Report # 1

IMPACT OF ADVERTISING AND SALES PROMOTION ON CONSUMER BRAND SWITCHING

Presented by: Muhammad Adnan Alauddin (2826) Nabeel Ahmed (7736) FahadQuddus (5674) Muhammad Jibran Ali (5673) FaizanSameem (7638)

Introduction
One of the most important problems that the companies are facing worldwide these days is caused due to brand switching, as a result of which they lose half of their customers after every five years. A continuous increasing switching rate gives signal that a business is in danger. By finding out the factors and analyzing the causes that leads to brand switching, makes manager able to control the switching rate and make the company successful.

Introduction
It is of no use for companies who offer attractive value offerings continuously, unless they track every move of their competitors and make their offerings according to customers need. For this its become most important for managers to find out the most critical factors that causes brand switching behavior in customers. Variety seeking in consumer behavior has been observed as one of the most important motives for consumers and thats the reason it has generated considerable interest. Marketers relate variety seeking behavior with several areas of marketing, among which the area of exploratory purchase behavior i.e. brand switching, has been concentrated most. A situation in which consumer changes its buying from one product of a brand to another is called Brand Switching.

Problem Statement
Today in this competitive world, every marketer is struggling to attain a leading position in the market. When a product is advertised effectively, it may produce a positive impact on the buying behavior of the consumers. As the number of advertisement increases, consumers may switch to the products that advertised heavily. In the same way Sales promotion is another factor that companies are using heavily in this competitive market to capture customers and make them to switch towards their brands. So in this research, the problem statement is either that advertisement, and sales promotion of FMCG products influence consumer buying behavior or Brand Switching or its just waste of money?

Research Objective
The objective of this research is to determine the nature of the consumers and their inclination towards the Brand Switching for frequently purchased products and to gauge the impact of advertisements, and sales promotion on the consumer behavior, response and eventually on their buying decision i.e. Brand Switching. It explores the effect of advertisement campaign on the customer responsiveness, which has the direct influence on the firms profitability.

Methodology
Research Approach Research Purpose Research Design Quantitative Approach Explanatory Correlational Research Design

Data source or Collection

Sample Size Statistical Tool Statistical Technique

Primary Data
100 SPSS Regression Analysis

Model
BS = + 1AD + 4SP + t
Where: BS = Brand Switching AD = Advertisements SP = Sales Promotions = error term

Variables
Dependent Variable: Brand Switching

Independent Variable: Advertisements Sales Promotions

Hypothesis
Ho1 : Advertisements has insignificant impact on Brand Switching. HA1 : Advertisements has significant impact on Brand Switching. Ho2 : Sales Promotions have insignificant impact on Brand Switching. HA2 : Sales Promotions have significant impact on Brand Switching.

Conclusion
It has been observed in this study that sales promotion plays a significant role in brand switching decisions while advertisement plays an insignificant role. Marketers are getting more conscious day by day due to the similarities of the products and severe competition. This growing competition is forcing the companies to develop new strategies against their competitors and try their level best to satisfy the needs and wants of the existing as well as the potential customers.

Recommendations
In this highly competitive industry of fast moving consumer goods, which is highly threaten by brand switching behavior of the consumers, there is a need for the marketers to implement such strategies that would minimize this behavior and help them in keeping hold on their consumers and attract the new customers. As consumers are of varying needs which makes them different in the preference of different forms of media, marketers should consider this fact and all forms of media should be considered.

Report # 2
QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF RELATIONSHIP MARKETING IN BANKING SECTOR

Introduction
Relationship marketing is an approach which emphasizes the continuing relationships that should exist between an organization and its customers. It helps in attracting new customers as well as aids in retaining existing customers. Emergence of various new banks has make the marketing personnel job more challenging as banks resorts to different strategies to secure their wanted business by acquiring more customers. Due to this marketers are adopting aggressive strategiesto satisfy the need of customers through their new products and services.

