Predictive Strategies for the Determination of Sales and Advertising Expenditures in the Pharmaceutical Industry in Nigeria

Advertising budget setting continues to be a controversial topic. Theobjective of this study is too formulate a scientifically –based approach tosetting advertising budgets and correct the lack-lustre approach towards this.Secondary sources of data were used in this study. Data analysis was done byusing the SPSS statistical software package. This study was based on thepremise that little is known about how managers actually set advertisingbudgets and little attention is paid to this issue and managers are making less than optimal decisions on advertising budgets. It was identified thatoptimizing scientific methods were not the basis of many decisions onadvertising budget settings. It has also revealed the slowly increasing use ofquantitative models and the widespread use of heuristic such as percent-of-sales and competitive parity. Despite the controversies surrounding budgetsetting for advertisement, the study has been able to provide a leverage ofconfidence limits such that, regardless of whatever approach adopted, theconfidence limit is the guiding star towards achieving ‘optimum’ budget toreap the benefits of advertisement

The effects of advertising on sales in the pharmaceutical industry in Nigeria - A survey

Although advertising accounts for a major share of promotional expenditure of most companies in the pharmaceutical industry, most of them manifest considerable ignorance about how advertising works. This study aimed at determining the effect of advertising on the sales of pharmaceutical products bearing in mind the uniqueness of this market. Data collection was achieved with the use of questionnaire administered on the respondents by stratified sampling technique. Data analysis was done with the SPSS software package. The result showed that there was a positive correlation between advertising and sales in the industry. The study concluded that even though advertising influenced sales, there wasa limit to which a positive correlation could be expected and hence, advertisers should be wary of this phenomenon. The study also showed that, there was no difference in the way advertising influences sales in this industry and in any other industry