© The Journal

Contemporary Management Research

2014, Vol.8, Issue No. 1, 52 - 71.

Personal Care Products: Sales Promotion

and Brand Loyalty
Dr. Jayashree Dubey
Indian Institute of Forest
Management, Bhopal

ABSTRACT

Sales Promotion is increasingly becoming popular promotion tool for consumer

products. Lowering in the gap between quality of product of various brands has posed
a big challenge before the marketers to pull customers through advertising. This has
increased the use of sales promotion tools to push the product down the distribution
chain. Customers are increasingly getting deal loyal rather than brand loyal. Customers
have become so habituated to receiving incentives with the purchased product that
associated incentive has become a major factor in purchase decision making.
The present study deals with the impact of sales promotion on brand choice and brand
loyalty for personal care product among Indian customers. Major outcomes of the study
are that, as compared to older people, youngsters get more influenced by incentive
offers to shift brands. Brand shifting was found to be more prevalent in mature markets
having more competition, low brand differentiation, and in low involvement products.
The impact of sales promotion was found to be gender neutral.

INTRODUCTION product for reasons that may be as diverse as

Promotion has become inevitable part of mar-
keting to survive in today’s competitive business
environment. Companies are using all possible
promotional tools like advertising, sales promo-
tion, personal selling, publicity and public rela-
tions to maintain and grow their share in market.
Among all such strategies, advertising and sales
promotion are the two aggressively used strate-
gies that cater to the same objective albeit by
different mechanism.
Advertising is a popular promotional tool
adopted by companies to increase sales and
build a brand by disseminating product informa-
tion to customers. Advertising intends to culti-
vate a desire among its target audience for the
fulfilling a basic need (e.g. detergents for
washing clothes) to feeding psychological
needs like enhancing glamour and esteem
(e.g. high-end automobiles). Sales promotion,
on the other hand, gives incentives to consum-
ers and traders with a short-term objective to
increase sales during the promotional period
and long term objective to retain customers
who buy the product under the influence of
promotional schemes.
Sales promotion, as defined by the Institute of
Sales Promotion, comprises the range of
techniques used to attain sales and marketing
objectives in a cost-effective manner by
adding value to a product or service either to
intermediaries or end-users, normally, but not
 2014 Jayashree Dubey
exclusively, within a defined time period. These
techniques are mostly short term, designed to
stimulate quicker or greater purchase of prod-
ucts by consumers or trade (Blattberg and
Neslin, 2000).
Sales promotion can be broadly divided into two
types: consumer sales promotions and trade
sales promotion. In case of consumer sales
promotion, the incentive is given directly to
customers to motivate them to purchase the
product. It is a pull strategy as it motivates
customers to approach selling points to buy the
promoted product.
On the contrary, trade sales promotion is a push
strategy where incentive is given to intermediar-
ies, who operate between producer and end
user (e.g. wholesalers, distributors, agents and
retailers), to encourage them for putting extra
efforts in selling (pushing) the promoted product.
The ongoing “mad scramble” for shelf space
reinforces critical importance of trade sales
promotion based strategies to achieve desired
results (Uva 2000).
Success of sales promotion strategy is greatly
influenced by the nature of incentives. The
incentives offered under sales promotion can be
broadly divided into two types: Utilitarian and
Hedonic. Utilitarian benefits, e.g. price-off and
quantity discount, are primarily functional and
relatively tangible. They enable consumers to
maximize their shopping utility, efficiency and
53
economy. Hedonic benefits, e.g. entertain-
ment, are more experiential and relatively
intangible. They provide consumers with intrin-
sic stimulation, fun and pleasure.
Comparing sales promotion and advertising,
sales promotion is a better tool in gaining
market share in short term. Customers
respond more positively to sales promotion
than advertising due to direct and tangible
benefits that promotions offer to customers.
Further, advertising is also slowly losing its
effectiveness due to rapidly swelling number
of media players and consequent fragmenta-
tion of target audience. From companies point
of view too, result of sales promotion can be
measured more accurately as compared to
advertising since the sponsor company wants
accountability for the money they are spending
for promotion. Thus sales promotion based
strategies are increasingly attracting more
share of company’s promotional budget. This
is supported by AC Nielsen’s estimate that
marketing expenditures split 60:40 in favor of
promotions over media (Source: AC Nielsen
Home-scan, 2003 – France, Germany, Italy,
Spain, UK). In many European countries
promotional expenditure are larger than adver-
tising expenditure (D'Astous and Jacob, 2002).
While promotion might stimulate sales and
increase sales revenues in short-term, gener-
ating long-term customer loyalty that sustains
sales even after promotions go off is more
 54 The Journal Contemporary Management Research
important and desired outcome. However, there
are several challenges to foster long-term cus-
tomer relation. Faster copying of innovative
products by other companies has reduced the
profit duration an innovator enjoys. Product
proliferation with shrinking effective differentia-
tion in terms of quality, product features, and
price, has made customers indifferent towards
at least top three or four brands in almost all
