THE ROLE OF ADVERTISING IN BRAND BUILDING

THE ROLE OF ADVERTISING IN BRAND BUILDING

A CASE STUDY OF ABUJA BOTTLING COMPANY

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1. 2 Background of the Study

Advertising has for quite some times been utilized by business firms to drive in, and hold potential customers through various form of communication (Yang, Bi, and Zhou, 2005). Thus, the researcher assume that business and organizations believes that advertising is one of the most effective ways to building desired brand equity. This research was trying to analyze how the consumers’ response toward advertising that conducted by certain organizations, it is measured by how the consumer react and relate it to the brand equity. Based on the framework also refer to Brand Equity Model by (Aaker, 1991) the writer had been agreeing that brand equity were forming with some aspects which are brand awareness, perceived quality, brand associations, and brand loyalty. Whereas, in this research, the writer attest that brand awareness, perceived quality, brand associations and brand loyalty were affected by advertising spending and consumer attitudes towards the advertisements that launched by the brand.

Advertising has a central role to play in developing a brand image. It informs consumers of the functional capabilities of the brand while simultaneously inspiring the brand with symbolic values and meanings relevant to the consumer. Advertising strategists, planners or the creative people in an advertising agency looking for unique emotional values to add to the brand. They look for ways to create emotional involvement because this represents the stronger bonding between the brand and target customer.  Businesses use advertising to spread their brand among the masses as well as to directly sell products and services to the public at large. Repetition of the company’s message creates a familiarity with the brand. Advertising is important for companies trying to direct consumer behaviour because it is an effective method for mass selling and communications.

A brand is a name, word, letter or some combination of any of the above word that is use by manufacturers or merchants to identify their goods and service and to distinguish them from those of the competitors.

According to the American marketing association (A.M.A) a brand is a name, a team, sign, symbol or design or combination of them intended to identify goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of their competitors. however, the first decision to be made is whether  a leader or even the company should put a brand name on their products, producers as well as middlemen sold their goods directly out to barrels, bins and cases without any supplier identification. The earliest sigh of branding were in the effort of middle agent (Medieval) to put trade mark on their product to protect trade man and to protect consumers against inferior quality by allowing producer to be traced. Interestingly in the world today there is a dramatic interest vested in branding such that hardly can anything be sold without being branded. Salt is packaged in distinctive manufactures containers arranged and stamped with growers name, even product such as nuts and bolts are packaged in a cellophane with the distributors name label on them.

Companies brand and name should not be treated highly but as an integral part of the companies to build unique brand name that will eventually become identify with the generic product. It is worthy to note that many companies failed because they do not brand their product to differentiate them from that of the competitors.  Some time the pressure for branding comes not from the purchasers, but from the distributors. Distributors may want brand as a means of making the product easier to certain standard and increase buyer performance unmated buyers want brand name to help to identify the product they want. Through product branding, sellers develop various groups of buyers as loyalist who buys their product and brand. The rational behind brand and product management is that it is desirable to have a single person to co-ordinate and plan the strategy for a product, rather than having one individual to plan the marketing activate of many product.

However, many fractions still wonders how advertising works in brand building of certain product or services. In this research, the writer assume that advertising effects depend on the types of messages that delivered. Thus, massive advertising will affect the message received by the audience. In particular, the belief is that a subject that presented as a stimulus in the advertisement will lead to the responds (i.e. purchase, recall, associations) to that stimulus will produce “behavior” (the object of psychology’s study, as a field). It slightly explains how advertising or marketing communication work on the target audience through stimulation of the messages. It is against this background that this study seek to examine the role of advertising in brand building (a case study of Abuja bottling company)

1. 2      STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM S

Brands are of huge economic significance to companies worldwide. Brands like Apple, Samsung, Starbucks, Pfizer, Lindt, Mercedes, Ritz, Tide, Google, etc., not only enable companies to charge price premiums for their products or services vs. competition, but also result in higher company valuation (Simon and Sullivan, 1993). If managers fail to understand the dynamics and impact of their brands, and thus fail to manage their marketing strategies and budgets wisely, they will be critically under investing in their best value generating assets. (Lodish and Mela, 2007). Thus, determining the effectiveness of advertising n brand building becomes very important  as branding no doubt aids to differentiate product from its competitors and also helps customers to build a relationship with the product. However, in today’s competitive industry market, some brands are largely unknown to most buyers. Other brands have high degree of consumer awareness while others enjoy brand preference. It is on this not that this study seek to examine the role of advertising in brand building with particular reference to Abuja Bottling Company.

1. 3      OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The general objective of this study is to examine the role of advertising in brand building in Abuja bottling company.

The specific objectives include the following:

1. To determine how important advertising is to brand building.
2. To determine the relationship between advertising and brand building
3. To determine the effect of advertising on brand building

1.4       Research Questions

1. How important is advertising to brand building?
2. Are they any relationship between advertising and brand building?
3. What is the effect of advertising on brand building?

1.5       Statement of hypothesis

H0: Advertising does not play significant role in brand building in Abuja Bottling Company.

H1: Advertising plays significant role in brand building in Abuja Bottling Company.

1.       Significance of the study

The general belief is that firms do not operate in a vacuum to make profit; there has been a continuous experience of undifferentiated product. It is quite clear that for business organization to achieve its aim, consumer’s satisfaction and profit maximization has to face competition squarely from other competitors.

The findings of this study will be of great importance to the management of Abuja bottling company as it guide them towards effective advertising with the sole aim of brand building and overall organizational performance. 

1.       Scope of the study

The scope of this study is limited to the role of advertising in brand building with particular reference to Abuja bottling Company.

1.8       Limitations of the study

There are many constraints and factors that were encountered by the research during the research work. The prominent once are:

1. Financial Constraints: The cost of materials necessary to aid in carrying the research are very expensive, a lot of field work ought to have been done, but for inadequate finance, a limited coverage of the company understudy was embark upon.
2. Time Constraints: Lack of time contributed greatly affected the quality of work, the academic session very short and the time given to submit the project work also short. Most of the information needed by the researcher in that information needed by the researcher in that company was not accessible for the sole reason of short notice. The study is limited to Abuja bottling company or plant because of time constraint.
3. Biased Response: Biased response by the respondent was a problem encountered by the research when collecting data.

1.8       Operational Definition of terms

The following terms are defined below for clear understanding of the topic in this project.

1. ADVERTISING: It is the non-personal selling of goods and services through the mass media which includes newspaper, magazines, radio and television, postal and are fully paid for by an individual.
2. Brand building is the process of generating awareness and promotion of the services of a company through direct advertising campaigns or through sponsorship.
3. Brand Mark: – is that part that can be recognized but not vocalized such as symbols, design indistinctive coloring or lettering e.g. play by hart.

Trade Mark:- a brand or part of brand that give legal protection i.e. it protect the sellers exclusive right to use the right to see the brand or mark name.