THE ROLE OF MARKETING STRATEGY IN DETERMINING CONSUMER PURCHASING BEHAVIOUR

(A CASE STUDY OF GUINESS NIGERIA PLC)

By

AKPOVWOVWO KESIENA

Presented To

Department of Business Administration and Management

ABSTRACT

The performance of marketing functions basically marrying consumer needs and wants with the appropriate products and services. It is the duty of the form to adopt appropriate marketing strategy to attract customers to it's product and since it is generally believed that marketing strategy affects the consumer buying behaviour.

This project therefore attempts to examine how the use of marketing strategies have generated sales for Guinness Nig. Plc following it's impact on consumer purchasing behaviours. Efforts are therefore made to show the relationship between sales turnover and the amount spent on marketing activities.

The project work is divided into five chapters conveying the introduction, literature review, research methodology, analysis of result and findings as well as recommendation and conclusion which might help to achieve greater sales using marketing strategies. In all special attention is paid to both the company sales record and the consumer's questionnaire for the analysis.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER PAGE

TITLE PAGE

CERTIFICATION

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER ONE

10 INTRODUCTION

11 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

12 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

13 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

14 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

15 HYPOTHESIS FORMULATION

16 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

17 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

18 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

19 REFERENCE

CHAPTER TWO

20 LITERATURE REVIEW

21 INTRODUCTION

22 MARKETING, OBJECTIVES, MARKETING STRATEGIES

AND MARKETING PROGRAMS

23 SELECTING A MARKETING STRATEGY

24 OBJECTIVES OF GUINNESS BREWERY NIG PLC

25 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MARKETING STRATEGIES

AND CONSUMER PURCHASING BEHAVIOUR FOR

GUINNESS PRODUCTS

CHAPTER THREE:

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

30 INTRODUCTION

31 RESEARCH DESIGN

32 POPULATION OF THE STUDY

33 SAMPLE SIZE DETERMINATION

34 INSTRUMENT FOR DATA COLLECTION

35 VALIDATION OF THE INSTRUMENT

36 RELIABILITY OF THE INSTRUMENT

37 METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION

38 METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS

CHAPTER FOUR

40 DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

41 PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA

42 TESTING OF HYPOTHESIS

43 SUMMARY OF FINDING

CHAPTER FIVE

DISCUSSION, RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION

51 DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS

52 CONCLUSIONS

53 RECOMMENDATION

54 SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER STUDY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

APPENDIX I

APPENDIX II

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

11 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Of all business activities or functions, none is as interested in the consumer and his purchasing behaviour as marketing Marketing is invariably connected with the research into consumers purchasing behaviour, namely what the consumer want, need, prefer and value, who are the prospective consumers and where they live, their income and mode of spending, how and why they make purchase decision and so on Infact the influencing of the buyer behaviour is the primary task of the marketing department in any organisation

Equally, marketing tries to define the right type of products in terms of the company's objective and attempts to make it available at the right place and at the right price, with the right promotions This the performance of marketing functions involves basically marrying consumer wants and with the appropriate products and services It is the duty of the firm to adopt appropriate marketing strategy to attract customers to its products This is important because in a free market economy, the ultimate judge of the firm performance is the consumer

Consumer purchasing behaviour will determine the fate of the enterprise, this behaviour can best be described by a marketing manager who can also tell how he will be influenced by market variables such as price, promotion, product (variation and distribution) and place

Marketing strategy depicts the overall company program for selecting a particular market segment and then satisfying it's consumers through careful use of elements of the marketing mix-product, price place (distribution) and promotion Effective marketing requires decisions that successfully integrate a forms marketing program towards satisfying the consumer whose act in obtaining and using goods and services, including his decision process that precede and determine those acts are highly affected by the strategy adopted by the marketing manager in marketing the firm's products

Since the performance of marketing functions involves basically marrying consumer needs and wants with the appropriate products and services and since it is generally believed that marketing begins and ends with the consumer, this project therefore attempt to examine how the use of marketing strategies have generated sales for Guinness Nigeria Plc following it's impact on consumer purchasing behaviours Efforts are therefore made to show the relationship between sales turnover and amount spent on marketing activities and it's resultant impact on consumer purchasing behaviour We shall also concentrate on establishing how consumer purchasing behaviour is influenced by a forms strategy for accomplishing marketing objectives and plans We shall pay special attention to Guinness Nigeria Plc

12 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

This is considered as the first major step and of great importance in carrying out research Here the researcher attempts to define or describe the research problem

The primary objective of most business enterprises is to make profit This is because profit ensures growth, survival and continuity in business Many companies like Guinness Nig Plc recognizes this fact but many enterprise still fail to realize that the achievement of this goal depends on their ability to satisfy the needs of marketing strategies, besides a primary task of marketing is to influence the buyers

This study will therefore examine the following problems

a) The marketing strategies used by Guinness Nig Plc

b) The extent these strategies are used in this company in generating sales

c) Essentially, the impact of these strategies on the consumers will be assessed by finding out how they are propelled into buying the company's products

13 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objective of this study is to investigate and identify the marketing strategies employed by Guinness Nigeria Plc, Benin City We shall look at the various elements of marketing strategy and determine how this company uses them to identify and retain customers and how this firm uses them to find out how to compete favourably in the industry and make profit

This research will also try to determine the marketing strategy used Guinness Nigeria Plc Benin City in its operations, the attainment of corporate/marketing goals and move emphatically consumers of Guinness products

Further we shall try to identify the major problems associated with the implementation and use of the marketing strategy in this company We shall suggest possible solutions, which might help eliminate or reduce these problems