product categories (Drypen, 2006). Rothschild
(1987) in a study on behavioral view of effect of
promotion on brand loyalty has mentioned that
brand loyalty is declining in many product
classes that employ high level of sales promo-
tion but have few perceivable brand differences.
Presence of self-service stores that provide
customers an opportunity to evaluate all avail-
able brands and associated sales promotion
incentives has further increased consumers
response to sales promotion offers. So the basic
question that more and more companies are
asking is: how promotional tactics can be made
to generate long term customer loyalty.
To find answer, one needs to answer some
basic questions that influence the interplay
between the promotions and target customers.
For example, is the promotional strategy specific
or generic with respect to the product being
promoted? Does it identifies and addresses right
customers? Does it take into account the socio-
economic diversity of customers? Unheeded,
such factors have potential to throw serious
challenges for the success of any promotional
March
campaign. This has created an interest in this
topic and has motivated to study various
aspects as outlined in later sections.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Various studies have been conducted to
develop an understanding about various
issues related to sales promotion. Ailwadi
(2001) have mentioned that as compared to
advertising, promotion has direct impact on
market share and induces customers to switch
to a brand by improving short-term attitude
toward it. He also mentioned that heavily
advertised categories are less price elastic
while heavily promoted categories are less
deal and coupon elastic. As per Hallberg, a
brand’s current buyers are the heaviest users
of price promotion who would have had a high
probability of buying the brand even without
the price incentive. He also specified that price
promotion focus on changing a single pur-
chase occasion rather than influencing a
brand buying habit. Price oriented promotion
have the ability to achieve short term results
such as increasing market share, encouraging
brand switching and inducing product trial. On
the other hand, non-price oriented promotions
like free samples, and frequent user programs
etc. are adapted primarily to meet long term
objectives as enhancing brand image or
increasing brand loyalty (Lee, 2002). Monetary
promotions are perceived as offering more
saving and more opportunities to upgrade to
 2014 Jayashree Dubey
a higher quality product but provide less enter-
tainment and fewer opportunities for exploration
(Chandon and Wansink, 2000).
If consumers associate promotions with inferior
brand quality, then to the extent that quality is
important, a price promotion might not achieve
the extent of sales increase the economic
incentive otherwise might have produced. Pro-
motions are more likely to result in negative
evaluations when they are uncommon in the
industry (Raghubir and Corfman, 1999). Wide
spread use of discounting strategies has led
consumers to question the validity of a discount
whether the price is just an artificially inflated
price, while the discounted price is the real price.
Price promotion attracts not only consumers
who plan to buy the product category at that
time, but also those who would otherwise buy
later and perhaps choose a competing brand in
the absence of a promotion (Suri et al., 2002).
Oliver (1980) has mentioned that sales promo-
tion act in two ways. First, they may alter the
consumer’s assessment of the performance
level probabilities. Second, if the promotion
consists of an additional promise or offer, expec-
tations regarding the offer itself are generated,
and these new expectations are subject to
disconfirmation. For example, if the promotion
itself is not received or is of the poorer- than-
expected quality, attitudes toward the product
may be negatively affected.
The most influential form of sales promotion are
free extra product and price discounts, influenc-
55
ing buying behaviour of 88% and 79% of
consumers’ respectively. Wherein, competi-
tions and exclusive offers which require
payment and proof of purchase influence less
than a quarter of consumers (MAPS, 1998).
Women and young people are more influ-
enced by any type of sales promotion. Unlike
other consumer promotions such as coupons,
free samples can produce measurable long-
term effects on sales that can be observed as
much as 12 months after the promotion (Bawa
and Shoemaker, 2004). Consumer reactions
to the promotional offer were more positive
when the premium was direct than when it was
delayed; promotions which involves direct
premiums were better appreciated (D'Astous
and Jacob, 2002).
Majority of the coupon users for groceries
products are the female. Use of coupons are
more among older women compared to
younger women. Efforts of individual compa-
nies are less likely to be noticed as increasing
number of companies are using coupons
(Harmon and Hill, 2003).
Kalra and Shi (2002) discussed that the
sweepstakes reward structure should be
based on three factors: the objectives of the
firm, the risk aversion of the customers, and
the level of sub-additivity of probability weight-
ing. If the objective is to target current users,
then the number of prizes awarded should be
lower. If the current users are risk neutral, then
 56 The Journal Contemporary Management Research
the consumer value maximizing award is a
single grand prize. If the current users are risk
averse, then the award should consist of multiple
“large” prizes. When the firm’s objective is to
draw sales away from competitor, the award
money should be distributed over more prizes.
In an article “Current Issues in Sales Promotion”,
With competition getting intense, most market-
ers are looking at price- related promotions to
boost sales but this has lead to a situation where
the average consumer looks at buying only
