INTRODUCTION
We are in a very dynamic and complex world. The business environment is becoming sophiscated day by day and as such, decision-making is becoming more and more challenging and risky. Business organization are falling due to poor decisions. Investors are losing their money and are unhappy. They are being discouraged and this is quite unhealthy to the economy. In some other instances, organizations are springing up in great numbers; some are successful in the marketing of their products and services, while others are skin akin to the baber’s chair syndrome where all is in motion but no movement, struggling to reach their target audience. Consumers are also faced with the challenge of choice making due to indecisiveness, skepticism, indifference and confusion which are among the key sales killers in business world.
However, the consumer perception challenges is the first and greatest hurdle that advertisers must cross. Perception guides all activities of the consumer from the people he associates with to the products he buys. In the business world, it has always been what people say about a product or service and not what the marketer says. How a consumer perceives each of the different brands in a category, determines which brand he chooses. So many companies spend so much money on advertising, sales promotion, point of purchase displays and other marketing communications only to discover that money people don’t even remember the product or the promotion. On the other hand, whether consumers ultimately purchase the marketer’s brand also depends on whether the promotion and marketing communication variables facilitate purchasing.
Today, it is no longer news that we are in a season of economic anomie. All that could go wrong have been going wrong with the global economies and having ripple effects on our local business environment.
Advertising is costly often its effect are uncertain and sometimes it takes a while before it makes any impact on consumer’s patronage. It is for these reasons that many companies think it appropriate, occasionally to reduce expenditures on advertising or to entirely eliminate it. On the other hand, some companies sometimes consider it unnecessary to advertise when their brands are already enjoying great success without advertisement. Such behavior implicity fails to consider the fact that advertising is not just a current expense or mere exercise out an investment.
This study is guided by the following objectives;
This study seeks to address the following questions.
In this work, effort has been geared towards propounding two hypothesis.
Hypothesis one:
H0: Advertisement is not an effective tool in increasing consumer’s patronage
H1: Advertisement is an effective tool in increasing consumer’s patronage
Hypothesis two:
H0: Consumer’s patronage cannot be influenced by advertisement
H1: Consumers patronage can be influenced by advertisement.
This study will be significant to the following groups;
Before this study, some past studies found that advert had increasing effect on consumer satisfaction; others found that advert hasd negative impact and led to consumer dissatisfaction. No research has ever found why conflicting results were obtained in this area of research. To academics therefore, this work will provide a basic for further research works. To further achieve this, relevant and authentic references have been cited.
The researcher is an advertising practitioner; hence embarking on this work will increase his knowledge of media planning. Above all, this study is designed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of a National Diploma (ND) in marketing, Auchi polytechnic, Auchi.
This study was carried out only in Edo state and the markets within the state apart form few visits made to the company in Ogun state. The study is limited to Mr Biggs fast food restaurant and God is good motors and its patronage. However, efforts were made to identify other competing brands of transportation and restaurant, conclusive reports were drawn for the success of this work.
This study research is limited to only Mr Biggs fast food restaurant and God is good motors .
Another limitation of this study is that the method of analysis is restricted to simple percentage method of data analysis.
Advertising: it is the structured and composed non-personal communication of information, usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products
Consumers: are people who purchase and use goods or services to satisfy particular needs and wants.
Consumer behavior: are those acts of individuals directly involved in obtaining and using economic goods and services
Perception: this refers to the personalized way people sense, interpret and comprehend various stimuli.
Impact: the Oxford Advanced dictionary defines impact as the powerful effect that something has on something or someone.
Market: the set of all actual and potential buyers of a product or service. Kotler and Armstrong (2007:7)
Brand: this is a name, term, symbol, design, mark or a combination of these that identifies the product of a manufacturer or differentiates it from those of competitors
Brand Equity: this refers to the added value endowed to products and services
Brand Promise: is the marketer’s vision of what the brand must be and do for consumers
Brand interest: an individual’s openness or curiosity about a brand.
Brand Awareness: is an issue of whether a brand name comes to mind when consumers think about a particular product category and the ease with which the name is in vogue.