CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Marketing is the management process aimed at identifying, anticipating, analysis and satisfying human needs and wants through exchanges as efficiently and effectively as possible (Adirika, 1990:38)

Its concept is a philosophy of business which states that the customer want-satisfaction is the economic and social justification for a firms is existence.  However, no matter how a product completely meets the requirements of the consumers, its existence has to be made known to the consumers, hence, the need for advertising which serves as an awareness creation.

Equally, the multiplication of beverage (Bournvita) producing companies implies that for a firm in the industry to survive, grow or improve its markets share, it must control its market share, it must direct its energies towards some form of product high quality development, fair pricing, effective promotional,  activities, and wide distribution network. Besides competitors, the growth of this industry creates other problems which include that by presenting a variety of choice tot he customers, the management of the company face the problem of identifying which of these varieties that exert greatest influence on consumer preference on one brand of beverage product over the other.  This has led to the policy of most companies marketing department investing so heavily on advertizing as the surest means of reaching their target markets.  Nigerian businessmen always neglects the role of advertising in business because of their pursuit for quick money and profits. They often erroneously regard advertising expenditure as money wasted.  This is unfortunate indeed, advertising is perhaps the most effective way of communicating with customers and the general public.  Through advertizing, a company communicates the information a consumer needs to evaluate a product or the ability of the company to offer a product or service.

Advertizing can be inform of newspaper and magazine, direct mail trade exhibitions, television, radio, catalogue, product demonstration etc.

Finally, the role of advertising in motivating consumers, play a major role in beverage industries.  Some consumers are being moved by the nature of advertisement of a particular product irrespective of the price attached to it.

STATEMENT  OF THE PROBLEM

In any competitive marketing environment such as ours, a marketing manager is often faced with the problems of how to determine the nature of demand for his products in a given market segment, how to determine the factors responsible for the variations in the demand pattern.

Management of Bournvita producing company in Nigeria is faced with the problem of not only identifying suitable strategies to beat their competitors but also how to determine the strength of the contributions of various components of the promotional mix variables of the purpose of stimulating demand for their product brand. This has equally led to different company’s budgetary allocation and policy emphasis on different components of promotional mix.