Abstract
In this hyper competitive contemporary world, the organizations are focusing on consumer’s preferences which had been a significant sphere of research for researchers. The organizations are combating in this field to measure the preferences of the consumers through different marketing techniques. Even though firms are investing heavy amount of their capital on these techniques and tools rather they need assurance to invest the amount on what sort of marketing communication tools for the purpose of attaining the preferences of consumers. To explore this broad area, research was conducted by investigating the impact of communication mix activities on consumer’s preferences. The advertisement, personal selling and public relation were taken as independent variables and their impact was regressed on consumer’s preferences, the dependent variable. The convenience sampling technique was used because the population size was large and easily accessible and respondents were 323. The industry targeted was telecommunication sector of Faisalabad. The results of the research showed that the P value of consumer’s preferences was significant at p value 0,002, the P values of independent variables, advertising was 0.046, personal selling was 0.000 and public relation was 0.000. The research showed significant relationship between independent and dependent variables.
Keywords: Consumer’s preference, Advertising, Personal selling, Public relation, Buying behavior, Purchase intentions, Promotions, Telecommunication sector.
Received: 16 November 2017 / Revised: 14 December 2017 / Accepted: 20 December 2017 / Published: 27 December 2017
1. INTRODUCTION
From the era of various buying measurement is neither preset nor unadventurous, customers normally have the choice of not selected. In the true world, review makers work out a selection of different choices, alternative including in search of more information on vacant options and finding new substitutes and their preferences (Corbin, 1980). One of the study, Tversky and Shafir (1992) explains that the predisposition not to prefer was superior from option place wherever neither replacement dominate than from sets of option where one of the substitute was undoubtedly greater which makes consumer preferences. On the opposite, psychological study in the area of pre-decisional method suggest that consumers have to make a decisions not a selection in array to avoid creating tricky trade-offs by organizations (Tversky and Shafir, 1992). The intend of promotion to both communicate with purchaser and seller they concern, valuable promotion needs a good perceptive of the direction power of opinion and how this practice impinge on ecological factors of consumers to make their preferences. The possible purchaser has to get not more than the preferred information but ought to the capability to recognize this information. Moreover, the information adequately must be powerfully promoted to those customers who responded adequately.
Kulshreshtha et al. (2017) examines consumers' decision making and preferences with respect to consumer durable goods i.e., split air-conditioner on the basis of several factors like brand equity, price, advertisement type, celebrity, country-of-origin under multi cue situation.
Integrated marketing communication mix is used by marketers to attract the consumers and to make their preferences towards their products. In this research three of the five elements had been observed on consumer preference i.e. advertising, personal selling and public relations. Chen et al. (2016) studies consumer preferences at markets of farmers. They had evident that advertising and other factors are very much involved in making the intuitions of the consumers for buying purposes. Hence Lim et al. (2016) in their research unveils that consumer identification can only be done through consumer preferences and this sense is also termed as sense of de-objectification. Therefore consumer preference is one the most important and significant tool in the field of marketing.
According to the researchers advertising is the procedure of communication, convincing information regarding a product to the markets by means of the written and spoken statement. There are five principal medium of advertising, which are as follows; the press, commercial television, direct mail, commercial radio and outdoor. Danaher and Rust (1996) investigates and concludes in a research on “Determining the optimal return on investment for an advertising campaign” they assumed the position of analysis that advertising is an venture, and suggested an easy method for analyzing the height of media costs which took advantage of the return on venture. Advertising works something like entirely through mass media outlets. There is a significant relationship between advertisement and purchase intensions evident from the research of Arshad and Aslam (2015).
Burger (2016) in his research entitled “Corporate communication strategy: aligning theory and practice amongst selected public relations practitioners” focused on public relations as a key tool in the marketing tactics. Advertising is voluntarily known as a focused communication function. Just as a numbers of individuals wrongly compare publicity with public relations, there is also some uncertainty regarding the dissimilarity among publicity (one area of public relations) and advertising. Crompton and McWilliams (1997) concludes in their research titled “An expanded framework for measuring the effectiveness of destination advertising” Destination advertising operation are usually examined by alteration studies or by advertising trails. Alam et al. (2013) investigates a research named “The role of promotion strategies in personal selling” that any firm in the marketing is obvious proof that a product must be promoted and the advertising is not the only way (Alam et al., 2013). The third tool used is public relations defined as “an application, art and social science of examining trends, forecasting the price, analysis organization leaders, and applied planned programs of stroke which provide both the organization’s and the public’s concentration.” (1978 World Assembly of Public Relations in Mexico City and endorsed by 34 national public relations organizations) Public relations are the administration of communication among an association and its publics. Lee (2009) concludes in his research on “The Return of Public Relations to the Public Administration Curriculum?” that public relations is gradually come back to the public administration curriculum Carpenter and Nakamoto (1994) investigates the research named "Consumer Preference Formation and Pioneering Advantage” Every attempt at research had a having danger undertaking, some more so than others. Yiridoe et al. (2005) investigates in his research titled “Analysis of consumer preferences toward 100% fruit juice packages and labels” that a national online study was used to gather information from 253 families in the United States. Friese et al. (2006) works on a research name “Implicit Consumer Preferences and Their Influence on Product Choice” they concluded that the current assumption in social psychology. Chernev (2001) investigates on his research named “The Impact of Common Features on Consumer Preferences: A Case of Confirmatory Reasoning” that how optimistic analysis reasonable for the impact of attractive and unattractive general features on consumer preferences.
