FACTORS AFFECTING PROMOTION MIX OF BOOM

DETERGENT PASTE

Firms use various elements to achieve their promotional objectives.

Promotion consists of two components: personal selling and non-personal

selling. Personal selling is a promotional presentation made on a person to

person basis with a potential buyer. On the other hand, non-personal selling

is when the presentation does not involve person to person presentation. It

consists of advertising, sales promotion, and public relations. The promotion

mix is a combination of personal selling and non-personal selling that is built

to persuasively communicate customer value and build customer

relationships. This paper is produced to explain the element of promotion

mix relating to what is used by Boom Detergent Paste.

Marketers of Boom detergent paste attempt to develop a promotional mix

that effectively and efficiently communicates their message to targeted

market by figuring out an appealing way or theme that will produce a desired

response. The choice of an effective promotional mix element represents

one of marketers’ most difficult tasks because their choice is highly affected

by the following factors:

NATURE OF THE PRODUCT

The type of promotional-mix will differ depending upon the nature of the

product. In case of sale of consumer products, advertising, publicity and

sales promotion are necessary in addition to personal selling. But in order to

push up industrial goods, personal selling is much more effective because its

market is easily identifiable and products are often made to specifications

and a great deal of pre-sale which is not the case with Boom Detergent Paste

as it is a consumer product.

Packaging:

Packaging performs the self-promotional function in addition to protecting

the product. By incorporating creativity in its design, a package can add the

“pick-me-up” appeal to the product and also helps to communicate the

product features. Boom Detergent Paste use packaging to take advantage of

this element and minimize the cost of promotion.

Degree of Customization:

The product, whether standardized or adapted to the customer's special

needs, is responsible for the type of promotional efforts that might be

adopted. For example, generally, the more the standardization the more it

would attract need for more advertising and sales promotional activities and

least personal selling efforts because the product (in such case) has to

satisfy more general needs of the customers. In a case of Boom Detergent

Paste, there is less personal selling and more advertisement because the

nature of Boom Detergent Paste is not customized for each particular

customer.

PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE AND AIM OF PROMOTION

Advertising can be subdivided by its purposes: to inform, to persuade, or to

remind consumers. Each category of advertisement is selected depending on

the stage at which a product is at.

Informative advertising is intended to build initial demand for a

product, and it is usually used in the introductory phase of the product

life cycle. When Trade Kings Malawi formally introduced Boom Detergent

Paste in Malawi eleven years ago – the nation’s first paste soap – it

launched a massive advertising campaign directed at consumers on the

benefits of using paste soap for washing and also to eye-care

professionals to explain the health benefits of using the new product.

Persuasive advertising attempts to improve the competitive status of

a product. It is used in the growth and maturity stages of the product life

cycle. The main purpose is to make an effective step to face the

competition in the market.

Reminder-oriented advertising is used in the late-maturity and

decline stages of the product life cycle and attempts to keep a product's

name in front of the consumer or to remind people of the importance of

the product.

Since Boom Detergent Paste was introduced in Malawi in 2001, Trade Kings

used informative advertisements that provided awareness to the consumers.

But now that the product has gained a 35 percent of the market share over

the past years and competitors such as Omo, Sunlight, Surf and other

detergent soaps taking up the remainder of the market, Trade Kings has

shifted to a persuasive advertising approach.

One of the most popular approaches to persuasive product advertising used

in Boom Detergent Paste promotions is comparative advertising. This is

where Trade Kings makes a direct comparison between their product and

that of their competitors. It shows weak areas of the competing products, for

example in one of its live Television advertisement it showed how clean and

how much clothes, Boom can wash while comparing to what consumers

viewed as the best in the market. Each customer would choose a detergent

soap in a regular shop that they preferred and it would compete with Boom

Detergent paste.

Another angle of viewing the effect of aims of promotion on the choice of a

promotion mix is the use of AIDA concept- Awareness; Interest; Desire; and

Action. If marketers of Boom Detergent Paste wants to give one of these

messages to the consumers then they will have a differing choice in the

promotional mix tools to use. The figure below illustrates the effective and

efficient way Trade Kings use its promotion mix tools.

