An empirical investigation of the application of promotional mix elements within multinational pharmaceutical companies in Kenya

Abstract

The study reported here analyzed the application of promotional mix elements within multinational pharmaceutical companies in Kenya. These promotional mix elements are personal selling, sales promotion, direct marketing, advertising and public relations and publicity as applied in various proportions while marketing their medicinal products. The study also looked at the factors that determine the choice of which promotional tool to apply. These factors are those that impact both positively and negatively on which tool to use and those, which hinder on desirable tools to apply. The basic premise of study was to look at how the widely used promotional tools -in FMCGI industry- are applied in the specialized industry of pharmaceuticals. The study was a survey of a judgmental sample compnsmg of multinational pharmaceutical firms with scientific offices in Nairobi. The data was collected using self-administered questionnaires. This contained open-ended as well as closed-ended type of questions. The primary data was collected using the drop and pick method. The data collected was analyzed using frequency tables, and percentages to compare the distribution of the variables in the study. The findings from these analyses came up with the following conclusions; • The most commonly used promotional mix element used by multinational pharmaceutical firms is personal selling and sales promotions. These two are the key elements of promoting medicinal products used by most of the multinational pharmaceutical firms. Publicity and public relations together with advertising are the least used promotional tools. The most widely used promotional tools in personal selling are sales presentations and sales meetings while exhibitions are commonly applied iotH;alespromotion. Fast Moving Consumer Goods • The important factor, which determines the tool to use by multinational pharmaceutical firms, is type of product and profitability. The type of customer and market competition are equally important as factors in the determination of promotional tools to apply. • The factors that impact negatively on promotional activities of multinational pharmaceutical firms are lack of focus, ethical considerations, and regulatory and financial constraints.