INTERACTIVE MEDIA SALES PROMOTION TYPOLOGIES AND TELECOMMUNICATION OPERATORS’ BRAND EQUITY AMONG CIVIL SERVANTS IN LAGOS AND OGUN STATES, NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

Nigerian telecommunication industry has evolved into a competitive sphere as operators endeavour to entreat and win customers through monetary and non-monetary sales promotion typologies. Telecommunication operators utilise sales promotion to create brand awareness, encourage brand trial and ultimately persuade subscribers to be brand loyals in order to increase brand equity. While telecommunication operators are increasing brand equity on interactive media, the appropriate sales promotion typology to be adopted remains a challenge. Scholars have debated usage of sales promotion to increase brand equity. Therefore, this study examined interactive media sales promotion typologies and telecommunication operators’ brand equity among State civil servants in Lagos and Ogun states.

Survey research design was adopted for the study. The population comprised 17,161 State civil servants in Lagos and Ogun states. The states were selected using simple random sampling technique. Systematic sampling technique was adopted to select the ministries. The Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill formula was used to arrive at the sample size of 880 respondents. A validated questionnaire was administered to the respondents. The Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient values for the constructs were: monetary sales promotion (0.732), non- monetary sales promotion (0.797), brand awareness (0.797), perceived brand quality (0.754), brand association (0.796) and brand loyalty (0.827); while 0.930 was obtained for the total scale.A total of 880 copies of the questionnaire were administered to the respondents with a response rate of 93.4%. Inferential statistics (simple linear and multiple linear regression) were used to analyse the data.

Findings revealed that monetary sales promotion typology significantly influenced telecommunication operators’ brand awareness (R²=0.301, p<0.05), perceived brand quality (R²⁼0.155, p<0.05), brand association (R²=0.171, p<0.05) and brand loyalty (R²=0.058, p<0.05). Non-monetary sales promotion typology significantly influenced telecommunication operators’ brand awareness (R²=0.304, p<0.05), perceived brand quality (R²=0.218, p<0.05), brand association (R²=0.237, p<0.05) and brand loyalty (R²=0.163, p<0.05).

The study concluded that monetary and non-monetary sales promotion typologies were useful to enhancing telecommunication operators’ brand equity. The study therefore recommended that telecommunication operators should strategically combine monetary and non-monetary sales promotion typologies that would positively increase subscribers’ perception of their brands, foster positive relationship with subscribers to generate positive attitude and promote brand loyalty.

Keywords: Typology, Sales Promotion, Brand Equity, Telecommunication Operators, Interactive Media