The use of commercial sponsorships as a strategy for increasing sales by East African Breweries Ltd

Abstract

In the recent past, both scholars and policy analysts have devoted a great deal of attention to the implications of commercial sponsorship and initiatives as well as their relation to sales strategy. Management in EABL is a function whose primary role is to ensure that the company remains focused on the long term profitability, consistently deliver results in a constantly changing environment and to optimize the resources available to obtain the highest value in the long term. The purpose of the study is to establish if there is a positive link between commercial sponsorship and market performance of EABL and to identify the impact of commercial sponsorship on brand value of EABL products. This study was a case study since the unit of analysis is one organization (that is East African Breweries Limited). The researcher collected both primary and secondary data for this study. Primary data was collected using an interview guide. The interview guide has open-ended questions which will enable the researcher to collect qualitative data. The interview guide was administered through face interviews to allow for further probing. Secondary data was collected from the EABL strategic partnership publications particularly those spelling how EABL execute its corporate social responsibility mandate through commercial sponsorship. The data collected from the interview was edited for completeness and consistency. Given that data was qualitative in nature, content analysis was used to analyze the data. The content of the responses obtained after carrying out the interviews was therefore analyzed to search for relationship between application of innovation strategies and sustainable competitive advantage. From the findings, management's handling of the commercial sponsorship process can be considered successful if things go smoothly enough that the company meets or beats its commercial sponsorship and financial performance targets and shows good progress in achieving management's commercial sponsorship vision geared towards efficient and market performance to its intended clientele. Therefore, effective commercial sponsorship management requires intensive, continuous and collective involvement of senior management" (Stoney, 2001). Without execution, there will be no market performance by the implementing organization. Market performance is possible if and only if there is proper commercial sponsorship. The organization should ensure that customer service is the core aspect in commercial sponsorship focusing on efficient and market performance and also ensure that the necessary resources are available during commercial sponsorship which impacts positively on market performance. Moreover, the organization should assess the sales strategy to ensure that it is in line with use of commercial sponsorship and make sure that commercial sponsorship is a team effort.