THE IMPACT OF PROMOTIONAL STRATEGIES ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR (CASE STUDY OF GUINNESS NIGERIA PLC)

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Sales strategies are important techniques adopted by marketers to achieve goals and objectives. Also marketing strategies include the techniques, tactics as well as the skill s introduced and accepted by the company concerned to achieve result. Marketing is a science as well as an art. According to Gary L. Lillian (1998) it is a cornerstone of policy in giant cooperation.
Consumers as well as the customers are often referred to as those who use or might use some specific product or service. These are the people who collectively form the target market for different type of items being sold. Every one who buys or uses any item is a consumer. That is the buyer and the users of domestic and industrial goods and services.
Journal of American Marketing Association (1983) postulated that consumer can be grouped into different types which include industrial consumer. This varying group from or compose a market for any product to be well known and consumed by the people in the market, there is need for sales promotion which does not work in isolation to marketing but economics passes a lot of activities that enables the company’s product to get to the consumer.
According to Rotimi (2002), Promotion is an attempt to persuade by communicating effectively with potential customers and consumer’s or any audience generally to accept the product. It is the most complex element in the marketing mix and very difficult to carry out effectively. Promotion does not create only awareness but also recognize any new development in the company’s product or science, price and package. And it also comprises such as personal selling, advertising, marketing, segmentation, merchandising e.t.c.
Philip Kotler (1978) defined market as a distance group of people or organization that has resources which they want to exchange for their distance benefit. The shift from the production orientation and their collapse subsequently gave rise to the consumer oriented marketing philosophy. This marketing concept led to the development of consumer behaviour. Thus, the future which culminated the introduction of new product, make the marketers to search for better information about what consumers are willing to buy and are able to develop those according to customers need.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Guinness Nigeria Plc was incorporated in Nigeria in 1950. The company initially started by marketing of its earlier foreign products in Nigeria. It established wholesale and retail outlets to market foreign extra stout in Nigeria. The successful performance of this product in Nigeria market now prompts the company to build a brewery in Nigeria in 1960.
At that period, it was a strong policy of the Nigeria government to encourage foreign or overseas investment in Nigeria Based on this, the construction of the brewery started in 1961.
The laying of foundation stone for the new Guinness brewery was on 31st January. 1962. The Lord Eluedon, the Third Earl of Iveagh, head of the Guinness family and the sixth chairman of the Guinness Company Limited laid down the stone. The Federal Ministry of Finance in the cabinet of late Sir. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the Late Chief Festus Okotie Eboh assisted by the western Nigeria Minister of Finance, Oba Akran performed the ceremonial rite of buying a copper casket beneath the foundation stone.
Casket containing a number of items, including a message from the second and Late Earl of Iveagh, Nigeria and Irish newspapers, a bottle of Guinness stout, sets of Nigeria Airways timetable and kolanuts.

STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
It has been observed that consumers prefer to purchase some goods to another because some products lack adequate awareness and there is a persistent low sales as a result of poor qualities of the products.
There is no gainsaying fact that Guinness Nigeria Plc. has not effectively discharge its statutory responsibilities to their customers and this was discovered on the part of the management. And these have been a problem and need to be corrected. This study will also undertake an examination of various sales promotional strategies can be suitable.

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The objectives of this study are as follows:
To outline the initial steps in developing effective communication, starting with identifying a target audience and determining the response sought.
To create the awareness about the product, boost sales since promotion is meant to attract many more consumers to increase profit.
To find out how promotion affects the consumer’s choice.
To explain each promotional tool like city, advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and public relation and the facts in setting the promotional mix, type of product and market push versus pull strategies, buyer readiness state.
To find out kinds of promotional mix, promotional strategies that the industrial sector can use to influence their success and survival.

STATEMENT OF RESEARCH QUESTION
Attempt will be made in this paper to answer the following research questions.
Is sales philosophy a means of achieving organization goals?
Does it help to determine the needs and want of ultimate consumer and delivery of the desired satisfaction more effectively and efficiently?
Does effective promotion of goods influence consumer-buyings behaviour?
What kind of sales promotional strategy is to adopt or use in rural area?
Does sales promotion help to determine the needs and want of ultimate consumer and delivery of the desired satisfaction more effectively and efficiently?
Does the awareness of consumer need the starting point of the marketing concept approach?

STATEMENT OF RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
The following work is geared towards testing the hypothesis:
Ho – The level of awareness about a product is not a function of promotion.
Hi – The level of awareness about a product is a function of promotion.
Ho – The higher the level of Guinness product the lower the level of awareness of the consumers about such product.
Hi – The higher the level of advertisement of Guinness product the higher the level of awareness of the consumers.
Ho – There is no significant relationship between promotional activities and consumer’s attitude towards buying the company’s product.
Hi – There is significant relationship between promotional activities and consumer attitude towards buying the company’s product.
Ho – Very high level of promotional strategies does not automatically translate to very high states volume.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The importance of sales promotional strategy cannot be overemphasized in attracting a consumer to a product. Therefore the relevance of the study is on the identification of social influence as a sale strategy and the role it has done to play on all type of marketing (personal, industrial and household goods and services). The answer to this is that advertising is very important in a business.
Specifically the study is very important:
Awareness is created about a company’s product.
Sales volume and sales revenue would be located
Organization would know how promotion as a marketing tool      affects consumers advises of product.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study will touch some aspect of marketing at the Nigeria (Local) scene and so many different types of sales strategies i.e. advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, publicity, merchandising, public relation, marketing segmentation and how each of these strategies affect individuals and different marketers.

DEFINITION OF TERMS
Publicity: It is any message about an organization that is communicated through the mass media but the company does not pay for it.
Marketing mix: It is a set of controllable variable that company use to influence buyers response. Marketing mix is a kind of ‘BLEND’ or ‘INGREDENTS’ and ‘TOOLS’ used by organization to activate consumer response to product or service.
Personal Selling: It is a personal communication in which the receiver provides immediate feedback to the source message. It is a subset of promotional mix.
Public Relation: This consists of building good relation with the company and its product positively by the perceptions of various publics by obtaining favourable publicity, government official and shareholders.
Sales Volume: This refer to the quantity of goods sold by any organization within a given period daily, weekly, monthly or yearly
Sales Promotion: A short-term increase to encourage purchase or sales of product or services but instead to craft a positive image for the product or organization in long term.