those products that come with an offer of some
sort and, in the process, ignore the concept of
brand loyalty. Consumers predict future promo-
tions and optimally plan their purchases to
coincide with promotion schedules. Consumers
delay their purchases until promotion, making
sales before promotion relatively low (Sun,
2005). One fourth of the gain in a week’s product
category sales resulting from a promotion is at
the expense of the succeeding week’s sales.
However, this dip is rarely observed as sales are
shifted from multiple future and past periods
(Heerde et al. 2000).
Price promotions for FMCG brands do not lead
to increased sales once the promotion is with-
drawn. They are mainly used by past customers
of the brand, who therefore cannot be converted
(Hammond and Ehrenberg, 2001). Dunn and
Banks (2004) discussed that in highly competi-
tive FMCG markets not to promote would simply
result in market share loss. In mature markets,
March
consumers generally view most brands as
being adequate and are happy to be incentiv-
ized to switch between them. Shaw, has
explained that higher market share brands are
proportionally less responsive because high-
share brands have less headroom for expan-
sion.
Brand loyalist is felt to be declining in many
product classes where there is a high level of
sales promotions dealing while there are few
perceivable brand differences (Rothschild,
1987). Uva (2000) has mentioned that sales
promotion targeting consumers weakens con-
sumer brand loyalty. Consumers simply buy
whichever brand is on sale during a particular
week and switch to a competing brand when
it goes on sale. The only situation where sales
promotion is profitable is when the company
truly has a superior product paired with low
product awareness. In this case, sales promo-
tion will increase product trial, and customers
will be less likely to switch to a competing
brand when sales are over. Promotion’s effect
on consumption stems from its fundamental
ability to increase household inventory levels.
Integrating promotions with advertising and
display features yields more than sum of the
individual effects, Ailawadi and Neslin (1998).
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The use of sales promotion by companies has
significantly increased to give a compelling
 2014 Jayashree Dubey
reason to customers to pick their brand. While
it is generally expected that demand of products
tagged with such incentives increases, the
effectiveness of the sales promotion schemes
varies from product to product, type of incentive
and stage of the product life cycle. At the same
time, the ability of the sales promotion to make
customers switch brand has put a question mark
on the long term effect of sales promotion, as
customers are gradually becoming deal loyal
rather than brand loyal. This indicates that sales
promotion is less effective for long term, but at
the same time it has become necessary to invest
in sales promotion to deal with increasing com-
petition, customer’s expectations and to achieve
short term profit. The situation that necessitates
marketers to frequently offer sales promotion,
and the behavior of customer, which does not
assure long-term benefit of sales promotion,
motivated to study various factors that influence
impact of sales promotion strategies on custom-
ers’ brand selection.
As the extent of benefits to companies from
sales promotion strategies will differ with prod-
ucts, and thus may not be same for all types of
goods, the research was restricted to personal
care products as they are less susceptible to
economic and inflationary cycles. Keeping the
above objective and research area in mind, the
aim of the present work was:
1. To assess the impact of a selected set of
sales promotion tools on selected personal care
products.
57
2. To find out whether sales promotion
schemes are gender biased.
3. To determine influence of sales promotion
strategies on customer in different age
groups.
4. To assess regional differences on the
impact of sales promotion tools.
5. To identify the role of sales promotion
strategies in motivating customers to switch
brands.
In congruence with the above objectives,
following hypotheses were tested:
H1: Customers of developed region are more
responsive to sales promotion schemes.
H2: Sales promotion schemes have little
impact on customer retention.
H3: Younger generation is more responsive
to sales promotion schemes.
H4: Women are more responsive to sales
promotion schemes.
H5: People respond more to monitory
schemes than to non-monitory schemes.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Sales promotion schemes and demographic
market area
In this study, an attempt was made to assess
effectiveness of following selected sales pro-
motion schemes, which are frequently used
 58 The Journal Contemporary Management Research
by various consumer goods companies in Indian
market:
1. Price off
2. Quantity discount
3. Gifts
4. Cross promotion
5. Prizes
6. Free samples
7. Scratch Cards
To measure the difference in the impact of the
above sales promotion schemes, we selected
those personal care products which have
become virtually essential, and are purchased/
consumed by customers from almost all house-
holds irrespective of demographic profile. Thus,
the study covered following products:
A. Hair oil
B. Shampoos
C. Tooth paste
D. Toilet soaps
E. Talcum powders
The study also attempted to understand the
difference in the response to sales promotion
offers by consumers of different demographic
market area. The state of Gujarat in India was
selected for the study as this, being the leading
prosperous state, is one of the most preferred
market place for various consumer goods com-
panies. For this study, Gujarat was broadly
divided into two regions namely Gujarat and
Saurashtra, due to differences in cultural, cli-
matic, financial, and economic conditions.
Gujarat region is more prosperous and devel-
