ADVERTISING AND MARKETING PERFORMANCE OF SELECTED DETERGENT COMPANIES

ADVERTISING AND MARKETING PERFORMANCE OF SELECTED DETERGENT COMPANIES

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1  Background to the Study

Dynamic challenges are presented by the business environment in the form of increasing competition. Getting customers’ attention might be difficult with product and brand extensions. Marketers start to take marketing metrics seriously as they use a range of methods to outperform their rivals. Marketing professionals utilize advertising as a key tactic to sell their goods and services. With their TVs, computers, radios, newspapers, magazines, mailers, and other devices, customers are exposed to advertisements.

Only in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries does the use of advertising as a strategy to create a sustainable competitive edge acquire traction. Before the eighteenth century, few economists paid much attention to advertising. It so happens that the idea of perfect competition, which scarcely sees any role for advertisement, attracted a lot of the attention of economists in the nineteenth century (Bagwell, Ramey and Spulber, 2007). Advertising is thought of being persuading, educational, and complimentary to the offered goods (Bagwell, Ramey and Spulber, 2007).

The American Marketing Association defines advertisement as any type of paid, impersonal promotion of a sponsor’s ideas, goods, or services. Similar to that, an advertisement is any sort of compensated non-personal communication about a company, a service, a concept, or a sponsor (Alexander, 1965). Burnett (2008) also sees advertising as a sort of non-personal communication used to spread marketing-related information to a particular audience. Advertising is often funded by advertisers and distributed through mass media to meet the targeted goals of sponsors. In the past, research on advertising has mostly examined how marketing actions affect sales and profits. Increased sales revenue has been identified as advertising’s primary purpose. According to researchers, advertising contributes to sales in both the short- and long-term (Dekimpe and Hanssens, 1995; Lee et al, 1996; Leong et al, 1996; Leach and Reekie, 1996).

Advertising attracts the attention of the consuming public. Most often, firms in various industries try to stimulate sales through the manipulations of consumers psychological, emotional and economic rate of mind through the means of advertising this often happens when there is an intense competition in the business line, manufacturers or producers find a pressing need for promotional or advertising activities.

Advertising in other words called communication mix is used in promoting a product both new and old that is communicating the consumers in the use and purpose of the new product, including the need for it.  Since the purpose of advertising is to change customers attitude or patterns of behavior toward a product or service in a direction favourable to the advertise as well as increasing the sales volume. It is pertinent therefore, for firms to embark on descriptive informative advertisement attract attention to the existence of a new product and motivating the public to buy a trial supply or perhaps accept a free sample may be rendering a desirable service advertising as an exercise in information persuasion and communication is related because to inform is to persuade and a person who is persuaded is also informed, and persuasion and information become effective through some form of communication, therefore advertising, promotion is the design and management of a marketing subsystem for the purpose of informing and persuading present and potential customers. Moreover, when a new product is introduced in the market, an initial risk to take buyers aware of it’s value and  and existence. The role of information in promotion, however, is too restricted to new product because buyers differ in stage of their relationship with a product. Even products that have been in the market for years still need information support.

Promotion is also necessary during times of scarcity; during these times, it may take the shape of structural information stressing product preservation or an educational program assisting customers with products. When the organization is experiencing really low sales, it can also be quite beneficial to drive sales. Evidently, the advertisement was created due to the production’s primary goal in any advertising, which is an increase in sales volume. This goal may be further broken into its component parts and by coming up with ways to achieve either short-term or long-term profits. Nonetheless, both goals will be accomplished, but the immediate goal must come before the strategy and the promotional materials used.

As some or all of these components are frequently seen in advertising, it may be assumed that the purpose of advertising is not to produce great literature but rather to portray the prettiest image or to entertain the audience. We must never forget that advertising is first and foremost a sales instrument.

Once more, advertising serves as a significant catalyst for stable and robust economic growth. The goal of the marketing process, which is to generate what the market needs and can absorb, is to promote a more efficient use of natural resources. We’ve covered the idea of advertising in great detail; now it’s time to consider its effects.