NATURE OF THE MARKET

The choice to determine a particular combination of Promotion mix is also

greatly influenced by the target market characteristics such as level

of competition, geographic coverage, and buyer readiness stage:

Level of Competition:

The type of competition existing in the market is one of the factors which can

affect the penetration of the product. When Boom Detergent Paste was

introduced in Malawi, the market had other competing products and this

influenced the marketing team of Trade Kings to emphasis on heavy radio

and television advertisements that mainly aimed at gaining competitive

advantage. Even today, when one think of Boom Detergent Paste we always

associate the product with their theme song that they used to gain the

competitive advantage. The promotional efforts matched the level of

competitors and now it is one of the main market owners. Sales promotions

are also used in highly competitive marketing environment like trade fairs

and shopping centers.

Geographic Coverage:

In a case of wide market coverage, advertising and sales promotion are

desirable. For example, to inform consumers that Boom detergent paste is

widely available at competitive prices, high promotional campaign is

launched by Trade Kings. However, if the product is available in local area,

personal selling becomes more important. This can be seen from the

promotional efforts of distributors of Boom Detergent Paste who sell the

products in their residential premises.

Buyer Readiness Stage:

The promotional mix becomes a tool to prompt the buyer to prepare and

accept the product being offered. The type of Promotional efforts required

would depend upon the buyer's own readiness stage. Marketers’ view at

these stages and the promotion desired is given ' below (See Table)

For example, when promoting Boom Detergent Paste, the marketing team

thinks customer conviction is mostly influenced by personal selling and

less by advertising and sales promotion. Further, advertising and publicity

are most effective at the early stages of buyer decision process, and sales

promotion and personal selling dare most effective in closing the sale and

reordering.

FUNDS ALLOCATED TO PROMOTION

The allocation of funds by the top management for the promotional activities

must be kept in mind by the marketing manager while determining the

promotional-mix. A firm with huge promotional budget can spend on all

promotional activities. But a marketer with financial constraints will be

selective in the use of promotional activities. Personal selling is cheaper and

more effective in the short-run. Advertising in reputed magazines

newspapers and journals is very costly, but can attract the status conscious

customers towards the product and advertisements have a carryover effect

that last beyond the current period.

Trade Kings is a large company that also produces many other products and

not Boom Detergent Paste alone and this means it can only allocate a limited

budget to advertising and promotion of Boom Detergent Paste. It only

allocates approximately 3 percent of sales to advertising and promotion.

Because of its limited budget, marketers at Trade Kings have to be creative

in the tactics they use and to the decisions they have to make in choosing an

effective and efficient promotion mix tools. For example, to induce trial

promotions in new markets, Trade Kings provides products at a price lower

than the cost price and sometimes even free products in their retail markets

and promotional campaigns. Trial is important since the benefits of the

products are often perceived only when the person actually uses the

product. Therefore, Boom Detergent Paste is highly influenced by how much

funds is allocated to its promotional budget.

PRICE

The pricing of product can broadly decide the type of promotion mix a

marketer has to undertake. In a case of Boom Detergent Paste, advertising

dominates the promotion mix because the product is considered as having

low value. This is due to the low promotional expenditure per sales unit

associated with advertisements because it reaches mass audience and

having large impact on consumer buying decision. Personal selling, in

contrast, permits a high promotional expenditure due to high per contact

costs.

The element of price in determining which promotion mix tool to use enable

Trade Kings marketing team to make a sound decision that efficiently

deliver a message that should get attention, hold interest, arouse desire, and

obtain action from consumers.

There is no tailor-made promotional-mix for a firm. Every firm has to design

its own promotional-mix, and even Trade Kings determine the various

promotional tools to be used for promoting the sale of Boom Detergent

Paste. Their Promotional strategy is determined by various combinations,

types and degrees of personal selling, advertising and other forms

of promotional tools and they are brought together into a promotional-mix to

develop a final promotional strategy. The managerial decision in deriving to

an effective and efficient promotional strategy is based on the described

factors.