The Impact of Advertising and Sales Promotion in a Serviced-Based Organization; A Case Study of MTN Nigeria Ltd
Chapter One
Study Objectives
Main Objective
The main objective of the study was to examine the effect of advertising and sales promotion on MTN performance.
Specific Objectives
The study was guided by the following specific objectives:
- To examine the extent to which Brand awareness relates to organizational performance
- To establish the extent to which Brand loyalty relates to organizational performance
- To assess the extent to which Brand equity relates to organizational performance
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
All research project must include a literature review. This is because it helps the researcher to explore alternative theories linked to the specified topic and develop clarity of the research topic (Katsikeas and Leorned, 2016). A thorough examination of the advertising literature is given in this chapter. The chapter is broken up into two sections: a review of the theoretical literature and a review of the empirical literature. Also, it offers the study’s conceptual foundation.
Conceptual review
Advertising
Advertising is a paid, impersonal way for a sponsor to communicate and promote their ideas, products, or services. Every advertisement also has a well defined Medium and message. The advertiser seeks to infuse information into the potential customers and disperse his message and thoughts. He attempts to popularize the goods and services using this strategy, which is the main goal of the activity (Khan, 2016).
One element of the promotional or marketing communications mix is advertising. Advertising is a vital component of promotion and is usually one of the most visible aspects of an integrated marketing communications program. Advertising is a form of paid, impersonal communication that is broadcast through a variety of media, including radio, television, newspapers, magazines, direct mail, billboards, the Internet, and mobile devices. Promotion of all things, including services, ideas, concerns, people, and anything else that marketers want to convey to potential buyers, is done through advertising (Ferrell and Hartline, 2011).
One of the promotional mix’s components that is prominent in the total marketing mix is advertising. This quality results from its prominence and pervasiveness across all other marketing communication components (Okyere, Agypong & Nyarku, 2011). Advertising is a significant social phenomenon that has a significant impact on people’s values, beliefs, behaviors, and purchasing habits since it modifies people’s lifestyles (Polly & Mittal, 2013). The economic revolution and specific market opportunities, according to Petrovici and Marinov (2017), are the main causes of a person’s changing lifestyle and purchasing habits.
Any sort of compensated non-personal presentation and promotion of concepts, products, or services by a designated sponsor is known as advertising. Advertising is contentious because its precise impacts are frequently challenging to quantify and forecast, despite the fact that it is a powerful tool for generating strong, positive, and distinctive brand connections as well as evoking positive judgements and feelings. Nonetheless, numerous research employing a variety of methods have demonstrated the potential influence of advertising on brand sales (Keller, 2013). Advertising is defined as any type of paid non-personal communication by an identified sponsor promoting a company, a good, a service, or an idea. This definition’s paid component reflects the reality that time or space for an advertisement must often be purchased. The public service announcement (PSA), whose advertising time or space is supplied by the media, is an occassional exception to this rule. Advertising uses mass media (such as TV, radio, magazines, and newspapers) that may communicate a message to huge populations of people, frequently all at once, as a result of the non-personal component. As advertising is impersonal, the message recipient rarely has the chance to provide rapid reply (except in direct- response advertising). Hence, the advertiser must take into account how the audience will understand and react to the message before it is sent. Advertising is the best-known and most generally discussed kind of promotion, largely because of its pervasiveness. Also, it is a crucial instrument for promotion, especially for businesses whose goods and services are geared toward mass consumer markets (Michael, and George, 2013).
Brand Loyalty
The concept of loyalty is crucial to marketing strategy, and as Aaker noted, brand loyalty is the foundation of brand equity. Customers that are loyal use less time looking for information. Current brand equity may have contributed to the development of habitual loyalty-based purchasing decisions. In order to cut costs and carry out its function, an organization would benefit from having devoted clients (Rundle 2011). However, customer loyalty can provide a business an opportunity to respond to concerns like competition because when customers stick with a brand, they become less sensitive to price increases because the product can meet their needs (Graham et al., 2014).
Although client brand connection has improved because to technological advancements, notably social media, loyalty development is frequently linked to the actual service experience (King, 2023).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter presents the design, methodology, and procedures to be used in the study. It describes the research design, research philosophy, types of data and methods of data collection, analysis, and presentation.
