1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
Marketing is the management process aimed at identifying, anticipating, analysis and satisfying human needs and wants through exchange 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 new product completely meets the requirements of the consumers, its existence ahs to be made known to the consumers, hence, the need for advertising which serves as an awareness creation.
Equally, the multiplication of production company in Owerri municipal implies that for a firm in the industry to survive, grow or improve its market share, it must control its market share, it must direct its energies towards some form of new product high qualities 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 to the 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 production company in Owerri municipal new product over the other.
This led to the policy of most companies marketing department investing so heavily on advertising as the surest means of reaching their target markets. Owerri municipal business men 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 advertising, a company communicates the information a consumer needs to evaluate a new product or the ability of the company to offer a new product or service.
Advertising can be inform of newspaper and magazine, direct mail trade exhibitions, television, radio catalogue, new product demonstration etc.
Finally, the role of advertising in motivating consumers, play a major role in all the production company in Owerri municipal. Some consumers are being moved by the nature of advertisement of a particular new product irrespective of the price attached to it.
1.2 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 new products in a given market segment, how to determine the factors responsible for the variation in the demand pattern.
Management of producing company in Owerri municipal is faced with the problem of not only identifying suitable strategies to beta their competitors but also how to determine the strength of the contribution of various components of the promotional mix variable of the purpose of stimulating demand for their new product brand. This ahs equally led to different company's budgetary allocation and policy emphasis on different components of promotional mix. Thus, the problem of this research is to find out how far advertising has contributed in motivating consumer new product brand preference for production company in Owerri municipal.
1.3 Objective of the Study
Advertising as a promotional mix among other things at influencing, consumer of selecting a particular new product or service instead of competing brand of similar new product during their purchase decisions. This study therefore seek to examine the market acceptance of companies in Owerri metropolis with a view to establishing the extent to which consumer's preference of their product over their production company in Owerri municipal can be attributed to advertising. Therefore, the objectives of this study are:
- To determine whether advertisement appeal or theme is the reason why consumers prefer product than the other in Owerri municipal.
- To identify the cause and kind of differences in consumer preference of the companies new product understudy.
- To determine the strength of advertising relative to the other factors in motivating consumer awareness of new products under study.
- To suggest ways of improving advertising campaign strategy for production company in Owerri municipal new product marketing to be more effective.
1.4 Research Questions
- Is advertisement appeal or theme the reasons why consumers prefer than the other in Owerri municipal?
- What are the cause and kind of differences in consumer preference of the companies new product under study?
- What are the strength of advertising relative to the other factors in motivating consumer awareness of new products under study?
- Are there ways of improving advertising campaign strategy for production company in Owerri?
1.5 Significance of the Study
It is intended that the result of this study will help the companies in Owerri municipal in the following ways:
- To be in a position to make their new product meet the needs of their customers.
- To help the consumers ascertain the quality of the new product and the benefits derive in consuming the new product.
- It will facilitate the work of other people mostly researchers who many in one way or the other engage in a similar research in future.
- The reader with also benefit from his work because it will help them in building their own study when carrying out the academic research.
- It will expose the opportunities and threats facing the competitors and the need to affect changes so that the company can grow positively.
1.6 Scope of the Study
The study is a case study of consumers in Owerri municipal. Due to the size and spread of the company, the study is limited only to consumers of companies in Owerri metropolis.
1.7 Limitation of the Study
The researcher encounter a lot of difficulties ranging from finance, time, bureaucracy and personal comfort. For the fact that the researcher is a student and carried out the research work with a limited amount of money. He encountered some financial problem has, the researcher work requires much money for producing questionnaires on interview guides and transportations.
The finance problem prevented the researcher from traveling to other parts of the country for effective data collection, hence only Enugu metropolis was used. There was a problem of paucity of related literature in this area of study. It was discovered that there has not been any available research work done on this new product and it packaging. Bureaucracy which the researcher observed with some dealer while carrying out this study also constituted a problem. Being a student researcher my lecture periods suffered because some workers of the dealers wasted time before filling the questionnaire or granting any personal interviews.
1.8 Definition of Terms
Advertising:
It is a non-personal form of communication or presentation of goods, ideas or services conducted through paid media under clear sponsorship (Kotler p. 1987, 2nd edition)
Consumer New Products:
They are those new products used by the final consumers that are not industrial new products (Ozo 2002. 120)
Brand Preference:
Is a situation where the consumer selects a particular new product that will satisfy his needs and wants (Journal of consumer research 1982. 185)
Consumer Behaviour:
Is whatever the consumer does in the process of satisfying his/her needs (Ozo 2002.10).
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