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oped as compared to the Saurashtra region.
Following cities were covered for the study:
● Gujarat region: Ahmedabad, Vadodara,
and Surat
● Saurashtra region: Bhavnagar, Jamnagar,
Rajkot
RESEARCH DESIGN
Multistage cluster sampling method was used
to draw samples. While drawing the sample,
proper care was taken to have fair represen-
tation of the population by covering house-
holds of all major localities in the selected
cities. In all, 310 households were surveyed
from amongst six cities. The data was col-
lected using non-disguised, structured ques-
tionnaire to learn purchase behaviour for each
member of selected household in order to
evaluate a broader population of different age
groups and genders.Simple and appropriate
statistical tools were used for testing the
hypotheses and drawing conclusions viz.
frequency distribution, cross tabulation, Z-Test
for hypotheses testing of proportion and Chi-
square test of independence. Test was applied
at 5% significance level.
ANALYSIS
Purchase Decision Maker
For personal care products, mother in a family
was found to be the main decision maker
followed by children and father in both Gujarat
 2014 Jayashree Dubey
and Saurashtra region (table 1). As can be seen
from the table, the overall percentage of cases
in which mother, father, and children take deci-
sion from Gujarat region was found to be 53.59
percent, 18.85 percent and 27.57 percent
respectively, which was 47 percent, 13.38
percent and 39.55 percent respectively in Sau-
rashtra region. The data indicate that in Gujarat
region the extent of influence of mother in brand
choice is significantly higher as compared to
father and children, whereas in Saurashtra
region both mother and children have signifi-
cantly higher say in making brand decision for
personal care products.
In Gujarat region exception was found in case
of soap where father have more say after mother
in making purchase decision, and tooth paste
where the father and children had equal influ-
ence in selecting brand. In Saurashtra region,
exception was found in case of shampoo where
children had higher influence in deciding which
brand to buy.
In terms of age it was found that in majority of
cases (45.70 percent) respondents of age group
(year) 35-50 from Gujarat region followed by age
group 20-35 (25.25 percent), < 20 (18.62 per-
cent) and > 50 (10.44 percent) make purchase
decision (Table 2). In Saurashtra region it was
found that the majority stake in deciding the
brand was of those in the age group 35-50
(45.39 percent), followed by age group < 20
(30.71 percent), 20-35 (19.21 percent) and > 50
59
(4.69 percent). The data for individual product
category indicate that major decision makers
are people in the age group 35-50 years in
both the regions, except in case of shampoo
where there is no significant difference in the
proportion of decision makers between age
group 20-35 and 35-50 years. It should be
noted that in case of personal care products
that are used for external beauty like shampoo
and talcum powder, influence of children (< 20
years) is high on brand decision making.
The outcome of the study that customer of age
group 35-50 years are major decision maker
also gets support from a study by TV Land that
concludes, consumers of the age group 40-50
are at the peak of their earning potential and
make the majority of household spending
decisions for themselves and their older and
younger dependents (TV Land, 2008). The
result indicates that marketers of the personal
care products should primarily target women
customers in the age group of 35-50, followed
by children.
Sales Promotion and its Influence to
Attract Customers
The results of the study clearly indicate that
the sales promotion schemes influence cus-
tomers to shift brands. Moreover, customers
switch over to other products or brands for
various reasons e.g. non- availability of pre-
ferred brand, or seeking variety etc. So, in
 60 The Journal Contemporary Management Research
order to know the brand switching behaviour and
influencing factors, the respondents were asked
to name products for which they did not prefer
to change the brand, and products for which
brand did not matter to them and therefore they
changed the brands frequently. The responses
are tabulated in table 3. The data reveal that the
prominent products for which 30 percent or more
respondents did not prefer to change brand are
shampoo, tooth paste, and hair oil in that order,
while in case of toilet soap and talcum powder
they frequently changed brands.
The variety seeking is more prominent in case
of low involvement products (e.g. soap). How-
ever, it was observed that the loyalty was high
in cases where respondents were using brands
with strong Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
like Dove soap. It could be concluded that
people avoid experiments with high involvement
products that directly affect health and beauty.
The results are in agreement with the findings
of a previous study that reported high preva-
lence of brand loyalty in high involvement prod-
ucts like hair oil (Chaudhuri, 1998).
Respondents were also asked if they have ever
purchased any brand other than their favorite
brand under the influence of sales promotion
offer. The responses were solicited in the form
of ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘No Offer’ separately for each
product category. As shown in table 4, 47.38
percent of the respondents from Gujarat region
and 41.24 percent from Saurashtra found to
March
have purchased products due to sales promo-
tion (“No Offer” indicates that either customer
had not come across any promotional offer or
was indecisive about buying a promoted
product in future).
Z test for difference between proportions was
applied and the value of z was found to be
2.185 (p value- 0.0144). Respondents who
indicated “No offer” were not considered for
calculation of z value. Thus the hypothesis 1,
