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THE INFLUENCE OF ADVERTISING AND PERSONAL SELLING ON NEW PRODUCT OF COMMERCIAL BANKS

ABSTRACT

In today’s highly competitive marketing environment, marketers do not stop at developing a good product, pricing it attractively and making it readily available to the target customers they must communicate it to the target audience for them to succeed. This research work has therefore been made to appraise the influence of advertising and personal selling on new products of commercial banks in Owerri metropolis with specific interest on United Bank for African (UBA) Nig. Plc. Generally speaking, economic growth is closely related to the commercial banks as their concern is to provide services to their customers, new product development and innovation are deemed necessary by operators so as to meet the immediate needs to its customers for minimum satisfaction, yet, customers show no sign of improved favourable relationship even at the instance of radical improvement that has taken place in the product itself and promotional tools via advertising and personal selling. In carrying out this research work, the researcher identified some objectives he tends to achieve. However, to achieve the goal of the study, the data needed for the analysis were collected through questionnaire. The researcher made use of frequency tables and percentage in data presentation which chi-square and analysis of variance were used to test the hypothesis formulated. After the analysis, it was discovered that commercial banks still have to put more efforts on advertising and personal selling. It was also discovered that commercial banks do expose their advert messages on bill boards and radio while the prospects are mostly exposed to television. Recommendations were also made via the findings. The commercial banks were advised to create a separate marketing department who will identify their advertising efforts and also embark on media research together with recruitment and selection.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Advertising is a particular promotional tool that attracts the greatest controversy as to roles and contributions in social, economic and ethical spines. It is not the only communication tool which organizations utilize in trying to communicate the existence and quality of their products to the potential and/ or prospective buyers but, it is the most commonly used and the most noticed of all the promo tools. It is the only one that gets to the greatest number of the firm’s target audience at the same time. It is not done by profit oriented organizations alone but, politicians, government and even non- profitable organization do adverts.

Advertising can therefore be defined as any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services by an identified sponsor. The word “any paid form” distinguishes advertising from publicity because every organization that wants to advertise will surely purpose space or time in the chosen medium to tell the story about a product or service. “Non-personal” distinguished advertising for personal selling because advertising reaches large number of audience through mass media which are non-personal and do not have the chance for immediate feedback as personal selling does. Ideas, goods and services established that advertising is not restricted to tangible products but also intangible products. Advertising is used by profit and non-profit making organization to promote their products. “An identified sponsor” indicates that the source of every advertising messages is always made public and this differentiates advertising from propaganda and rumor (Adilika , Ebua and Nnolim, 1996).

On the other hand, personal selling is a direct personal communication (face-to- face or over the phone) aimed at influencing purchase decision. Personal selling derives its undisputable unique importance from the business maxim which says that “production is not complete until consumption takes place”. Personal selling is seen as the last bus stop in the promotional journey. The overall marketing objective or goal is to increase profitable sales of an organization’s offering.

Of all the promotional functions, personal selling stands out as the singular element that can get buying action and transfer of title. It must however be noted that personal selling must work in tandem with other elements of the promotional mix to gain full expectations of the strategic marketing goal. Personal selling dominates the promotion policy of most firms, and attracts more expenditure than any other marketing function. Personal selling is likely to carry the bulk of the promotional load in a situation where.

– The market is concentrated geographically in a few industries or in a few customers.

– The product has a high unit value, is quite technical in nature or requires demonstrations.

– The product must be fitted to an individual customer’s needs as in the case of securities and insurance.

– The sale involves a trade in.

– The product is in the introductory stage of its life cycle.

– The organization does not have enough money to sustain an adequate advertising campaign.

In contrast, advertising may be most effective in achieving awareness and encouraging the buyer’s initial interest in the product or service, but it takes personal selling to convince the customer of the product’s unique attributes as against competitive alternatives. Personal selling presentation is flexible and can be tailored to the peculiar needs and behaviour of each customer. With personal selling, customer’s reaction to a particular sales message can be discovered and necessary adjustments made without delay.

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Any organization that creates a product or a service and then sits back and wait for things to happen, usually discovered that nothing much does happen. The organization needs to tell its story, to communicate with its potential customers. The fact is that after the best (new) products have been created, brilliantly packaged, rightly priced, magnificently distributed and well positioned to best suit the needs of the customers. All these marketing efforts would be a waste if, it has not been brought to the notice of the customers (current and potential) such is the essence of advertising and personal selling amongst others.

New products or ideas as the case may be, are not just produced to fulfill the creative instincts of man but to fill the demand gap originally discovered through research. This however, justifies the notion that marketing begins and ends with consumers. In the mean time, it should be emphasized and not be over-emphasized of the basic goals and objectives of business as well established by capitalist theorist, hence, the emergence of cut- throat competition in business today. It is this unbridled struggle that has persisted among cooperate bodies in the quest for survival that necessitated various strategic measures for maximizing interest.

