INFLUENCE OF MOBILE MARKETING ON CONSUMER PURCHASE BEHAVIOUR IN ORGANIZED INSTITUTIONS IN LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA

  CHAPTER ONE

1.0                                                      INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Advances in technology (especially information technology) and globalization have changed the way in which the world conducts business and are increasingly providing consumers with greater conveniences. The Industrial Revolution of the 18^th century led to a new economy, which was defined in terms of mass production of standardized products, mass distribution of these products to consumers and mass media vehicles to carry standardized advertising messages” (Godin, 1999). During this era, selling underwent a major transformation from personal one-to-one persuasion to mass advertising campaigns designed for the consumers (Solove, 2004). The same message was communicated to the consumers regardless of the difference in nature and characteristics of each consumer. Mass marketing yielded only short term sales and not loyal customers as these forced marketing firms to understand that consumers cannot be treated as a homogeneous group (Doinita, 2012). Marketers had to develop targeted marketing communications in order to build and maintain relationships with customers. Targeted marketing became truly successful when it was associated with direct marketing, “a database-driven interactive process of directly communicating with targeted customers or prospects using any medium to obtain a measurable response or transaction” (Spiller and Baier, 2010).

The advent of internet facilitated targeted marketing which made it possible to send messages to an individual’s email. This facilitated the emergence of email marketing. The advent of the internet provided marketers the opportunity to initiate and build relationships with their customers via the use of computer networks. However, marketers’ desire real time interaction with their customers and this increased the need for a mobile environment which provides the most dynamic, effective and personal medium for marketing communication (Yaniv, 2008).

The emergence of the mobile phone device as a means of instant communication has changed the way organizations interact with potential and existing customers (Grant and Donohoe 2007; Siau, Sheng and Nah 2005). In recent years, the rapid adoption of mobile phone and other mobile communication devices have created opportunities in the marketing and advertisingerena, by allowing companies to announce their products and services, develop customer relationships through direct personalized and interactive message response from customers (Sultan and Rohm, 2005).

Different reasons constitute the rise in the use of mobile devices. According to Grant and Donohoe (2007), the combination of video and audio contexts in one mobile device absolutely increased the usage of mobile devices, flexibility in communication and information sharing have become possible with improvements in mobile technology and integration of internet and computing into a mobile medium (Siau, Sheng and Nah 2005) and the possibility of reaching information anytime and anywhere triggered the improvements of mobile devices (Deans, 2005)

The potential of interaction with consumers, target marketing and managing consumer relationship made mobile devices an important channel for marketers (Grant and Donohoe, 2007). Mobile marketing have become powerful tool for marketing communication and information dissemination (Nysveen, Pdersen, Thorbjornsen and Berthon, 2005). This has made it easier for consumers to compare marketing information, product offerings, and prices before significant purchase decisions is made by the consumers. With this level of information at consumers disposal, consumer behaviour has become increasingly difficult to predict by marketers (Urban, 2004), as consumers expect transparency and real-time interactions with the organisation

The mobile phones are no longer used for communication alone, according to Michael and Salter (2006), who stated that the world has entered a new era called, “the all mobile era”. According to them, the mobile phones or rather said, smartphones, do it all, from browsing the internet for information to ordering of online products, mobile banking and paying of bills. “The mobile phone is set to become the Third Screens after TV and computer,” according to Asif (2011). As with other traditional marketing programmes, consumer attitude play an important role in determining the success of using the mobile device by marketers as a platform for communicating, creating sales and building relationships with their consumers. The acceptance of mobile device by consumers is influenced by, amongst others, the perceived utility of the content and the perceived risk associated with data security and consumer privacy (Bauer, Barnes, Reichardt and Neumann, 2005).

The mobile phone is seen as a personal device (Barwise and Strong, 2002; Tsang, Ho and Liang, 2004) and as such, marketing messages are expected to meet the individual need and possibly take the form of permission marketing (a message either in form of SMS and MMS that has been requested by the consumer as part of an opt-in scheme requiring the consumer to indicate their consent to receive commercial messages and information of interest to them) in order to stimulate a positive response from the consumer. A mobile device is a possession many people carry with them and text messaging is generally used for one-to-one contact, which is why a more personal approach seems to be required in mobile marketing in order to generate a favourable attitude from the consumer (Barwise and Strong, 2002). Intrusion of marketing messages into this personal device often lead to irritation, especially when the mobile phone is

seen as an “extended self‟, of the(2009)consumer.  a

Despite the huge marketing potentials of personalized and interactive messages presented by communicating with customers using the mobile phone device, academic research in this area is still in its early stages (Barnes and Scornavacca, 2004; Muk, 2007 and Carroll, Barnes, Scornavacca, and Fletcher, 2007). A strong need for empirical research is articulated by practitioners and academics. This thesis responds to this call for more research and theoretical development in this area. Thus, this study contributes to the understanding of the influence of mobile marketing messages on consumer purchase behaviour.

1.2 Statement of the Research Problem

Attitude toward marketing activities and especially advertising in the traditional channel (print and broadcast media), have been studied widely in the literature because they have a considerable impact on measuring the effectiveness of these channels on consumer purchase decisions. The findings have been controversial across various channels of traditional marketing communication media (Moore, 1983; Zanot, 1984; Shavitt, 1998; Schlosser, 1999) as mobile communicators cannot exactly predict or determine the influence of mobile marketing messages on consumer attitude and purchase behaviour (Haghirian and Madiberger, 2005). Thus, this has necessiatated the need to assess the influence of mobile marketing messages on consumer purchase behaviour.

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