THE IMPACT OF PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES ON THE MARKETING OF GOLDENMORN PRODUCTS IN ENUGU METROPOLIS

THE IMPACT OF PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES ON THE MARKETING OF GOLDENMORN PRODUCTS IN ENUGU METROPOLIS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

One of the major pillars of marketing is the provision of goods and services to satisfy the needs and wants of consumer at a profit to firm.  This is the provision of product for the satisfaction of consumer or customer is the focus of marketing thereby making product a fundamental tool of marketing.  But Ebue (1990:1) stated that if you produce the best product, packaged it brilliantly, price it rightly distribute it magnificently and position it to best meet the needs of customer you must have wasted all the marketing skills if nobody knows you have those things.  Your customers will only know through promotional activities.  It becomes imperative that a firm must not only create high quality goods that meet the expectations of the target market but tell success story.  That is a firm must disseminate information about the product’s existence, features, terms and benefits to the target market.

Adirika, Ebue and Nnolim (1996:35) see promotion as the component used by the organization to inform, educate and persuade the market regarding the company’s offerings:- advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, publicity and public relations are the major variable of promotional tools.

The myopic thinking in Nigeria, that the money spent in promotional activities is a waste should not crop at all, although, we are operating in a seller’s market, where companies can sell their goods and services even without adequate promotion.  There is no guarantee that such a situation will continue forever.  Promotion like distribution is one of elements of the firm.  Marketing mix and it seeks to inform the public of the availability of goods and services and their communication cycle between those engaged in production and those in consumption, the need for product promotion exist in both surplus and scarcity condition.  This is because in trying to inform, promotion can often persuade and so on be a useful means to a desirable social change if well utilized.

Modern marketing companies are increasing recognizing the value of an effective communication and promotion programme for their entire public. This includes beverage industries.  Their product encompasses vegetable commodities that significantly affect our life’s.  According to Onah and Nnolim, (1988:9) decision with these components of promotional mix in order to accomplish the objectives of any given organization the beverage, industry for sometimes now is very lucrative, this has brought so many beverage industries into their market thus leading to competition in other to survive the competition beverage industries should pay adequate attention to the issues that involve decision making in designing an appropriate promotion strategies for survival.  It is because of the importance of promotion not only as tool for informing the company that the researcher tries to examine the impact of promotional activities on the marketing of Golden morn products.

1.2   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Here, many consumers do not patronize a company’s product when they are ignorant of its existence.  Insufficient and inadequate use of marketing communication tools lead to low sales turnover, given the competitive pressure attributable to escalating cost, increased industrial concentration as the result of acquisitions and mergers, the threat of product obsolescence inherent in accelerating technological innovation.  It is clear that promotional policies have becomes questions of acute importance to manufacturer as the marketer.

There has been a sharp increase in the number of beverage product (both locally manufactured and imported) this leading fierce and cutthroat.  Infact, the creation of effective promotional strategies would be an essential step towards creating a market. Consumers find it difficult to make repeat purchase of a product whose communication is not motivating and captivating. Improper application of marketing strategies sometimes rob Nestle Nigeria Plc the opportunity of winning new customer for tom and Milo to be precise. The problem goes a long way to hinder the growth of the firm if urgent solutions are not offered to deal with them.