“Customers of developed region are more
responsive to sales promotion schemes” of
the study stands correct. It can be concluded
that customers from Gujarat region, which is
more developed, are more prone to get influ-
enced by sales promotion offers compared to
those in Saurashtra region which is lesser
developed. The results also indicate that
significant proportion of customer shift from
their preferred brand, to brands offering incen-
tives. The result is in line with the study
“Promotions: Adding value or driving sales” by
Dunn and Banks (2004), which concluded that
in highly competitive FMCG markets, ‘not to
promote’ results in market share loss and in
mature markets consumers are happy to be
incentivized to switch between them. Roth-
schild (1987) has also mentioned that a key
unique benefit for convenient goods may be
price, and therefore loyalist to price or deal is
more prevalent. These results imply that brand
managers of high involvement products
should spend more on advertising to educate
 2014 Jayashree Dubey
consumer about benefits conferred by products
rather than offering freebies. However, in case
of low involvement products, especially in
mature markets, use of sales promotion is
important to safeguard market share. At the
same time, to keep customer isolated from the
attraction of promotional offers of rival brands,
brand should be developed around strong USP.
Influence of sales promotion on retaining
customers
Promotional programs drive sales of product or
service and result in short term gains to compa-
nies. Studies have shown that with the lifting of
promotional offer, customers often return to their
normal buying behavior. An attempt was made
to check the presence of this behavior in the
customers of Gujarat and Saurashtra region.
The proportion of respondents who shifted back
(or inclined to shift back) was more (57.2 per-
cent) in case of Saurashtra region as compared
to Gujarat (51.88 percent). This was significantly
more than the proportion of respondents who
were averse to switch back, indicating that the
probability of permanently attracting customers
of rival brand is very low, and thus supporting
hypothesis 2, “Sales promotion schemes have
little impact on customer retention”. The result
is similar to the finding of Hammond and Ehren-
berg (2001) in their study entitled “The case
against price-related promotion” where they
concluded that the price promotions for FMCG
brands do not lead to increased sales once the
61
promotion is withdrawn. Sales promotion may
attract consumers in the short run, may influ-
ence them to stock and attract new consumers
to try the brands but may not create brand
loyalty (Kumar and Sharma, 2005). In a study
on “Market response to a major policy change
in the marketing mis-learning from Procter &
Gamble’s value pricing strategy”, Ailawadi et
al. (2001) have concluded that promotion
increases penetration and has little impact on
consumer retention. These results further
support hypothesis 2 that sales promotion
schemes have little impact on customer reten-
tion. This raises question of how the positive
impact created by the promotion offer can be
sustained to retain new customers. The
answer lies in fortifying brands by incorporat-
ing right USPs that are difficult to copy by
competitors.
Influence of Sales Promotion on Different
Age Group
Gujarat Region: Table 6 shows the impact of
sales promotion in brand shifting. The propor-
tion of respondents’ who shifted or shown
interest in shifting was maximum in case of
respondents of age group below 20 years
(52.67 percent) followed by age group 20-35
(47.73 percent), 35-50 (44.48 percent) and
was least in case of age group above 50 years
(33.04 percent). The proportion of respon-
dents who did not purchase or did not show
interest in purchasing a brand under the
 62 The Journal Contemporary Management Research
influence of incentive offers was maximum in the
age group > 50 years (62.61 percent) followed
by age group 35-50 years (46.06 percent), 20-35
(40.91 percent) and < 20 years (38.17 percent).
(‘Yes’ indicates readiness to shift, ‘No’ indicates
disinterest in shifting, ‘Can’t say’ indicates
indecisiveness)
Saurashtra Region: Proportion of respondents
who shifted or shown interest in shifting was
maximum in case of age group 20-35 (50.41
percent), followed by age group 35-50 (43.3
percent), below 20 years (29.21 percent) and
least in case of age group above 50 years (26.09
percent). The proportion of respondents who did
not purchase or shown no interest in purchasing
a brand under the influence of incentive offers
was maximum from the age group > 50 years
(73.91 percent) followed by age group < 20
years (63.87 percent), 35-50 years (50.17 per-
cent), and 20-35 (42.15 percent).
Chi­Square  (χ2)  test  was  applied  to  test  if  the
responses to sales promotion offers of the
respondents from different age group are differ-
ent. For Gujarat region value of χ2 is 19.22 and
for Saurashtra region it is 30.38. At 6 degree of
freedom and 5 percent significance level, the
value of chi-square at critical level is 12.59 thus
both the statistics falls in the rejection area. It
was concluded that the impact of sales promo-
tion on brand choice is different for customers
of different age group irrespective of the product.
Based on the frequencies it was found that the
March
customers of young age are more prone to be
influenced by sales promotion. Hypothesis 3
“Younger generation are more responsive to
sales promotion” got significant support from
the data collected for the study and also from
previous study on consumer research (MAPS,
1998) that states, consumers most likely to
be influenced by any type of sales promotion
are young people. A research study by Data-
monitor for consumer goods across Europe
and America also indicates that brand loyalty
increase with age. It indicates that companies
targeting younger segment should be more
active in offering sales promotion. Companies