This study is also aimed at bridging the gap between classroom theory and the realities of industrial practice, particularly in the area of marketing and consumer purchasing behaviour In this vain it is hoped that this little effort will stimulate the interest of other students, profession managers and marketing policy makers to pay attention to research in the relationship between marketing strategies and consumer purchasing behaviour It will in no doubt leave the consumer and producers interest harmonized

14 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This research work tend to provide answer to the following research questions

i) What are the strategies used by Guinness Nigeria Plc to influence consumers buying behaviour?

ii) How does this company identify the factors influencing consumers buying behaviour?

iii) What are the problems associated with the implementation and use of these strategies in this company

15 HYPOTHESIS FORMULATION

This study focuses on how a firm marketing strategy affects consumer-purchasing behaviour towards its products, in this context Guinness Nig Plc, and to identify how this purchasing behaviour influenced by marketing strategy had affected sales on the part of the company

The research therefore seek to test the following hypothesis

H0: There is no significant correlation between sales turnover and the amount of money an enterprises expend on marketing activities

H1: There is a significant correlation between sales turnover and the amount of money an enterprises expend on marketing activities

We shall consider the companies sales for five consecutive years We shall do further analysis based on a random sample from the population of interest and use the information from the sample to pass comment on the above stated hypothesis

16 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The fact that implementation of effective marketing strategies creates satisfaction for both the procedures and consumers, it can be stated that in Nigeria today there is the need to improve on market orientation among oganisations Companies should realize the importance of strategic planning in the provision of goods and services to ensure guaranteed profits

Good strategies means lower cost and so lower prices and consumers are induced to repeat purchase This way the producers realize their aims and objectives and consumer gets needed goods and services at affordable prices It is therefore towards this state of affairs that this research work is oriented

This research work is also undertaken in the hope that it's finding will enable marketing people to understanding, adapt and apply knowledge of consumers purchasing behaviour in tackling their marketing problems

Again it is hoped that the study and the recommendation that will be made, will be of benefit to the Guinness marketing department in particular and the entire industry as a whole It will contribute to determining the strategic requirements for effective marketing and would enable firms serve their customers more effectively and efficiently If the research achieves this, it will be a worthwhile contribution to the integration of functional specialism (marketing) that is essential in the business world today

17 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Realizing the financial and time constraint that are involved in this type of study, it becomes necessary to limit the scope of the study to one hundred and fifty consumers within Benin City, and to one company

Using one company will limit and reduce the necessity for comparative analysis The elements in a marketing strategy are common to all the firms hence we shall place emphasis on the marketing mix, ie product, price, promotion and place This will help us see how they relate to each other and combine to influence the buyers of Guinness products

Equally, the concept of consumers purchasing behaviour shall be analysed based on the data collected from consumers of Guinness products within Benin City to see its place in the market

18 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

Certain factors constitute limitations to this study, paramount among them are time and financial constraints

Due to the short academic session the researcher didn't have enough time to cover all possible and existing literatures pertaining to the research And the economy of the nation did not help matters, since the researcher didn't have enough money to cover the research

Another limitation to the study was the reluctance of the company to give certain information because they believe it will expose them to their competitors In addition some of the respondents were unco-operative and unwilling to take the questionnaire or accept interview appointments from the researcher These was also the problem of some respondents not returning their questionnaires, having lost them or misplaced them

19 DEFINITION OF RELEVANT TERMS

There are probably as many definition of marketing terms as there are textbooks and it is very difficult in real life to come up with a comprehensive definition of any term particularly in the social sciences that can withstand a total universal acceptance, it is therefore plausible to establish operation or functional definition for the key concepts or terms used in this study

191 MARKETING DEFINED

Kotler defined marketing as a human activities directed at satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process

Stanton defined marketing as a total system of business activities designed to plan, price, promote and distribute want satisfying goods and services to consumers

Kotler further saw marketing as looking at business through the consumers eyes and satisfying his needs at a profit

Marketing can also be seen as the process in a society by which the demand structure for economic goods and services is anticipated, or enlarged and satisfied through the conception, promotion, exchange and physical distribution of such goods and services

192 STRATEGY

This term borrowed from the military refers to the systematic approach a commanding officer charged with a military action wishes to employ in discharging his responsibility

Osaze defined strategy as the means, schemes and methods designed by an organization for operationalising policies and pursuing its objectives

Appleby also saw strategy as the behaviour of management in trying to achieve success for a company's goal in environment

193 MARKETING STRATEGY

Kotler defined marketing strategy as the broad principle by which the business unit expects to achieve it's marketing objectives in a target market

Cunfiff et al (1973) observed that a company's marketing strategy is basically it's completive positive in the market place

Marketing strategy can also be defined as the general terms used to describe the overall company programme for selecting a particular market segment and then satisfying it's consumers through careful use of the elements of the marketing mix

i) The Marketing mix: Is that combination of product features, accompanying services, price decisions, promotional tools and place for the distribution of these products in reaching, serving and appealing to the target market

ii) The Target Market: This is that group of consumers which the company wishes to sell it's products

194 CONSUMER PURCHASING BEHAVIOUR

This is defined as the acts of individuals in obtaining and using goods and services, including the decision process that precede and determine these acts

195 PRODUCT

A product can be defined as anything that can be offered to someone to satisfy a need or want

Product for the purpose of this study refers to anything Guinness Nigeria Plc, has to offer for want or need satisfaction, which include Guinness Stout, Harp, etc

REFERENCES

Philip Kotler: Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning,

Implementation and Control Prentice/Hall Inc New Jersey, 1984

Esoba B Osaze: Nigerian Corporate Policy and Strategic Management: Text

and Cases

Cundiff EW et al: Fundamental of Modern Marketing Prentice/Hall

Inc New Jersey 1973

William J Stanton: Fundamentals of Marketing 6^th Edition, McGraw-

Hill International Student Edition