So once it has been determined that a key problem or opportunity for the brand / product involves it’s communication with consumers, thus, an integral part of the advertising planning and decision making process is an assessment of the role that advertising is  meant to play.

As in the part of communication mix, once this perspective has been gained the brand manager must design a marketing and communication plan with the different elements complement and each other increasing the sales of the brand. Advertising as a communication tool and in most cases, is advantageous to set objectives and measures the result in terms of intervening variables like brand awareness, brand image, or attitude. However, these communication tasks are ultimately expected to create a behavioural response to the market place.

Also, advertising as a sales tool has acquire a wide range of acceptance as a functional form of promoting sales.  Firms, therefore, should adopt it so as to enable properly set an objective selection of tools, effectives implementation and channeling of resources as well as profit maximization through increased sales. According to Adirika, Ebue and Nnokim (2006) advertising is a powerful marketing communication tool used by companies to fulfill the promotional tool. It is an impersonal form of communication or presentation of goods, ideas, or services conducted through paid media under open or identified sponsorship.  Everything about advertising is a sponsor sending a message, called advertisement, through one mass media (radio, television, newspaper, magazines) to reach large numbers of potential use of buyers of product.  By itself, advertising is a vital marketing tool that helps to sell goods, services, images and ideas through information and persuasion.  Many companies consider advertising a superior promotional tool to personal selling, sales promotion or publicity. This is because advertising provides multiple presentation to masses of people with one message, compared with personal selling that involves individual contact with each prospect. Sales promotion frequently requires individual contact also, publicity may provide multiple simultaneous presentation like advertising, but the firm has limited control on the message content and placement.  While advertising is given such a credit, it is crucial to our understanding, therefore, that we appreciate from the start the real place of advertising in marketing, the best advertisement cannot sell a product that they feel are of poor quality, too expensive or below expectations. As a matter of fact, the best method to ruin a bud product is to publicize if. Promotion mix elements, as well as other marketing problems like product development and research, are rarely sold by advertising alone. The majority of advertisements aim to facilitate sales promotion and personal selling by educating, persuading, reminding, reassembling, reinforcing, and creating favorable attitudes and perceptions of a product and a business. Advertising improves how potential customers react to a business’s activities, to put it simply. Advertising can be described as “Any paid type of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, commodities, and services by an acknowledged sponsor” when used as a marketing technique (American marketing association).

1.2   Statement of the Problem

Advertising, as defined by Kotler and Armstrong (2005), is any type of paid non-personal presentation and promotion of concepts, products, or services by a designated sponsor.

Businesses generally value competition, particularly when it is healthy and beneficial. In a mixed economy like Nigeria’s, where capitalism’s tentacles support free enterprise activities, competition also thrives well. A marketing manager is frequently faced with the challenge of figuring out the demand for his product in a specific market segment as well as the challenge of identifying and separating those who are inconsistent in the demand pattern of his product in a pure Nigerian competitive market situation like the one that exists here in the market with Port Harcourt as a case study. Agu, C.A. Nnamani, C. J. Ejike (1998). Facts showing the detergent market’s growth trajectory indicate that the level of competition will keep rising. OMO Blue’s manufacturers must therefore have a competitive advantage over their rivals. This can be done by conducting research, devising appropriate, balanced plans to beat competitors, and assessing the effectiveness of the promotional mix to increase demand for its own product brand.

1.3   Purpose of the Study

Examining the effects of advertising and the marketing effectiveness of Elephant Extra Detergent in the PZ Industry in Port Harcourt is the goal of this study. The precise study goals are:

Analyze the relationship between social media and the Port Harcourt-based detergent manufacturers.
Analyze the connection between email and the Port Harcourt-based enterprises that produce detergent.
Analyze the connections between internet communication in Port Harcourt-based detergent manufacturing enterprises.

1.4   Research Questions

To direct this investigation, the following research questions are put out.

1. How much of an impact does social media have on Port Harcourt-based detergent manufacturers?
2. How much does email impact Port Harcourt-based detergent manufacturers?
3. To what extent does online Communication in detergent manufacturing enterprises in Port Harcourt?