targeting older customers can run loyalty
programmes to further strengthen the loyalty
of existing customers.
Influence of Sales Promotion on Gender
The proportion of female and male customers
that got influenced by sales promotion to
purchase brand under deal are 46.22 percent
& 43.94 percent respectively, whereas those
that did not get influenced are 45.95 percent
and 42.42 percent (ref. table 7).
Chi­Square (χ2) test was applied to test if the
responses to sales promotion offers of the
male and female respondents are different.
For Gujarat region value of χ2 is 3.87 and for
Saurashtra region it is 10.16. At two degree of
freedom and 5 percent significance level, the
value of chi-square at critical level is 5.99.
There was no significant difference in the
 2014 Jayashree Dubey
influence of sales promotion on male and female
customers of Gujarat region however in Sau-
rashtra region the impact is different on male
and female customers. In case of Saurashtra
region, male are more responsive to sales
promotion offers as compared to female. The
result of the study rejects hypothesis 4 that
women are more responsive to sales promotion
schemes. The result is different from a previous
study, which reported that women are most likely
to be influenced by any type of sales promotion
(MAPS, 1998). The difference in result might be
due to evolved socio-economic environment
with time and difference in the market demogra-
phy.
Preferred Sales Promotion Schemes
Gujarat Region: For personal care products,
price off was found to be the most preferred
incentive (36.71 percent), while quantity dis-
count was preferred by 29.33 percent of the
respondents. 9.61 percent preferred free sam-
ples, 9.43 percent preferred gifts, cross- promo-
tion was preferred by 8.40 percent of the
respondents while remaining preferred lucky
coupon and scratch cards (table 8).
Applying Pareto analysis, it can be concluded
that in case of personal care products, most
preferred sales promotion schemes are price
off, quantity discount and free sample. In 80
percent of the cases female customers preferred
price off, quantity discount and free sample,
63
while male customers preferred quantity dis-
count, price off and cross promotion in that
order (ref. figure 3).
Saurashtra Region: Table 8 shows the prefer-
ence of respondents from Saurashtra region
for different sales promotion schemes. 50.73
percent of the respondents preferred price off
as desired incentive offer, while quantity dis-
count was preferred by 26.43 percent of the
respondents. The total percentage response
for the preference of gifts, cross promotion,
lucky coupon, free samples and scratch cards
was 18.76 percent. Applying Pareto analysis,
it can be concluded that in case of personal
care products, most preferred sales promotion
schemes are price off and quantity discount.
Preferred sales promotion schemes for female
customers are price off, quantity discount and
free sample, while for male customers it was
price off and quantity discount (ref. figure 3).
The results are similar to MAPS (1998) that
the most influential form of sales promotion
are free extra product and price discounts,.
Chandon and Wansink (2000) also indicated
that monetary promotion has high value
expression benefit. Thus, hypothesis 5
“People respond more to monitory promotions
than non-monitory promotions” is accepted.
Chi- square test was applied to test the
regional differences in the preference for the
sales promotion schemes. It was observed
 64 The Journal Contemporary Management Research
that level of preference for various sales promo-
tion schemes are significantly different χ2 31.88.
Though price off is a good bet when the sales
promotion strategy is to be decided in short time,
marketers need to give high importance to
customer profile while deciding the incentive to
ensure maximum return on the dollars spent on
sales promotion.
CONCLUSION
Major inferences derived out of the analysis of
the data collected for the study are that house-
wives have major influence in deciding the brand
of personal care products. However for pro.
There are diverse views about the use of sales
promotion offers amongst marketers. The
opinion is negative, mainly because in majority
of the cases its positive impact can be observed
only for the period it is offered. While earlier,
quality of products used to be the main factor in
purchase decision making, diminishing differ-
ences in the quality of products (in at least top
four to five brands in almost all the products) has
increased the number of brands in the consider-
ation list of customers. Further, no (or low)
difference in the perceived quality of brands in
consideration list has made customers to eval-
March
uate products in terms of other peripheral
benefits like sales promotion offers. Sales
promotions now act as differentiator and help
a brand stand out in a category where differ-
entiation on the basis of product attributes is
low by altering price value relationship. This
has increased the importance of sales promo-
tion offers in the marketing programme of any
company. Even though it results into short
term profits, the competitive condition in the
market place has increased its importance for
the marketers to maintain, as well as increase
market share of their products. This is espe-
cially relevant in case of fast moving personal
care products where customer do not hesitate
in trying other brands. Looking at its critical
importance, it will be prudent to take a serious
approach for planning and implementing right
sales promotion programme by marketers that
addresses right customer group with respect
to their age, gender and demographic region
to make the promotion effective and deliver
results. Sales promotion needs to be given an
important space in marketing plan and should
be used strategically at different stages of
product life cycle and competitive market
conditions.
 2014 Jayashree Dubey 65

