Partial fulfillment for award of the degree of Master of Business Administration

Table of Contents

Introduction
Literature Review
Research Methodology
Research Design, Data Collection and Validation

This dissertation was an exploratory survey on the evaluation of the effectiveness of sales promotion in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry in Kenya whose key objectives were; to establish how firms allocated marketing budgets, what objectives they sought to achieve through sales promotions as well as whether and how these firms in Kenya evaluated the effectiveness of sales promotion as a marketing strategy and the challenges faced in the process.
A comprehensive literature review was conducted before collection of qualitative and quantitative primary data from 19 FMCG companies that were derived from the list of top 100 advertising spenders in 2007. The target respondents were senior and mid level managers who had great influence, or were final decision makers in developing, implementing and evaluating marketing strategies for their companies.
The most important conclusion was that, while all companies claimed to be evaluating the effectiveness of their sales promotion, the evaluation seemed superficial or less than objective owing to the fact that majority did not have well established tools or systems to carry out adequate detailed analysis. This was partly due to what was highlighted as the biggest challenge — the unavailability of accurate and reliable trade and consumer data. The need for development of tools/models or structured and systemised mechanics for this purpose was brought out strongly by the respondents as a key recommendation to address the problem. However, the researcher noted that most of the other suggestions put forward to improve the evaluation process were within easy reach of the respondents and it was not clear why it seemed that little or nothing much was being done to address the challenges.
Another finding from the study was that a big proportion (89%) of all FMCG companies engaged in sales promotions. A conclusion deduced from this finding was that the firms acknowledged the importance of, and actually carried out sales promotions regularly as part of their marketing strategy.