The Effect(s) of promotions & discounts on consumer-based brand equity of brands in Bangladesh

Abstract

In recent times, many brands are operating in Bangladesh, ranging from large Multinational Corporations to Small and Medium Enterprises, and all of these brands try to capture and secure their own portion of the market through many means of acquiring, satisfying and retaining their consumers. Some such Brand Communication tools are Promotional Offers and Discounts which allow a brand to boost sales and, if executed well, increase consumer delight, loyalty and repeat purchases. In the context of Bangladesh, no such study was carried out before; thus, during my 2-month long internship at Asiatic Digital, which is under Asiatic Marketing Communications Limited, I decided to carry out my research on this research topic as it was a topic which would also help satisfy my curiosities about the behavior of consumers in Bangladesh. Over time, while doing my internship, I was able to study how consumers respond to discounts and promotions; and they seemed to mostly react with intrigue and positivity. Thus with this observation in mind, I set off to conduct an exploratory research on this subject with the consumers of Brands in Bangladesh in mind. A total of 106 individuals took part in the survey to share their opinions and feedback on discounts and promotions. 60% of these respondents stated they liked to collect on products that had an offer or discount attached to them; and 51% of the sample population believes that offers and discounts hold some form of a benefit for them while the other 49% thinks that offers and discounts are only beneficial occasionally. 9% of the respondents stated that they do not become loyal consumers to brands that give out promotions and discounts; 44% respondents state that they do indeed become loyal consumers while the remaining 47% become loyal consumers for some of these brands that usually activate promotions and discounts. It has also been seen that consumers prefer offers more than they prefer discounts; 45% of respondents question whether the quality of a product is intact when they learn that a product is available at a discount – and 51% of the respondents do not always question the quality of a discounted product but only sometimes while 4% do not question it all.