclusion and Recommendations 90
5.1
Summary of Findings 90
5.2
Conclusion 91
5.3
Recommendations 92
References
95
Appendices
97
LIST OF TABLES
Table 4.1: Does
your company engage in promotional activities? 64
Table 4.2 Do
promotional activities enable your to determine its
market
share? 64
Table 4.3: What
impact has promotional activities on the
purchase
of Nigeria Bottling Company’s product? 65
Table 4.4: What
makes the consumer buy and drink soft drink
(Coca-Cola
products)? 66
Table 4.5: Why
do consumers want to buy and drink soft drink? 67
Table 4.6: Which
of the following media do you receive your
advertisement
mostly? 68
Table 4.7: Why
are you distributing the products of Nigeria
Bottling
Company Plc? 69
Table 4.8: What
effect has these promotional activities had on the
purchase
of Nigeria Bottling Company’s Product? 70
Table 4.9: Which
factor do you think motivates the customers to
buy
the Nigeria Bottling Company Plc products? 71
Table 4.10: Which
of the following activities suite the distribution
of
the company’s products? 72
Table 4.11: What
is the most effective promotional tool to be
used
by Nigeria Bottling Company? 73
Table 4.12: Consumers
want to buy more than usual when
there
is a promotion to win something. For example
(gift
or plane trip) 74
FIGURE
Figure 2.1: Marketing Communication Process Model 14
Figure 2.2:
Promotion in Marketing 18
Figure 2.3: Direct and Interactive Marketing 42
Figure 2.4: AIDA Model and Its Relationship to the
Promotional Mix 48
Figure 4.5: Push Strategy versus Pull Strategy 52
Figure 2.6: Product Life Cycle and the Promotional Mix 54
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
The
impact of promotional activities on the purchase of a company’s product cannot
be over emphasized, this has prompted the researcher to write on this topic
with the aim of finding out various promotional activities that affect the
purchase of Nigeria Bottling Company’s product and to discover if Nigeria
Bottling Company has employed any form of promotion about which customer feels
particularly strong.
The researcher’s interest in choosing this topic is to
provide a better understanding on the impact of promotional activities on the
purchase of a company’s product.
At the end of this work, the researcher will be more
enlightened on the impact of promotional activities on the purchase of
company’s product. The research will help more organization also to be enlightened
on the impact of promotional activities.
This intensive research will highlight on promotional tools
and techniques and also recommend on an ideal techniques to be employed by
company. Hence the researched company can also use this research to know the
merits and demerits of each promotional technique and unify these in order to
achieve their goals.
1.1 Background
to the Study
There
has been extensive research on promotional activities over time. This mainly
manifests itself in the importance of promotion in the up keep of many of the
businesses around. Marketers use promotional activities as a major tool for
communicating their intentions. A lot of literatures has been written in
promotional activities by outstanding people like Kiley (2012). In order for
promotional program to be effective, it should lead to an increase sales and
survival of the business and change in consumer attitude towards the product.
In order to achieve this target, company like Nigeria
Bottling Company employs promotional tools which include advertising, personal
selling, sales promotion, publicity, public relations, direct marketing etc.
But among them, advertising and sales promotion is the most effective and
notable which is the focus of the research. According to America Marketing
Association (AMA) 2010, promotion is any way a marketer communicates with the
public and particularly the set target market. Marketing thrust has accepted
the term promotional mix or promotional blames to classify the tool available
to communicate with and persuade current and potential customer Belgah, (2008).
A promotional mix would be consensus including personal selling, advertising,
publicity or public relation and sales promotion.
Different researcher has made various findings on promotional
activities on the purchase of a company’s product. This research is aimed at
continuing this trend and as such the aim of this study is to employ the impact
of promotional activities on the purchase of a company’s product.
1.2 Statement
of the Problem
1. Promotional
activities are all geared towards gaining customer loyalty or strengthening
customer relation. However this term has been fully embraced by firms in
Nigeria.
2. A
connected effect need to be made to employ the usefulness of all promotional
tools in the purchase of a company’s product.
3. This
project is tailored to explore how useful promotional tools can be to companies
like Nigeria Bottling Company.
1.3 Research
Questions
1. What
impact has promotional activities on the purchase of Nigeria Bottling Company’s
product?
2. What
effect have these promotional activities had on the purchase of Nigeria
Bottling Company?
3. What is
the most effective promotional tools used by Nigeria Bottling Company?
1.4 Research
Hypothesis
Hypothesis
1
Hi: Promotional activities impact
positively on the purchase of Nigeria Bottling Company’s product.
Hypothesis
2
Hi: Promotional activities have a
significant effect on the purchase of Nigeria Bottling Company’s product.
Hypothesis
3
Hi: There is a positive relationship
between the most effective promotional tools to be used by Nigeria Bottling
Company in promoting its product and increase in sales of those products.
