Abstract: The major thrust of this research is to examine the Influence of advertising on consumer buying habits of competing brands in Ikeja and Ikorodu community of Lagos State using Orijin and Alomo bitters as case study. It is believed that for any profit making organization to succeed in this competitive society there is need for advertisement. Advertising has formed part of the successful promotion device that any profit making organization must not toy with if such company wants to succeed. Survey research method was adopted in which 200 copies of questionnaires were administered to respondents in Ikeja and Ikorodu through accidental sampling technique and 180 copies were retrieved. Data analysis and interpretations of findings was based on frequency and percentage method. It is deduced that majority of the respondents still prefer Alomo bitter to Origin bitter. While the nature of job, type of peers and social background have been attributed as some of the reasons many consumers prefer for either Alomo or Orijin. Also, respondents established that drink of bitters boost their energy and enhance sexual pleasure. It is recommended that some version of this bitter can be produced using lemon and ordinary water to produce it as some religion is against drinking of alcoholic thereby prevent many Muslim faithful who may want to consume it.
Consumer Buying Habits
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background of the study
The essence of being in business by any commercial organisation is to produce for sales and profits. For an organisation to continue to be in business such organisation must generate enough sales from its products or services to cover operating costs and post reasonable profits. For many organizations, sales estimate is the starting point in budgeting or profit planning. It is so because it must be determined, in most cases before production units could be arrived at.
In an industrial and free competitive market economy, where the interplay of economic variables dictates the market, the problem of survival of business becomes a very nightmarish one for producers and manufacturers. The singular desire of manufacturers becomes how to create awareness and market for their goods. Advertising is then one strategy that fulfils the desire completely. The desire to be buoyant in business and to increase profit has given advertisement an irrevocable reputation.
Advertising is not undertaken by management just for fun or to keep products or services. It is principally involved in persuasion or advocacy even apparently just giving us information, using media that are paid for it to get through to the mass audience with the identity of the advertisers being clear. Advertising has the mandate to sell the advertiser’s goods and help the consumers to shop wisely (Okoro, 1995).
Similarly, of all marketing weapons, advertising has leading impact on viewers mind, as its exposure is much more felt. (Katke, 2007). Marketing mix has four subsets i.e. product, price, place and promotion. Advertising is a component of promotional mix, which is used to create awareness about products and services for taking purchase decisions (Akinrosoye, 2004).
Marketers use these types of tool for communication purpose. Advertisement evolves date back in the ancient times. Different societies used different types of symbols for the promotion of the products and services for attracting consumers. No company can become a market leader unless they invest lots of their investment in promotional purposes (Hussainy et al., 2008). The major aim of advertising is to impact on buying behavior; however, this impact about brand is changed or strengthened frequently people’s memories.
Memories about the brand consist of those associations that are related to brand name in consumer mind. The major objective of consumer behavior analysis is to determine the factors that influence consumers’ behaviour in a particular circumstance. Consumer behavior analysis is helpful for advertiser to understand the behaviour of consumer in buying different situations.
Advertising as a concept, can be defined as a form of communication through the media about product, services, ideas, personalities or organizations, paid for by an identified sponsor (Okunna, 2002). Awofadeju (2013) gives a more widely accepted definition of advertising as the non-personal communication of information, usually paid for any usually persuasive in nature about products (goods and services) or ideas by an identified sponsor through various media. It is an exciting, dynamic, and challenging enterprise.
Its often a persuasive communication in that it tries to persuade the reader, the listener or the viewer to take to the sponsor’s own point of view and also to take some appropriate action. It is not personal or face to face communication rather it is directed to a group of people. According to the understanding of advertising practitioners council of Nigeria (APCON) “advertising is a form of communication through the media about products, services or ideas, paid for by an identified sponsor”.
The terms advertising was coined from the Latin word “advertere” which mean literally means to draw attention. This is when you are getting the evidence mind in a product, notifying or informing somebody/people of something. However, while planning advertising campaign one of the strategies is to determine the language and the targeted public (consumers/customers)for the campaign because advertising messages will be encoded in a particular language that the targeted consumer/customer understand.
The role of marketing mix in any profit oriented firm or in an organization cannot be over emphasized and as such it is worth searching into, therefore, for effective functioning of a profit making firm all the component of marketing mix must be tried and used. Marketing mix is the setting of firms marketing decision variables at a particular point in time. The marketing decision variables play the central roles in the firm’s marketing programming. It is otherwise called the 4P’s of marketing. They are the product, the price, the place and the promotion. The 4P’s are set up at a proportional rate and mixed together to push the product in the market for eventually large volume sales, customer satisfaction and profit to the organization.
Marketing Mix can be described as the set of controllable variables that the firm can employ to influence the buyers response (Kotler 1976). Another definition of marketing mix is combination of four inputs which constitute the core of company’s marketing system. Marketing Mix can also be explained as the mixing together of all the marketing variables in the right proportion that will enable the marketing programme to be anytime. It must be remembered that marketing is concerned with satisfaction of need and want of consumer at profit to the organization.
