IntroductionTop
In Spain, as well as in other Mediterranean countries, lamb meat from extensive production systems has been traditionally consumed. Sheep production usually takes place in less-favored areas where other type of livestock could not be raised (De Rancourt et al., 2006). At the same time, sheep and goat cattle contribute to sustainable development in these areas mitigating climate change, preserving biodiversity and leading the use of water and soil in a more sustainable manner (Plieninger et al., 2006; Henle et al., 2008).
In the last decade, Spanish market has suffered a signif icant decline in the consumption of sheep and goat meat reaching a 40% drop in the period of 2009-2018, being the biggest decline (44%) in the period of 2011-2014 (MAPAMA, 2019). Relative price of lamb meat has been noted as the main cause of the decrease in consumption (Du Plessis & Du Rand, 2012; Gracia & de Magistris, 2013), at least in certain market segments (Campo et al., 2008; Font i Furnols et al., 2011). Although financial crisis has contributed in the decline in lamb meat consumption, some authors (Blay, 2017) suggest other possible causes such as inappropriate lamb meat cuts in the market or a poor marketing communication.
In order to encourage sheep meat demand and mitigate the declining consumption situation, Spanish sheep sector has drawn its own strategy, focusing on promoting lamb meat consumption. At national level, a generic campaign was designed with the aim of stimulating global demand. In this way, the Sheep and Goat Interprofesional Organisation (INTEROVIC) has taken the initiative in carrying out promotional actions. In order to finance 25% of the lamb meat campaign budget, INTEROVIC implemented two extensions of regulations: the first in 2012 and the second at the end of 2015, in the form of mandatory economic contributions. The Agriculture Ministry (MAPAMA) provided another 25% of the budget, while the EU supported 50% of the project (INTEROVIC, 2015).
Spanish promotion campaign, with the slogan: ‘Enjoy lamb meat again’ (INTEROVIC, 2016), has taken place during 2015 to 2017 and partial objectives were defined for that period. In the same line, another promotion campaign has been designed to be launched from 2018 to 2020, where the aim is to emphasise the sustainable attribute of lamb meat. These new promotional actions are being cofinanced by EU and they have been launched in Hungary and Spain simultaneously, with the slogan: “Enjoy natural and sustainable meat. Choose European origin”. In Fig. 1 the objectives of these two complementary campaigns are described.
Meanwhile, in some regions specific promotion campaigns were launched in order to increase the demand of a particular quality brand, such as the case of the region Aragon with the PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) Ternasco of Aragon. Therefore, in some regions like that, three campaigns co-existed to encourage lamb meat consumption. First, INTEROVIC launched the national generic promotion campaign through an advertising spot on TV. In the second place, the Regulatory Council of Ternasco of PGI Aragon carried out a promotional campaign of Ternasco of Aragón new cuts. This lamb meat is identified by 98% of the population in the processing area (Ferrer-Pérez & Gil, 2019) and since the population in the study is highly familiarized with it, it was important taking it into account. Thirdly, one of the largest sheep cooperatives in Spain launched its own brand promotional campaign. We take this in consideration since sales of Ternasco of Aragon are mainly made in a cooperative model which groups the majority of farms and distribution companies (Ferrer-Pérez & Gil, 2019). The three different campaigns and the promotional tools they used are summarized in Table 1.
Prior to design the campaign, INTEROVIC conducted a market research to better guide their actions. It was found that in the context of the economic crisis, lamb meat was perceived as an expensive product to be used in special ocasions, targeting a senior market segment, with low presence in distribution channels and without communication activities (INTEROVIC, 2013; Blay, 2015). After having a better insight of the situation, measures taken to improve lamb’s market condition have been focus on modernize consumers’ perception towards lamb meat. For that purpose, seven new cuts, coming from the leg, the skirt steak and the neck and also meat preparations such as brochettes and hamburgers, have been designed in order to be more convenient and take better use of the carcass. Product differentiation has been based on two characteristics: natural (referring the natural way of breeding and feeding the animals) and unique flavour (INTEROVIC, 2013; Blay, 2015). These cuts were proposed to producers and butchers as an opportunity of implementing them on a voluntary basis with the aim of increase their business performance and hence, improve sector efficiency.
To promote these new lamb cuts, emphasis is being placed on promotion campaigns for consumers and tra-ining activities for professionals (INTEROVIC, 2016). Raise awareness among retailers is crucial since they are the last stage of commercialization process. On the other hand, promotion campaigns aim to provide accurate in-formation to consumers but also persuade about benefits and advantages of the product in order draw the attention to it (Santesmases & Mestre, 2004).
