ASSESSING IMPACT OF PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES ON THE CONSUMPTION OF A COMPANY PRODUCT

ABSTRACT
The objective of the study is to investigate the effect of promotional activities on the consumption of a company’s product using MTN Nigeria as a case study. The study adopted survey research design in which questionnaires used to elicit information from respondents. The population consist of all consumers of MTN products in Edo State. The study used simple random sampling to pick one person of very 1,5000 person which gave 100 persons as sample size. Chi- square statistic was adopted in the ascertaining of hypotheses. The study revealed that promotional activities can counter more of competitors. It was recommended that government should as a matter of urgency put some control measures in place to protect customers for being seen as deceitful.

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
The end result of company activities in the business environment is the exchange of its output for buyers or prospective buyers purchasing power. Modern organizations have found themselves in the battle to win and attract more buyers. For this reason a marketing manager’s primary assignment is to create sufficient awareness about a company marketing mix through promotional activities. Promotion is used by some people to mean selling. But selling actually means any effort to facilitate exchange while promotion is a major catalyst for spending up the exchange process.

There is no perfect competition in the real market place because there exist product differences irrational behaviour of buyers and loss of adequate marketing information etc. This makes the firms to discover that there is need to make people to behave or to be better informed about its presence and products.
The activities of business organization are becoming more complicated. Product changes by time, taste changes daily among users, price are unstable the distance between the producer and customer is getting fatter and also distribution facilitates and level of awareness are becoming increasing complex. There is therefore a need to level up with expectation of the society especially those of consumers information. The intensification of competition between firms has caused the intensity of sales promotion of the individual seller that the interest of individuals are insurmountable is not an overstatement. Therefore, the seller in recognition of the human predicament should assists in projecting a need to a want and by helping to a particular carefully sales promotional programme.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMS
Most telecommunication companies have been performing poorly in terms of promotional activity that is why criticism have been level against them. The inability of some telecommunication companies including MTN to build in-house advertising department is as a hindrance militating against the company promotional goals; it is clear that the marketers used to create impact on consumer buying behaviours.
Many years ago organizations concentrate on advertising, personal selling and publicity campaigns. Many business organizations do not welcome any expenditure on promotion.
• Organizations are always faced with the problem pertaining to the marketing importance need by the company to improve its operation
• The effect of government regulation concerning the product quality
• What impact has the promotional strategies used by the company in creating awareness of its products.
• The distribution channel of the company in distributing its product to the consumers.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The research work stems from the fact that the cornstarch market is saturated with different products introduces every year. Some are successful while others are not partly due to the difference in the promotional tools.
1. To examine the extent to achieve promotional activities counter the moves of competitors.
2. To determine whether promotional activities increases sales by generating extra interest.
3. To assess if promotional activities act as incentive to attract new customers.