THE IMPACT OF PROMOTIONAL TOOLS IN THE MARKETING OF SOFT DRINK PRODUCTS IN SOUTH- EAST NIGERIA

Abstract

Sales promotion is an important component of a company’s marketing communication strategy along with advertising, public relations and personal selling. At its core, sales promotion is a marketing activity that adds to the basic value proposition behind a product for

a limited time in order to stimulate consumer purchasing, sales effectiveness or the effort of the sales force. Thus, Sales promotion Strategies are supposed to be highly effective in

exposing customers to the products for the first time and can serve as a key promotional

component in the early stages of new product introduction as well helping to build product

awareness, create consumer interest in a product, stimulate demand in the product and assist

in re-informing a brand on the mind of consumers. It was based on the role of Sales

promotional strategies therefore that this study had the following objectives; to determine

how sales promotional strategies adopted by Soft drink companies have impacted on building brand awareness of their- products on consumers; to determine whether sales promotional strategies of Sofi drink companies have resulted in creating consumer interest on their products; to determine the effect of sales promotional strategies of Soft drink companies in stimulating demand in their products on consumers and to determine the effect of Soft drink companies sales promotional strategies in re-informing soft drinks as a brand of consumers in South-East Nigeria. The survey research design was adopted and the sources of data for the research are both primary through the issue of questionnaire and also from secondary data sources. ANOVA non parametric statistics method was used to test the hypotheses. The result from the hypotheses tested showed that Soft drink companies sales promotional strategies have impacted on building brand awareness as F-cal was greater than F-tab (7.82 > 5.05); created consumer interest in their products, thus have increased the consumption of the product as F-cal was greater than F-tab (6.255 > 5.05) and stimulated the demand and as well as reinforce soft drinks as a Brand in the minds of the consumers as F-cal was greater than F- tab (7.416 > 5.05) in South-East Nigeria. Therefore Sales promotional strategies of Soft drink companies have impacted positively on their products and it is recommended not only for Sofl drink companies but also for all organizations.