The Bitters market majorly consisted of blends made from extracts of different roots and herbs. But a brand new category emerged when one company decided to package and market what many Nigerians had hitherto enjoyed from local herbalists and itinerant gin hawkers. This is the story of Alomo Bitters, an alcoholic bitters blend which was originally imported from Ghana. The market has since continued to grow as a multitude of new brands are introduced into the market at a frenetic pace. Today, the competition can be said to be cut-throat.
According to Brand Power Magazine (2014) writes that as at June 2014, the Nigerian bitters market was estimated to generate over N32.2 billion annually. According to analysts, the growing market is as a result of the rising change in the taste of consumers, who believe that bitters contain body purifiers, anti-malarial components and ingredients that strengthen the virility of men. Another factor partly responsible for this upsurge in the market is the rebranding effort of many brewers and distillers who are increasingly innovating, so as to compete effectively and gain market dominance.
Alomo Bitters is an alcoholic beverage which has its origin in Ghana; Alomo is manufactured by Kasapreko. It is a herbal alcoholic product made from carefully chosen tropical plant extracts. It has its roots in the traditional herbal industry that is meticulously researched by the Centre for Scientific Research into Plant Medicine a World Health Organization affiliate, based at MampongAkuapem in the Eastern region of Ghana. In 2012 Alomo Bitters was awarded a Super Brand. It was also identified as one of the top 5 emerging brands in the world by CNN Money.
In September 2013, Guinness Nigeria Plc. one of the leading brewing companies in Nigeria, launched its own brand of bitters, Orijin, into the already saturated market. According to its producers, Orijin is an alcoholic blend with the flavors of African herbs and fruits combined to give a refreshing bitter-sweet taste. With marketing efforts, Orijin which comes in the classic blend and an RTD variant has been widely embraced in much the same way that that Alomo initially was and it now appears as a staple in many pubs. It is thus beginning to give other bitters a run for their money (Brand Power Magazine, 2014).
It is against this backdrop that this research is geared to examine the influence of advertising on consumer buying habits of competing brands in Ikeja and Ikorodu Community of Lagos State using Orijin and Alomo Bitters as a case study.
1.2 Statement of the problem
For business to yield profit and survive in any competitive environment it need the help of advertising and because of this, many entrepreneurs or companies indulge in illegal advertising so as to get what they want in business. By so doing, they introduce fraudulent and unethical practices that mislead the public, customers, or consumers into leaving the better brand to the worse brand and also into buying the wrong products known as imitations. This practice makes advertising profession lose its good essence, credibility and interest. It also discourages consumers from paying attention to advertising messages.
Many advertised products and services unable to perform its functions as advertised to the consumers. Similarly, audience or consumers were unable to comprehend advertised messages because of the language used.
Hence, the research examine the influence of advertising on consumer buying habits of competing brands in Ikeja and Ikorodu Community of Lagos State using Orijin and Alomo Bitters as a case study.
1.3 Objectives of the study
- To know the extent at which the people of Ikeja and Ikorodu patronize Alomo and Orijin Bitters.
- To ascertain the Bitters that people of Ikeja and Ikorodu prefer most.
1.4 Research questions
- To what extent do people of Ikeja and Ikorodu patronize Alomo and Orijin Bitters?
- Which of the Bitters do people of Ikeja and Ikorodu prefer?
1.5 Scope/limitations of the study
This research has been narrowed in scope through the project topic “Influence of Advertising on Consumer Buying Habits of Competing Brands in Ikeja and Ikorodu Community of Lagos State”
The study was narrowed to the use of Orijin and Alomo Bitters among Ikeja and Ikorodu due to time, fund, materials and other logistics since it will not only be difficult but impossible to study all bitters and their consumption among Nigerians.
Hence, demography of respondents such as age, sex, education, marital status and others will be studied before the administration of the research tool to the selected respondents.
1.6 Significance of the Study
It is the belief of the researcher that this study will be useful to the students, scholars, consumers of goods and services, policy makers, advertisers, advertising agencies and advertising researchers would stand to gain a lot from the facts contained in this work.
This study upholds the high standard of an ideal advertising practice and therefore benefits the advertisers and consumers of advertised goods and services. It will serve as an eye opener to a good sense of advertising. It will form part of the academic materials that will be useful to other researchers and students.
It will educate consumer on the best ways to respond to advertisement while advertisers will learn to understand the need to follow the ethics of the profession by avoiding advertisement that are subversive.
Drug and other commercial firms will benefit lots from the research with the view to know what is expected of them in the aspect of advertising.
Students of advertising, mass communication and other marketing communication students will also find this work useful as it will expose them to various forms of media advertisements and their benefits.
1.7 Operational Definition of Terms
Influence: This implies the contribution of advert toward buying habit of consumers.
Advertising: This is the paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of Orijin and Alomo Bitters by their producers. The message is usually disseminated through one or more of the mass media.
Consumer: These are the people that buy either or both Orijin and Alomo bitters.
Buying habit: This is the purchasing intention of consumers in Ikeja and Ikorodu toward Orijin and Alomo Bitters.
Competition: This is the struggle between the two rival bitters (Alomo and Orijin Bitters) to get majority of the users among the people of Ikeja and Ikorodu.
Brand: It refers to a name of a particular product that enables its customer to differentiate it from other rival products such as Alomo and Orijin.