Telecommunication industry is one of the fastest growing in developing countries like Pakistan. In this industry, the companies are continuously trying hard to attain potential customers. So, companies are involved in different promotional activities to satisfy their customer’s needs, wants and demands. The study was conducted to examine that how promotional tools are effecting consumer and what are the reasons behind the rapid change in consumer’s preferences. The study was conducted to know that how these promotional tools (advertisement, personal selling and public relation) were affecting on consumer’s preferences and which one is the best because organizations are paying heavy amount of rupees on these communication mix.
2. METHODOLOGY
Fig-1. Conceptual Model
Source: Author’s own calculations
2.1. Reliability Analysis
Reliability analysis permits you to discover the properties of measurement scales and the items that create the balance. The Reliability Analysis method computes many frequently used measures of scale reliability and also presents information about the associations between individual items in the scale. Alpha (Cronbach’s) model is used which informs the internal uniformity, based on the average inter item correlation.
Table-3.1. Inter Item Reliabilities
| Variables | No of items | Cronbach’s Alpha |
| Advertising | 3 |
0.718 |
| Personal Selling | 11 |
0.712 |
| Public Relation | 8 |
0.776 |
| Consumer Preferences | 10 |
0.758 |
Source: Author’s own calculations
Hypotheses:
H1: Advertising has significant relationship with consumer preferences.
H2: Personal Selling has significant relationship with consumer preferences.
H3: Public relation has significant relationship with consumer preferences.
3. INFERENTIAL STATISTICS
3.1. Correlation
Correlation technique is applied to test the statistical significance of the relationship among the variables. The coefficient of correlation is calculated by using a formula:
r =∑dxdy/√ (∑dx2 ∑dy2
Regression analysis is applied to measure the impact of communication mix activities related variable on the consumer’s preferences. Multiple regression analysis was applied which provides a better explanation of variables by estimating coefficients.
Y = f (Zi)
Where:
Y = Consumer Preferences.
Zi= Promotional Mix related attributes. i = 03
In more specific form eq. 3.5can be further explained as;
Y1 = λo +λ1Z1+λ2Z2+λ3Z3 +e μ
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The telecommunication sector selected organizations were as follow with the preferences of the consumers. The table describes the amount of respondents preferring the network they use according to their gender in the city Faisalabad of Pakistan:
Table: Respondents according to their cellular network.
| Gender | Total | ||||||
| Male | Female | ||||||
| Moblink | 75% |
25% |
27.2% |
||||
| Ufone | 73.2% |
26.8% |
26.6% |
||||
| Warid | 71% |
29% |
18.3% |
||||
| Telenor | 91% |
9% |
16.7% |
||||
| Zong | 72% |
28% |
11.1% |
||||
| Total | 76.2% | 28.3% | 100% | ||||
Source: Author’s own calculations
5. CORRELATION ANALYSIS
The correlation is described as dependence referred to any statistical relationship between two random variables or two sets of data. Correlation refers to any of a broad class of statistical relationships involving dependence. The table showed that that correlation among variables lies between -1 and 1.
Table-4.14. Correlation Among variables
| Variables | Personal Selling | Consumer Preferences | Public Relation | General Advertisement |
| Personal Selling | 1 |
|||
| Consumer Preferences | .366** |
1 |
||
| Public Relation | .319** |
.640** |
1 |
|
| General Advertisement | .135* |
.150** |
.074 |
1 |
Source: Author's own calculations
**= Significant at 5% Significance level *= Significant at 10% Significance level
6. REGRESSION ANALYSIS
The table of regression analysis shows the significant relationship among independent and dependent variables with the values of R2, Adjusted R2 and F-value.
Table-4.2. Regression Analysis
| Variables | Coefficient | Standard Error | T-Value | Significance (P-value) |
| (Constant) | .778 |
.234 |
3.319 |
0.001*** |
| Personal Selling | .193 |
.050 |
3.827 |
0.000*** |
| Public Relation | .511 |
.039 |
13.162 |
0.000*** |
| Advertising | .079 |
.040 |
2.004 |
0.046** |
| R2 | 0.445 |
|||
| Adjusted R2 | 0.440 |
|||
| F- Value | 85.402 |
|||
Source: Author’s own calculations
*** = Significant at 1% Significance level
**= Significant at 5% Significance level
*= Significant at 10% Significance level
NS = Not Significant
Hence therefore we accept our three hypotheses that in the territory of Faisalabad, Pakistan these three communication mix tools are effective for the promotion of products and services in telecommunication sector. Consumer’s preference is the most important part of decision making for purchasing of any product or services. It is affected by different elements of socio-economic just like age, gender, marital status, occupation, qualification and income level of any person.
The effects of communication mix activities on consumer’s preferences in telecommunication industry, the researcher find out that why consumers change their preferences against the product or service which he/she is using and also how the consumer’s preferences develop against any organization.
In this study the researcher observe that promotional mix activities are playing most vital role in developing the consumer’s preferences. The promotional mix is a set of tools that a business can use to effectively communicate the benefits of its products or services to its customers. So, for that purpose the elements of promotional mix which are examined in the research are
- Advertisement.
- Personal Selling.
- Public Relation.
7. LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
The researcher faced many problems which limited research was that of time constraint and lack of financial resources. The promotional mix activities contain advertisement, personal selling, public relation, sale promotion and publicity. But due to the above limitations researcher work only on advertisement, personal selling and public relation.
This research is conducted through telecom services; therefore generalize this result, it is necessary for future researcher to do this research by using other industry. There is a need to conduct research regarding personality characteristics of consumers and find their impact on the consumer’ preferences in Pakistan. In future researcher can do this research in other cities of Pakistan and also do research by using the remaining elements of promotional mix activities (sale promotion and publicity). The researchers can do research in future by using the variables in different industry like FMCG, Clothing, Mobile, Automobile etc.
| Funding: This study received no specific financial support. |
| Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. |
| Contributors/Acknowledgement: Both authors contributed equally to the conception and design of the study. |
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