Research Objective
The objective of this research is find the impact of Relationship marketing on bank profitability, because Relationship marketing is one of the most essential factors in banking sector. Bank needs to invest on employee training and development and motivate them so that employees are able to serve well their customers and increase the profitability of bank.

Interview Questions
1. Would you tell us what limitation you are facing while attracting the customers towards your bank? 2. How you acquire your customers to achieve your monthly target of 15 million? 3. How many services your banks offer? 4. Would you like to tell us about your main strengths? 5. What range of benefits your bank offers to your customers? 6. How you attract those customers who already have an account in another bank?

Interview Questions
7. How you acquire potential customers towards your bank? 8. When you achieve your monthly target does bank give you rewards? 9. What promotional strategy Meezan bank emphasizes mostly? 10. If customer stops rendering your services how do you prevent it? 11. What are the major problems your sales force encounter while paying visit to your customers at their homes and office?

Conclusion
Without marketing business objectives, cannot be accomplished. Organization has to be market oriented if they want to excel in their respective field and want to gain competitive edge. Through extensive research organization can identifies gap and fill with their capabilities to deliver superior value to their customers. This can only be done through customer relationship management because customer is the key element for any business irrelevance of the nature of business. For a successful business, combination of both transactional marketing and relationship marketing is required.

Report # 3
IMPACT OF INFLATION AND TRADE BALANCE ON EXCHANGE RATE

Introduction

Inflation and trade balance are vital macroeconomic variable and backbone of exchange rate. The increase in inflation and deficit trade balance play an important role in the determination of Exchange rate. Volatile exchange rate slows down the process of trade, destabilizes the capital movements, and shatters the investor's confidence to invest in a country with high exchange rate volatility and increase in inflation , which in turn slows down the process of growth.

Introduction
Exchange rate instability gives chances to investors to invest in foreign currency (dollars) to get higher returns and thus resulting in the strengthening the dollar against the home currency, which directly impacts the prices of exports and imports and their growth rates. Risk averter traders and investors always favor the system where the variance of the difference between actual and expected value of exchange rate is minimized, while risk lover traders and investors prefer volatile exchange rate so that they can maximize their profits because of high risk premium. Therefore, exchange rate instability can have positive impact on exports and negative for imports for risk lover traders and vice versa for risk averter traders.

Research Objective
The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of inflation and trade balance on exchange rate, are these two important factors have a positive impact or a negative on the exchange rate, for examine the impact of inflation and trade balance on exchange rate 30 yrs data from (1978-79 to 2007-08) used for the analysis.

Methodology
Research Approach Research Purpose Research Design Data source or Collection Sample Size Statistical Tool

Statistical Technique

Model
ER = + 1 (INF) + 2 (BOT) +
Where: ER= INF= BOT= =

Variables
Dependent Variable: EXCHANGE RATE Independent Variable: INFLATION TRADE BALANCE

Hypothesis
Ho = ER is not depended on IR and BOT (Rejected) H1= ER is depended on IR and BOT (Proof)

Conclusion
It is found that higher inflation rate will reduce trade balance and for Exchange rate. It is also found that whenever the real money of a domestic country is less than the real money of other currency like US$, domestic currency will end up with a relatively lower purchasing power as compare to US$ currency. On the other hand, domestic citizens will buy less goods and services from US market, which are deemed more expensive. The end result of lower purchasing power of domestic currency is improvement of domestic trade balance with respect US.

Recommendations
We can use Expansionary Fiscal Policy to Control Inflation by increasing Government expenditures through given subsidies on export and reduce taxes by this policy cost of production will decrease and production will increase which resulted increase in export. State bank of Pakistan should implement qualitative policies for the purpose to control black market exchange rate where the currency trades at its market/unofficial rate. In order to achieve the desired effects on trade balance, it depend on policy that focusing on the variable of real exchange rate, which is the nominal exchange rate to aggregate price level.