THE IMPACT OF ADVERTISING ON CONSUMER PURCHASE DECISION IN PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1  BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

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. However, the consumer perception challenge is the first and greatest hurdle that advertisers must cross. Perception guides all activities of the consumer from the people he associates with to the product he buys. In the business world, it has always been what people say about a product or service and not what the marketer says. How a consumer perceives each of the different brands in a category, determines which brand he chooses. So many companies spend so much money on advertising, sales promotion, point of purchase displays and other marketing communications only to discover that many people don’t even remember the product or the promotion. On the other hand, whether consumers ultimately purchase the marketer’s brand also depends on whether the promotion and marketing communication variables facilitate purchasing. Today, it is no longer news that we are in a season of economic anomie. All that could go wrong have been going wrong with the global economies and having ripple effects on our local business environment. Reports about the current economic crisis have been terrific and scaring. More companies are recently reported to have shut down operations while some are planning their exit from the Country due to harsh economic conditions. In the face of all these, the few others in operation are engaged in fierce battle for the soul of the consumers. To succeed, they need to understand what makes potential customers behave the way they do. This study therefore, seeks to evaluate the impact of advertisement of indomie noodles, a product of De-united Ltd on Consumer behavior. The brand indomie with its varieties of flavours such as Onion flavor, chicken flavor, Suya flavour has become a household name since the late 90s that even a child of 2years of age could pronounce it so fluent amidst other competing brands like Chikki noodles, ‘O’ noodles, Mimi noodles of May & Baker and now the latest of them all, the Golden Penny noodles of Flour Mills Plc. With these range of competing products, massive advertising budget becomes necessary for the indomie brand, which the researcher tends to evaluate its impact on the behavior and/or perception of the consumers.