EFFECT OF DIGITAL SYNERGY ON CONSUMER PATRONAGE OF PRODUCTS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1      Background of the study

Customer satisfaction has long been recognized in marketing thought and practice as a central concept as well as an important goal of all business activities (Anderson, Fornell, and Lehmann 1994). In fact, there are at least two different conceptualizations of customer satisfaction, one is transaction-specific and other is cumulative. Transaction- specific satisfaction provides specific diagnostic information about a particular product or service encounter (Lam et al. 2004). In contrast, cumulative customer satisfaction is an overall evaluation based on the total purchase and consumption experiences with a product or service overtime (Anderson, Fornell, and Lehmann 1994), which is more fundamental and useful than transaction – specific consumer satisfaction in predicting a consumer’s subsequent behavior and a firm’s past, present and future performance.There are several media advertisements which are influencing Gen Y customers in making a purchase decision. Almost everyone grows up in the world which is flooded with the mass media e.g. television, advertising, films, videos, billboards, magazines, movies, music, newspapers, and internet. Besides making up over 40 per cent of the country’s population, Nigerians aged 30 and below are the ones who will shape the country’s social, economic and political landscape in the future Nigerian Communication and Multimedia Commission (NCMCIn Africa alone, there are about 660 million people in Gen Y category, which is also known as the millennial generation. Worldwide, the Gen Y population is estimated at 2 billion. The sheer size of the Gen Y population and their spending power require companies, producers, marketers and advertisers to reconsider their business and marketing models. The distinct characteristics of this generation call for social and political entities to revisit their existing approaches.We are in a very dynamic and complex world. The business environment is becoming sophisticated day by day and as such, decision-making is becoming more and more challenging and risky. Business organizations are failing due to poor decisions. Investors are losing their money and are unhappy. They are being discouraged and this is quite unhealthy to the economy. In some other instances, organizations are springing up in great numbers; some are successful in the marketing of their products and services, while others are still akin to the barber’s chair syndrome where all is motion but no movement; struggling to reach their target audience. Consumers are also faced with the challenge of choice making due to indecisiveness, skepticism, indifference and confusion which are among the key sales killers in business world.Advertising is any paid form of non-personal communication about an organization or its product to a target audience through a mass/broadcast medium by an identified sponsor. It should be observed that for any promotional activity to be called advertisement it must be paid for. In the real sense, it is the method used by companies for creating awareness of their products, as well as making new products known to the new and potential consumers. This thesis however, centers on the impact of advertising on the sales volume of a product. This work will shed light on how digital synergy can really affect a consumer’s buying decisions in a growing economy like that of Nigeria and how successful advertising can keep businesses going even in the midst a tough competition. More so, advertising as a promotional tool also tends to remind, reassure and influence the decisions of the consumers because an advertisement itself enlightens, educates, and persuades consumers on their acceptability of the product offering. Advertisement in such a media as print (newspaper, magazines, billboards, flyers) or broadcast (radio, television) typically consist of pictures, headlines, information about the product and occasionally a response coupon. Broadcast advertisement on the other hand consists of an audio or video narrative that can range from 15seconds spots to longer segments known as infomercials, which generally last 30 to 60 minutes. (Busari 2002).