Research Philosophy
Research philosophy is defined as the development of the research background, research knowledge and its nature (Saunders and Thornhill, 2017). This study adopted pragmatism as the philosophical approach in conducting the study since it is concerned with gaining general knowledge in a world which is in turn helps in being predictive based on the decisions made.
Choice of the Study Area
The study was carried out at MTN Nigeria head office in Lagos. This limitation was due lack of enough resources (time and finances) to perform a country wide study.
Research Design
Research design refers to the way information is gathered from subjects and, in the case of experimental research, the nature of the treatments that are controlled by the investigator. The study adopts the quantitative approach of data gathering. This approach is concerned with the acquisition and interpretation of data that is presented in the form of discrete units.
The data compared with other units by using statistical techniques (Gall et al., 2016).
Quantitative research approach attempts to discover something about a large group of individuals by studying a smaller group. Unlike qualitative research, quantitative methods are those which emphasize on facts, numbers, and frequencies. The respondents can represent the opinions of the whole population (Ibid). The larger group is the population and the smaller group is referred to as the sample (Gall et al., 2016).
Population
Population is a group of individuals who have one or more characteristics in common (Kothari, 2012). To achieve good population validity, quantitative researchers must select their sample from a defined population to which they wish to generalize their results (Gall et al., 2016). In this study, 300 MTN employees at the head office were used to obtain the sample.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF RESEARCH FINDINGS
Introduction
The chapter presents the findings of the study. It also analyses and discusses the findings as per study objectives. The chapter begins by presenting the descriptive findings then it analyses and discusses the findings of the study.
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Introduction
This chapter covers conclusion and policy recommendations based on research findings. It gives the implications of the findings and draws some conclusions which require some recommendations. Moreover, it suggests further areas for the study.
Conclusion
Advertising is very important to any business performance however, it is not absolute. It may serve, as a platform to inform or remind consumers of the existence of a product but the purchase decision needs more than that. After the purchase, the buyer begins evaluating the product to ascertain if its actual performance meets expected levels (Pride & Ferrel, 2018: 126). The consumer must be satisfied and convinced with all other factors such as product quality and endorsement among others to take action towards the product.
Brand is beyond a name and is a key part of management. Branding and brand management have clearly become an important aspect for all types of organizations as they create the value for customers and result in more revenue for the company.
Brands will have more success and better performance in this regard if companies intelligently and continuously evaluate themselves. The different dimensions of brand equity can be assumed as an important factor in the growth and decline of the general performance of a brand.
Brand equity is also a benefit that is created due to the brand name, knowing its dimensions can make a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the brands in markets, and it can make the comparison of a brand and its rivals easier. Brands which have higher equity can get the customer’s preferences and tendencies and result in higher level of sale. Therefore, since advertising is one of the way through which brand awareness, brand loyalty and brand equity can be achieved, it is very important that companies advertise their products and make sure that they reach the targeted advertised goals.
Recommendations
Companies are required at all times to have a planned and systematic advertising campaign program in place, as this would help to make such promotional implementation effective. Companies like MTN should set up a more and effective sales promotion department with experienced staff with the view to developing more promotional strategy in line with the company’s objectives.
The company should be aware of the fact that there are times when the effective use of sales promotions are needed and therefore should take full advantage of such seasons by developing an effective and efficient advertising campaign that can arouse consumer’s awareness, thereby leading to increase in sales.
Areas of Further Studies
Due to limited time, this research is not conclusive as such. It is therefore important that further research be carried out on the following areas,
Effects of e-advertising on sales volume as well as impacts of employees training on sales. The study of other sectors would increase our knowledge and deepen understanding of the effect of advertising perfomance of the organisation as well as the revenue and profitability of companies. Thus, it is proposed that a new study can be conducted in other sectors other than the mobile firms.
The study used a sample size of 161 respondents to generalise its findings to entire population of the mobile and other companies. Therefore, a more wide study could be conducted to cover more than one mobile company for good generalisation.
Also a different study could be conducted covering other foreign owned companies to find out whether same results would be obtained.
REFERENCES
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