1.5 Purpose
of the Study
The
intent of this research will be to gain a deeper understanding of promotional
activities and to analyze promotional methods as they have been applied out by
companies.
The objectives of the research are as follows:
1.
To examine various
forms of promotional activities that impacts the purchase of Nigeria Bottling
Company’s product.
2.
To evaluate the effect these promotion have on the
purchase of Nigeria Bottling Company’s product.
3.
To determine the most effective tools to be used by
Nigeria Bottling Company in promoting its product.
1.6 Scope of
Study
Promotional
tools of marketing entails advertising, sales promotion, personal selling,
publicity, public relations, direct marketing, etc. This research will look to
explore how these various promotional tools of marketing affect the purchase of
Nigeria Bottling company’s product. The research is also cover how promotional
tools and most especially promotional massages can be design to strategically
gain customer loyalties.
1.7 Significance
of the Study
This
research will be of great importance to parties when successfully completed.
First on the list is Nigeria Bottling Company as a case study
in this project. To benefit are other beverages producing companies in the
industry, manufacturing companies and representative, motivational enterprise
in Nigeria.
This research will be of great relevance to consumers in the
sense that their suggestion and criticism will be taken into consideration.
Examples is the deport Heinerger beer, brewed by the Bendel Brewery management
of the Nigeria Bottling Company.
This research work will also benefit the producers with
regards to the best media to use in promoting the company’s product to the
target market.
Finally, it is important to state that this research work
will benefit workers, lecturers and to the school since the student of the
institution who are intending to carry research on promotion will access
required information.
1.8 Limitation
of the Study
In
the course of conducting this research, on the impact of promotional activities
on the purchase of a company’s product, a lot of hurdles were crossed.
Firstly, is a time constraint. There were considerable
pressures on time because the researcher was busy with other class activities
and seasonal examination which made her to have extra time to do work.
Secondly, are the financial constraints of producing this
project as a result of increase cost of buying stationeries, typing and binding
of the work.
Another problem was the reluctant attitude of consumers and
distributors of Coca-cola product with regard to answering the questionnaire
given to them to answer.
1.9 Operational
Definition of Terms
·
Promotional Mix: Promotional
mix is the specific blend of advertising, sales promotion, public relation,
personal selling and direct marketing tools that the company uses to
persuasively communicate customer value and build customer relationship (Kotler
and Armstrong, 2008).
·
Advertising:
Advertising is paid, non personal communication transmitted through media
such as televisions, radio, magazines, newspapers, direct mail, outdoor
displays, the internet and mobile devices (Ferrel and Hartline, 2009).
·
Sales
Promotion: Walker and Stanton (2009), see sales promotion as demand
stimulating activities design to supplement advertising and facilitate personal
selling.
·
Personal
Selling: Personal selling is face to face interaction with one or more
perspective purchases for the purpose of making presentations, answering
questions and procuring orders (Kotler and Keller, 2008).
·
Public
Relations: According to the Institute of Public Relation, America
(2009), public relations is a planned effort established and improves the
degree of mutual understanding between organizations or individual and any
group or persons with the primary objective of assisting that individual to
deserve, acquire and retain a good reputation.
·
Publicity: This is a
special form of public relations that involves the new stories about an
organization or its product (Keegan and Etzel, 2010).
·
Direct
Marketing: Kurtz and Boonze (2009), consider, direct marketing as a
direct connection with carefully targeted individual consumer to both obtains
an immediate response and cultivate lasting customer relationship.
·
Product: Product is
anything that can be offered to the market for attention, acquisition, use or
consumption that can satisfy a need or want (Kotler and Keller, 2012).
·
Consumer
Goods: These are products bought for personal consumption by
consumers (Pride and Ferreel, 2009).
·
Promotion: Promotion
is a form of communication with an additional element of persuasion to accept
ideas, product, services and hence persuasive communication becomes the heart
of promotion, the third element of marketing mix (McDaniel, 2008).
·
Integrated
Marketing Communication: Is the totality of the various forms of communication
that are employed to project or promote a product or services to its target
audience (Momoh, 2013).
·
Viral Marketing
.
·
Viral market involves creating a web site, video,
email, cell phone massages advertisement, or other marketing event that is so
effective that customers will want to pass it along to their friends.
·
Product
Life Cycle: Product life cycle is the course of a product’s sales and
profit over its life time. It involves five distinct stages: product
development, introduction, growth, maturity (and decline (Kotler, Armstrong,
Saunders, Wong, 2010).
·
Media: This is a
non-personal communication channels including print media (Newspapers,
magazines, direct mail); broadcast media (Radio, Television); and display media
(Billboards, signs posters, (Kotler and Armstrong, 2009).
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