Description
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY.
Many new consumer goods fail each year not because they are weak but because they arrive on the market without distinction or excitement. Companies must do more than make good products ? they must carefully position products in the consumers’ minds. To do this, they must skillfully orchestrate the mass promotion tool of advertising.
Advertising is a veritable tool for entertainment but, more importantly, the idea of entertainment must be geared towards securing the attention of the consumer and arousing his interest in the advertised product to compel desired action.
It consists of non-personal forms of communication conducted through paid sponsorship, It is used for long-term building of the organization’s image (institutional advertising) long-term build up of a particular brand (brand advertising), information dissemination about sale service or evident (classified advertising), announcement of a special sale (sale advertising) and advocacy of a particular cause (advocacy advertising).
Advertising to some people is seen as being vital to commercial success while others think it is a waste of time and energy. However, while advertising cannot be readily measured in terms of quantifiable results, its effectiveness cannot be denied.
For a new product to penetrate into the market and become acceptable, the producer has to create awareness for it, let the public know its importance and the best way it can be utilized and how the product can be purchased, ordered or hired and also persuade consumers to switch to the new product because the buying public is conservative, likely to be skeptical and hard to shift from an established habit. So, your advertising must attract your customer’s attention.
Advertising is a cost-effective way to disseminate messages whether it is to build brand preference for a product or to motivate a developing nation’s consumers to use a particular product. It is used either privately or in business. Most people respond to it and so, enjoy the choices available to them in every sphere of life. Whether we want to sell a private house, raise fund for charity, attract shoppers lo our stores, launch a new product, engage a staff, the technique is the same because advertisement is one of the major promotional tools used to reach
Customers.
1.1 STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS
A sales manager who fails to realize that advertising can make sales people more productive does the company an injustice and possible harm as does the advertising or telemarketing manager who thinks his respective resources are so powerful that they can do the entire sales job.
The real goal of advertising is effective communication. That is, the ultimate effect of advertising should be to modify the attitudes and for behavior of the receiver of the message. The real aim of the advertiser should be to build an advertisement that will sell more merchandise.
Managers should know that advertising is business and that understanding the consumer is the beginning of wisdom. To survive in this era of competitive marketing, practitioners need to reassess, restate and, if need be, reconstruct the whole concept of advertising. There is a group of practitioners who believe they can sell snow to the Eskimos and another group that think they can sell chopsticks to Nigerians. They should come off it because the Eskimos don’t need snow and chopsticks are better sold in china. Give consumers what they need.
Advertising has to be bold, dramatic, persuasive and convincing. The effectiveness of advertising must depend on important decisions about the correct media, adequate message, accurate timing of advertisement and advertising budget. However, not every advertising medium can accomplish all four of these aims at the same time, nor need to be expected to do so. Obviously a billboard poster can carry less information than a newspaper page.
Advertising has many limitations. II has large wasted audience segments. Feedback is difficult and when if at all it comes, it is very often late. There is usually the problem of choice of media and budgetary problems because of its high total cost.
In addition, some advertising messages are misleading and untrue and do not give room for needed information. A negative influence is achieved when an advertisement is perceived as offensive, misleading or annoying. Anytime a consumer is convinced that the advertisements do not really have reliable information but are just there to hoodwink and fleece him of his money, he will stop turning to advertisements for a guide to product quality and availability.
An advertisement may be perceived as normally wrong in some sense and at limes. May seem to pollute the minds of consumers. Some advertising messages are also wrongly timed as children and the under ages are exposed to morally unhealthy information as in the case of some cigarette and family planning advertisements on the televisions.
At limes also, there are certain things that some consumers believe should not be aired in the public. These types of advertisement messages are looked at as moral outrage in advertising.
Moreover, certain advertisements make people develop a taste for products they cannot afford. Therefore, since Modern Corporation depends on effective communication for survival and success, it is important to investigate properly the influence of advertising on consumer demands for goods and services.
1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Against this background, the questions which the study intends to address are:
Does advertising increase consumers’ desire to buy a product?
Does advertising help in motivating consumer brand choice for a product?
Does advertising help in influencing consumer perception and believe ability of a product’s brand image?
Do consumers actually believe the products’ benefits claims being advertised?
What influence does advertising have on consumer attitude towards n product’?
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The general goal of advertising is to create awareness for a product or services, arouse interest, build a desire and consequently get the customers in a favorable stale of mind to take a decision to purchase the product. It helps increase profitable sales, improve dealer relations, expand the industry’s sales, counteract prejudice or substitutions, build goodwill for a company and improve its reputation.
It helps to introduce new product and helps a company and its products enter a new geographic market or attract a new group of customers. The anticipated end result is to achieve maximum profit.
The objectives of this study are:
? To know if advertising increases the quantity of products bought by consumers who are exposed to it relative to those who are not.
? To know if the money spent on advertising a product is actually justified.
? To know if advertising helps in shaping consumer attitude towards an advertised product.
? To know if advertising as is now practiced has the power to influence the life styles and opinions of consumers.
? To determine the nature of regulation in advertising in Nigeria and its effectiveness.
? To determine whether and how reference groups influence consumers to buy advertised products.
? To determine the factors that influence advertising effectiveness in demand promotion.
1.4 HYPOTHESIS
The following hypotheses have been formulated.
1. Advertising increases the desire of consumers for goods and services.
2. Advertising increases the buyers’ brand Comprehension and confidence.
1.5 THE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
This study is an attempt to know the benefits of advertising in consumer demand for goods and services. It does not attempt to cover the whole areas of advertising. The study is restricted to advertising of consumer goods only.
Consumer goods are those goods purchased and consumed by the purchaser for his own or his family’s satisfaction. They are usually less technical and often bought mostly on the basis of brand names.
The study is also narrowed down to product advertising as opposed to institutional advertising. Product advertising is aimed at informing about and portioning the benefits of a product or service to potential buyers.
Product advertising emphasizes product against institutional advertising,
Which is aimed at placing emphasis on the company and its philosophy?
Furthermore, request for information has been narrowed down to a major manufacturing company with distribution unit in Lagos metropolis.
This organization – Nestle foods PLC – stands as a case study for this project.
The findings of this study may be valid for Nigeria only. The study should have been extended more than this if not for the limitations and constraints faced during the research. There were the problem& of contacting businessmen, secrecy of the organization, lack of access to related documents, finance and time available to the researcher.
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
That advertising has been rapidly on the increase in recent times indicates its importance in the demand for goods and services. The extent of company’s sales that is a attributable to I he effectiveness of advertising is not yet determined. The determination of this will enable the company in relation to the costs involved whether to continue or not. It is in this effect that this study is being carried out.
It is the considered opinion of the researcher that the findings and recommendations from this research work will assist companies on the best way to sell advertising objectives that will help the manufacturers to penetrate a wider market and create awareness of the product to the general public.
These objectives should be based on past decisions about the target market, positioning and marketing mix. Potential customers will become aware of a new product, its uses, market price and how the product works.
Furthermore, companies will be more informed on the best way to select media to be used because for an advertising message to achieve the desired exposure, the right media must be matched with the right logical place.
It will also be of immense help to researchers on related topics.