Advertising as a ‘’Power Tool’’ for Business Growth; A Case Study of Nigerian Bottling Company Plc
Chapter One
Purpose Of The Study
The objective of this study is to give the rationale for advertising efforts, and in so doing, answer the questions posed by the research problem.
These are:
(i) To justify that adverts build primary demand
(ii) To determine the extent to which advertisements build insistence or preference.
(iii) To determine that advertising efforts have a positive relationship with sales volume.
(iv) To establish the fact that even “big” names advertise in the face of competition to achieve short and long term goals of the organisation.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
This chapter is set to review existing literature on advertisement on consumer buying behaviour as seen by scholars of repute or researchers.
Advertising, sales promotion, personal selling and public relation are mass-communication tools available to marketers. Advertiser primary mission is to reach prospective consumers and influence their awareness, attitudes and buy behaviour. One of the studies of advertising and consumer buying behaviour was conducted by (Acebron and Dopico 2000) and the aim of the study was to analyze the impact of previous experience on buying behaviour of fresh foods. They used structural equation model in other to identify the relationship between habits and consumer buying decision.
According to Proctor, Moorell, Good and Cupples (1982), the principal aim of consumer behaviour analysis is to explain why consumers act in a particular way under certain circumstances. Thus, in this chapter an attempt shall be made to give the concepts of advertising. The reasons for advertising, role of advertising, types of advertising, advertising industry and advertising media will be reviewed.
Furthermore, concepts on consumer behaviour, theories of consumer buying behaviour, model of consumer decision making process, advertising and consumer behaviour – a theoretical explanation and effects of advertisement on consumer behaviour will be discussed.
Concepts Of Advertising
Advertising as a promotional or communicational tool is an aid to trade for driving sales of the company’s products and services and also to build a brand identity and communicate changes or new products/services to the customers. It is a subset of promotional mix which is one of the 4p’s in the marketing mix. As a promotional strategy, advertising serve as a major tool in creating product awareness and condition the mind of a potential consumer to take eventual purchase decision.
Advertising have been defined in various ways by different scholars. The common and significant thing about all the definitions is that; advertising helps to inform people (Consumers) about the product newly introduced or products in existence.
According to Reynard (1974), “Advertising is a set of techniques and methods having the objective of informing and convincing the client to buy some products or services.” In this definition, advertising has two main objectives; firstly, as information products or source that makes the consumers know that the goods and services are available for them to buy. Secondly, the effort to convince the consumers to buy the goods they have been made aware of.
Another definition of advertising by Bovee and Arens (1992) is that “Advertising is a non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media”.
This definition tries to see advertising as a way of communication to people through various advertising media, using information provided by the owner of the products.
Samuel (1987) also defined advertisement “as a paid announcement published in newspapers, magazines, radio or television.” They could be general notice or information on the arrival of new goods in a store, or persuading customers to buy already existing ones.
In all the definitions given above, four things can be inferred;
i. Information about a product, either newly introduced arrived or already existing
ii. The owners of the products been advertised, who provide the information pay for the publication of such information.
iii. There is need for media, for onward transmission of the information.
iv. The target audience (i.e consumers) receives and act upon such information
REASONS FOR ADVERTISING
Advertisers advertise primarily to develop consumer value in their brands. The majority of adverts are for brand, with the obvious exceptions of political, public service and charity advertising.
Brands deliver choice, innovation, confidence and consumer value. The value of most businesses does not reflect their tangible assets, but their brand assets and therefore leads to business success being very largely driven by the ability of a company’s brands delivering a higher level of consumer satisfaction than competing brands (ISBA, 2004)
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, we described the research procedure for this study. A research methodology is a research process adopted or employed to systematically and scientifically present the results of a study to the research audience viz. a vis, the study beneficiaries.
RESEARCH DESIGN
Research designs are perceived to be an overall strategy adopted by the researcher whereby different components of the study are integrated in a logical manner to effectively address a research problem. In this study, the researcher employed the survey research design. This is due to the nature of the study whereby the opinion and views of people are sampled. According to Singleton & Straits, (2009), Survey research can use quantitative research strategies (e.g., using questionnaires with numerically rated items), qualitative research strategies (e.g., using open-ended questions), or both strategies (i.e., mixed methods). As it is often used to describe and explore human behaviour, surveys are therefore frequently used in social and psychological research.
POPULATION OF THE STUDY
According to Udoyen (2019), a study population is a group of elements or individuals as the case may be, who share similar characteristics. These similar features can include location, gender, age, sex or specific interest. The emphasis on study population is that it constitute of individuals or elements that are homogeneous in description.
This study was carried out to examine Advertising As a ‘’Power Tool’’ For Business Growth. Nigerian Bottling Company Plc form the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
Introduction
This chapter intends to focus on data and other information collected in the course of this research work and also it will deal with the presentation and analysis of data collected by the researcher on respondents.
The researcher employed various data collection techniques in this research work i.e. questionnaire administered and personal interview conducted on workers of Nigerian Bottling Company Plc. The data used for the study were drawn largely from both primary and secondary sources of data.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Summary
This research work is on Advertising As a ‘’Power Tool’’ For Business Growth.
Chapter one introduces the background information about the research work and the statement of research problem gives the various problems that necessitated the research work. The objectives of the study were enumerated showing the objectives to be achieved at the end of the study. In the significance of the study, we would know how important the study will be to management of companies, government and students of higher learning or any interested persons or agencies. The horizon of the study was explained in the scope and limitations of the study. Finally, under chapter scheme, all the chapters were summarized in a nutshell for easy understanding.