These strategies not only cover product creation and improvement, but extends to asking the question, “how do people get to know that we have something new” this knowledge however, gives rise to advertising which forms the best possible means of transmitting the desired appeal to sensitize people of that which will satisfy their pressing needs. A time came when the issues are no more routed to awareness creation in relation to existence of a product owing to intense advertisement, this unfavourable eruption gave rise to the question, “how do we reach consumers and make sure that our products reach them at maximum satisfaction. The bothering concern on this necessitated the adoption of personal selling which has of recent become a traditional adage among corporate bodies that innovate. All these however, are the validation that advertising and personal selling have some anticipated positive effects on new products.

To this end, this research therefore wants to know the pattern of behaviour of theses concepts and what they can proffer if applied accordingly. For this purpose therefore, the research work analysis is limited on United Bank for African Plc, in Owerri metropolis.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF UNITED BANK FOR AFRICA (UBA) PLC

United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA) is a public limited liability company incorporated in Nigeria.

UBA Is large financial services provide in Nigeria with subsidiaries in 20 sub-Saharan countries, with representative offices in France, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. It offers universal banking services to more than 7 million customers across 750 brunches. Formed by the merger of the commercially focused UBA and the retail focused Standard Trust Bank in 2005, the bank purports to have a clear ambition to be the dominant and leading financial services provider in African. Listed on the Nigerian stock exchange in 1970, UBA claims to be rapidly evolving into a pan- African full service financial institution. The group adopted the holding company model in July 2011. As of December 2011, the valuation of UBA Group’s total assets was approximately US $ 12.3 billion (NGN: 1.94 trillion) with shareholder equity of about US $ 1.07 billion (NGN : 170 billion).

HISTORY

UBA’s history dates to 1949 when the British and French Bank Limited (BFB) commenced business in Nigeria. Following Nigeria’s independence from Britain, UBA was incorporated in 1961 to take over the business of BFB. Today’s United Bank for African plc (UBA) is the product of the merger of Nigeria’s 3rd and 5th largest banks, namely, the old UBA and the former Standard Trust Bank plc, and a subsequent acquisition of the erstwhile continental Trust Bank limited (CTB).

OWNERSHIP

The stock of UBA and its subsidiaries (the UBA group) was listed on the Nigeria stock exchange, where it was publicly trade under the symbol UBA. The detailed shareholding in the stock of the company is not publicly known at this time.

CORPORATE PROFILE

Since its historical emergence from the merger of former standard Trust Bank and UBA plc, the UBA group has positioned itself to be Nigeria’s dominant bank and a leading player on the African continent. In 2000, Europe’s frontline Finance and economy magazine, euro money named UBA the Best Domestic Bank in Nigeria, in recognition of the banks exponential growth in the past couple of years and the comparatively higher inflow of investment from global finance players. In 2007, pan-African newsmagazine awarded UBA the Emerging Global Bank Award, indicative of the international bank which has most positively influenced the African continent.

UBA has consistently positioned itself as the bank to beat in Nigeria’s financially strong banking industry. It has grown its total assets by over 345 percent in the last five years, up from NGN 198.68 billion ($1.656 billion) in 2002 to NGN 884.14 billion ($ 7.368 billion) in 2006. More recently, at the end of the 2008 financial year, it recorded gross earnings of NGN 169.6 billion, profit before tax and exceptional items of NGN 56.8 billion, profit after tax of NGN 40.8 billion and total assets of NGN 2.2 trillion.

UBA has the largest distribution network in Nigeria with over 6.5 million customers in personal, commercial and corporate market segments. As of 30th September, 2008, it has over 650 business offices, 296 deployed POS and 1332 ATMs and pioneered cheque acceptance ATMs in Nigeria. Its over 14,000 staff globally are also referred to as “lions and lionesses”. Regionally, the group has a presence in 18 African countries and in all major financial centers. The bank currently operates in Nigeria, Ghana, ivory coast, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Uganda, Benin, Burkina Faso and Senegal and has unfolded plans to expand its banking operations to 15 additional countries in African come 2009. Records indicate that UBA is the only sub-Saharan bank with dual presence in the U.S and the UK with a U.S regulated branch presence in New York since 1984, UBA capital (Europe ) in London which was established as UK regulated investment banking operation in January 2008 and a representative office in Paris, France.

ORGANIZATION

UBA group’s operating structure is organized around seven Strategic Business Unit (SBUs) and four Strategic Support Units (SSUs), informed by the need to reinforce its leadership in service delivery, relationship management and the execution of its strategy. In addition, the GMD/ CED is supported by the Group Executive Officer consisting of the Strategy Office, the Corporate Transformation Office, the Chief of Staff and Advisers to the GMD/CEO.

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