CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Brand is described as a symbol, term, name, or any other feature that isolates one seller’s good or services as distinct from those of other sellers. Originally, branding was employed to differentiate one person’s, cattle from another, by means of a distinctive symbol engrafted into the animal’s skin with the means of a hot iron stamp, and was subsequently used in business, marketing and advertising.

        As a matter of fact, a modern example of a brand, is peak milk (which is used as a case study in this research work), produced by Friesland campina Wamco Nigeria plc. A brand is the most valuable fixed asset of a corporation. Peak milk is a commodity brand and its popularity depends on level of patronage by consumers.

        Subsequently, brand preference is associated with the choice of brand which helps consumer decision making and activate the brand purchase action. Designing and developing result- oriented marketing strategies, it is pertinent to know the pattern of consumer preferences across the population. There are many factors (which are going to be discussed subsequently in the course of this work) influencing the consumers to buy a particular product, for instance peak milk. Consequently, consumer purchasing choices lead to efficient market segmentation strategies in the company.

Mergerand acquisition has been widely acclaimed by scholars and professionals inbusiness as the most desirable and effective strategy to revive the difficultsituations facing Nigeriaeconomic climate. The situation is so terrible that organizations had to turnaround and adopt strategy to survive through this turbulent water.  This research work has the objectiveundertaking to examines, analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of merger andacquisitions as a strategy for organizational survival in Nigeria andinvestigates whether it can result to economic of scale and increaseprofitability of the combined firms. To this end, questionnaire wereadministrated to Oando Nigeria Plc and some few other organizations thatmerged. The data and information collected were analyzed using simple tables,frequencies and percentages. The findings of this research reveals that mergerand acquisitions brings about improve in the productivity of the emergedorganizations. The researcher is of the opinion that, based on the findings,the recommendations made if properly followed, it will improve the activitiesof merger and acquisition for the benefit of the government, proposingorganizations and the interested public at large.