PRODUCT BRANDING AS A TOOL FOR INCREASING CONSUMER LOYALTY IN THE TELECOMMUNICATION INDUSTRY IN NIGERIA

Prior to the advent of GSM in 2001, phone penetration was low to the verge of negligible. Nitel had the monopoly. But all that changed with the GSM revolution brought by the licensing of Econet(now Airtel), Mtel, MTN and the later entry of Glo and Etisalat into the industry.At first, all that was needed for marketing success was availability. Because the demand for phone was far more than the supply, these companies were on a roll, snapping subscribers after subscribers from phone starved Nigerians. That has since changed. With the fierce competition and the saturated market already, telecom operators must work hard to reduce cost, win new customers and most importantly retain the existing ones. This study is based on product branding as a tool for increasing consumer loyalty in the Nigeria telecommunication industry. The main objective is to determine the relationship between product branding and consumer loyalty in the Nigeria telecommunication industry. Primary data used for this work which was sourced through questionnaire administered to customers of the four major telecommunication companies in Nigeria (MTN, Airtel, Globacom and Etisalat) residing in Enugu metropolis. The population of the study was 812,708, but the sample size was 400 which were determined with the use of the yamane’s equation. Out of the 400 administered, only 392 were returned. A descriptive statistic technique was also adopted for the study and the statistical tool for the test of the formulated hypothesis was chi square formulae, with the aid of the SPSS software. The study revealed that Product branding and features has a significant effect on product choice and customer patronage and also that Product diversification and innovation has a significant effect on consumer choice and patronage. It also shows that Brand loyal customers are prone to brand switch in response to changes in tariff of other brands and that there is a significant relationship between product branding and consumer loyalty in the Nigerian telecommunication industry. The researcher recommend that telecommunication firms should expand their network coverage, improve the quality of service their offer and provide better access to other networks within and outside Nigeria. The industry should also improve their customer service and value added services, because the findings shows that consumers are not satisfied the quality of these factors. Telecommunication providers in Nigeria should be constantly involved in product innovation and diversification, as to increase customer’s product choice. They must come up with friendly tariff in order to increase customer loyalty and reduce brand switch.Finally that telecommunication providers in Nigeria must see product branding as a very important aspect of it marketing strategy and must be given a serious approach, because it go a long way to determines the success or failure of the product offer to the market, the firm in question and it ability to achieve consumer loyalty