Table 1 Purchase Decision Makers in Selected Products

Products Gujarat Region Saurashtra Region
Mother Father Children Mother Father Children

Shampoo 68 (47.55) 21 (14.69) 54 (37.76) 52 (39.39) 10 (7.58) 70 (53.03)

Hair Oil 90 (63.38) 19 (13.38) 33 (23.24) 63 (45.99) 17 (12.41) 57 (41.61)

Tooth Paste 71 (48.30) 38 (25.85) 38 (25.85) 63 (45.00) 28 (20.00) 49 (35.00)

Toilet Soap 87 (59.59) 33 (22.60) 26 (17.81) 69 (56.56) 19 (15.57) 34 (27.87)

Talcum Powder 65 (48.87) 23 (17.29) 45 (33.83) 66 (49.25) 15 (11.19) 53 (39.55)

Total 381 (53.59) 134 (18.85) 196 (27.57) 313 (47.07) 89 (13.38) 263 (39.55)

Table 2. Proportion of Decision Makers from Various Age Groups in Selected Products
Products Gujarat Region Saurashtra Region
<20 20-35 35-50 >50 <20 20-35 35-50 >50
35 48 49 11 56 26 47 3
Shampoo
(24.48) (33.57) (34.27) (7.69) (42.42) (19.70) (35.61) (2.27)
21 32 69 19 46 25 60 6
Hair Oil
(14.89) (22.70) (48.94) (13.48) (33.58) (18.25) (43.80) (4.38)
26 33 68 19 38 22 71 8
Tooth Paste
(17.81) (22.60) (46.58) (13.01) (27.34) (15.83) (51.08) (5.76)
17 32 84 13 28 21 62 9
Toilet Soap
(11.64) (21.92) (57.53) (8.90) (23.33) (17.50) (51.67) (7.50)
33 34 54 12 35 33 60 5
Talcum Powder
(24.81) (25.56) (40.60) (9.02) (26.32) (24.81) (45.11) (3.76)
132 179 324 74 203 127 300 31
Total
(18.62) (25.25) (45.70) (10.44) (30.71) (19.21) (45.39) (4.69)
Figure in parentheses is percentage value.