Chapter two is on literature review and it deals with the existing literature on the effects of advertisement on consumer buying behaviour. It includes the definition of advertisement where advertising is defined as any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services by an identified sponsor.
Nwokoye (2000) explained that advertising has become a major form of selling, if not only supports form of selling but also serve as the only selling tool used to inform target audience about producer product. He said in the ancient times, the most common form of advertisement was by the word of mouth, however commercial messages were found in the runs of Pompeli. In setting advertising objectives, it should be based on past decisions about the target market, positioning and marketing mix. The following are the classification of advertising objectives namely: informative, persuasive, reminder and reinforcement advertising. When setting advertising budget Nwokoye (2000) gave five (5) specific factors to be considered i.e. stage in the product life cycle, market share and consumer base, competition and clutter, advertising frequency and product substitutability.
Gary (1992) observed that when developing advertising strategies four (4) steps are followed to develop a creative strategy: message generation, message evaluation and selection, message execution and social responsibility review. According to Irwing (1997) the major steps in media selection are: decoding on reach, frequency and impact, choosing among major media types, selecting specific media vehicles and deerding on media timing.
Kotler (2004) said the advertising programme should evaluate both the communication effects and the sales effects of advertising regularly. The sales effect of advertising are often harder to measure than communication effects and sales are affected by many factors besides advertising such as products features, price and availability.
Kotler and Keller (2012) said one of the common views in understanding consumer behaviour is it has become a factor that has a direct impact on the overall performance of businesses. Thompson (1990) identified four (4) theories of consumer behaviour namely: rational actor’s theory, new institutional economics, process theory and the bullwhip effect.
Five stages model of consumer decision making has been studied by a number of other researchers, but Blackwell (2006) identified the five (5) stages of consumer decision making process as: problem/need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision made and post- purchase evaluation. Furthermore, a number of researchers have been carried out by scholars on the factors affecting the consumer buying behaviour. Wiedermann (2007) classified them into internal and external factor, while Wiver (2009) divided them into social, personal and psychological factors.
Chapter three which is on research methodology includes the introduction to the chapter. In the research design, we would know that it’s a survey research which purpose is to examine the effect of advertisement on consumer buying behaviour with a study of Honeywell Mill Nigeria Plc. Under sources of data collection, the researcher collected both primary and secondary data. For the population and sample, the population of the study covers all the workers of Nigerian Bottling Company Plc, where a selected sample of twenty (20) employees working in the marketing department were taken
from the entire population. For the data collection methods, the researcher used both the questionnaire schedule and personal interview in collecting information from the respondents.
In the method of data analysis, the researcher presented data in tabular presentation based on percentages in analyzing responses. In testing of hypotheses, the statistical technique employed is the chi-square (X2) method, which is used to test the relationship between the variables concerned.
Chapter four involves data presentation and analysis, it is where data collected were tabulated using percentages to analyse each table. The research hypotheses raised in the opening chapter were tested and all two (2) hypothesis formulated were accepted as true.
Chapter five is on summary, findings and conclusions and recommendations of the whole research work. For the summary, all the chapters were summarized chapter by chapter, while the findings and conclusions consist of the findings observed by the researcher during the study. The recommendations were based on the findings observed before useful suggestions will be given as recommendations to management of blue chips companies, government and students of higher learning or any interested persons.
Conclusions
With respect to the analysis and the findings of this study, the following conclusions emerged;
Generally, businesses say that advertising provides a public service because it gives them information about their products and in its broadest sense; it is the vital conduct for information between producers and consumers. Of course, we all know that advertising does more than merely inform, its job is to sell. It is not objective or neutral and successful adverts skillfully engage the mind of the consumer and motivate them to buy the product advertised.
Furthermore, communication does not only enhance mutual understanding and social integration of communities. It foster harmonious relationship that contributes immensely to the overall-social economic, political and well as the cultural development of the human society.
Finally, advertisement campaign worldwide influence the behaviours and attitude formation of consumers not only in Nigeria but also worldwide. The consumers of products have their motivational sources which are advertisement and it’s motivating them to materialize the purchase of durables. The consumers are induced significantly by advertisements when the target is on quality and price. Purchase attitude and behaviour is influenced by variety of advertisements which cover product evaluation and brand recognition.
Recommendations
Based on the findings and conclusion, the following recommendations are made:
- The management of the organisation should evolve a strategy that would fully embrace advertisement as a promotional mix in the marketing of their products.
- The efficiency in carryout advertisement in the company depends on the experience and mental alertness of the personnel involved in the advertising campaign for the organisation.
- The organisation should intensively monitored customers satisfaction through client complaints and suggestions, because their customers are very vital to the growth and survival of the company.
- The company should conduct quarterly marketing research, so as to gather information as regard the ways to meet projected sales and profit level set by them.
- There is need for a constant meeting between the management and its customers, so as to establish a good relationship in order to find answers to most of the customers complains.
- The management of the organisation should try its possible best to use the promotional mix i.e. advertising,sales promotion, personal selling to pursue its objectives in the target market.
- The staff employed in the sales and marketing department should be given adequate training on consumer behaviour, which will help to boost their effectiveness when dealing with customers.
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