Table 3 Respondents Preference to Change Brand

Products Gujarat region Average Saurashtra region Average

Don’t prefer Prefer Don’t prefer Prefer
Shampoo 50.61 22.62 33.78 18.92
Hair Oil 32.97 23.25 34.49 14.13
Tooth Paste 50.41 16.09 33.17 14.33
Toilet Soap 18.9 31 21.04 20.5
Talcum Powder 8.65 17.51 9.74 20.72
Values are in percentage
 66 The Journal Contemporary Management Research March

Table 4. Response to Sales Promotion Strategies in Selected Product Categories

Response Gujarat Region Saurashtra Region

No. of Proportion of No. of Proportion of

Respondents Respondents Respondents Respondents
Yes 334 47.38 273 41.24
No 297 42.13 346 52.27
No offer 74 10.5 43 6.5
Total 705 100 662 100

Table 5 Influence of Sales Promotion for Inducing Reverse* Brand Switching

Responses Gujarat Region Saurashtra Region

No. of Proportion of No. of Proportion of
Respondents respondents Respondents Respondents
Yes 179 51.88 143 57.2
No 71 20.58 37 14.8
Can’t say 95 27.54 70 28
Total 345 100 250 100
* Indicates that customers revert to their original brand once sales promotion is over

Table 6. Impact of Age on the Response to Sales Promotion Strategies on Personal Care
Products
Age Response Gujarat Region Saurashtra Region
Yes 69 (52.67) 59 (29.21)
<20 No 50 (38.17) 128 (63.37)
Can't say 12 (9.16) 15 (7.43)
Yes 84 (47.73) 61 (50.41)
20-35 No 72 (40.91) 51 (42.15)
Can't say 20 (11.36) 9 (7.44)
Yes 141 (44.48) 126 (43.30)
35-50 No 146 (46.06) 146 (50.17)
Can't say 30 (9.46) 19 (6.53)
Yes 38 (33.04) 18 (26.09)
>50 No 72 (62.61) 51 (73.91)
Can't say 5 (4.35) 0 (0 )
Figure in parentheses is percentage of the respective column total
 2014 Jayashree Dubey 67

TABLE 7 IMPACT OF GENDER ON THE RESPONSE TO SALES PROMOTION

STRATEGIES
Gender Response Gujarat Saurashtra
No. of Proportion of No. of Proportion of
Respondents Respondents Respondents Respondents
Yes 171 46.22 125 41.39
Female No 170 45.95 156 51.66
Can't say 29 7.84 21 6.95
Yes 58 43.94 48 56.47
Male No 56 42.42 37 43.53
Can't say 18 13.64 0 0
502 100 387 100

TABLE 8 PREFERENCES OF SALES PROMOTION STRATEGIES FOR PERSONAL CARE

PRODUCTS
S.P. strategy Gujarat Saurashtra
No. of Proportion of No. of Proportion of
Respondents Respondents Respondents Respondents
Price off 214 36.71 311 50.73
Quantity
171 29.33 162 26.43
discount
Gifts 55 9.43 39 6.36
Cross
49 8.4 23 3.75
promotion
Lucky coupon 26 4.46 25 4.08
Free samples 56 9.61 41 6.69
Scratch cards 12 2.06 12 1.96
100 100
68 The Journal Contemporary Management Research March

Figure 1 Respondents’ Preference to Change Brand

60

50
Shampoo
40
Hair Oil
30 Tooth Paste
Toilet Soap
20
Talcum Powder
10

0
Don’t prefer Prefer Don’t prefer Prefer

Gujarat region Average Saurashtra region Average

Figure 2 Preferences for Selected Sales Promotion Schemes

60
50
40
Gujarat
30
Saurashtra
20
10
0
f

on

s
nt
of

s
n
ift

rd
e
io
ou

up
G
e

pl

ca
ot
ic

sc

m
co
m
Pr

ch
sa
di

at
pr
y

ck

e
it

r
e

Sc
Lu
ss
nt

Fr
ua

ro
C
Q
2014 Jayashree Dubey 69

Figure 3 Gender Wise Preferences for Sales Promotion Schemes on

Selected Product Categories

45.00 Genderwise preference for sales promotion schemes

40.00
39.80 for Personal Care Products (Gujarat)
Female
35.00 32.89
Male
% of respondents

30.26
30.00 27.55

25.00

20.00

15.00 13.16 12.93

10.53
10.00 8.16
6.80 6.58

3.40 2.63 3.95

5.00
1.36

Price off Quantity Gifts Cross Lucky Free Scratch

discount promotion coupon samples cards

Sales promotion schemes

70.00 Genderwise preference for sales promotion schemes

60.98 for Personal Care Products (Saurashtra)
60.00
Female
50.17
Male
% of respondents

50.00

40.00

30.00
25.09
21.95
20.00

9.28
10.00 6.196.10
4.47 4.88
2.41 2.44 2.44 2.41 1.22

Price off Quantity Gifts Cross Lucky Free Scratch

discount promotion coupon samples cards

Sales promotion schemes

 70 The Journal Contemporary Management Research
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