When designing a promotion campaign, it is important to choose the appropriate communication tool according to channel used: personal sales, advertising, promotion sales or public relations (Stanton et al., 1992). Over time, marketing strategies have started to move away from mass communication channels since consumers have chan-ged their information sources. Events and experiences have become popular in order to create positive attitudes towards a particular brand, create experiences and evoke feelings among consumers. They are also used by firms to express commitment to the community, entertain cus-tomers and reward employees. These activities take place in real time, which is their added value (Kotler & Keller, 2009). These new possibilities make that companies want to use more and more specialized tools to reach specific consumers segments with customized and interactive messages via blogs, web catalogues, e-mail advertising or social networks, known as direct marketing (Santesmases & Mestre, 2004; Kotler & Amstrong, 2012). In the same line, Hung et al. (2016b), also suggested that communica-tion can be customised according to the target segments, although it is also necessary to consider that the relative importance of promotional tools may vary across different situations (Jackson et al., 1987). Some authors stated that taking into acount the stages through which consumers go until they decided to buy the product can be helpful to guide promotional actions (Santesmases & Mestre, 2004; Stanton et al., 2007). These stages can be descri-be as: product consciousness - deeply knowledge of the product - feeling attracted by the product - prefering that product over sustitutives product - convincing consumers they need the product - purchasing the product (Stanton et al., 2007).
For example, Chandon et al. (2009) reported that in-store marketing works particularly well for younger, more educated, and “opportunistic” consumers. Due to the importance of knowing the most important promotional tools for drawing the attention of each consumer segment, this paper aims to investigate which promotion tools are of consumers’ interest in terms of perceived importance, taking into account two contexts, when consumers are in the buying process, and when they are out of store.
Given that consumers may have different evaluations and preferences for promotion activities that can determine its effectiveness, the aim of the present study is to explore consumers’ recall of the communication campaign of new lamb meat cuts in Zaragoza and evaluate the level of importance consumers and retailers attached to different promotional tools used in the campaign. As Belenky & Nistraman (2001) stated in their study, the estimation of the economic effectiveness of an advertising campaign that is only based on the revenue evaluation may not reflect the degree of influence on the targeted population, thus, the present study investigate the recall of promotion campaign and which are considered the most important communication tools for promoting the new lamb cuts from consumers and retailers point of view. Moreover, this work investigates the importance attached to different promotion tools taking into consideration the situation consumers were supposed to be. In this way respondents were proposed tools when they are in the buying process, that is, in-store promotion tools. And they were also proposed promotion tools that take place out of the store and when they are not in the buying process. Although consumers generally make decisions before entering retail stores, their preferences can be changed inside the retail store under the influence of available promotion tools (Kucuk, 2017). And in this line, our investigation tries to have an insight of which promotion tools consumers considered more important to attract consumers attention towards the new lamb meat cuts in both situations, in and out store.
Figure 1. Objectives of the two Spanish campaigns. Source: Elaborated by the authors with information from INTEROVIC (2016)
Table 1. Different channels and promotion tools conducted in Aragón
Material and methodsTop
Study design and target population definition
The information used in this study was obtained through face to face questionnaires aimed at a sample of 401 respondents (301 consumers were interviewed in traditional butcheries and 100 individuals were interviewed in supermarkets). Sample was randomly selected and a quota was previously established by gender and age, in order to obtain a representative sample of the city’s population (Table 2). The study was carried out in Zaragoza city, which is typically used as a model for social and market studies and could be considered as a good representation of the average Spanish population (Gracia & Zeballos, 2005; Camarena et al., 2011; Miranda de Lama et al., 2013). The period of time when data was collected was from January to March 2017. The sample was randomly selected along 10 of the 14 districts in which the city is administratively divided, to ensure the sample was as representative as possible.
In order to compare consumers’ perception and retailers’ opinion, 55 traditional butchers, selling lamb meat with the local PGI “Ternasco de Aragón”, were asked whether or not they have implemented the new lamb cuts into their range of products. Only those who were selling the new lamb cuts were posed the questionnaire since it was supposed they have used the materials from the promotional campaign to advertise their new lamb cuts. A total of 26 questionnaires were collected.
Questionnaire definition and data collection
Consumers’ questionnaire contained a set of questions focusing on the recall level of the promotion campaign launched to advertise the new lamb cuts (multi-channel advertisements, events and posters around the city). Participants were asked whether they have heard of the new lamb cuts. If “yes” was indicated, they have to choose from a list where they have seen this information (TV, radio, newspaper, internet, posters around the city, butchers’ shop, events, family/friends). The questionnaire also included specific questions related to promotion tools used to advertise the new lamb cuts in the city (Fig. 2); all respondents, even those who answered “no” to the first question, have to indicate if they have assisted to events where the new lamb cuts were promoted and they were shown the two posters posted around the city (Fig. 3), in order to probe whether they remember them or not.
Finally, they were asked to indicate the level of importance they attached to a set of proposed promotion tools (Fig. 4), following a five-point importance scale ranging from “Not important at all” (=1) to “Very important” (=5) including the possibility “No answer/Don’t know”. Respondents also indicated their consumption frequency. Socio-demographic information was gathered at the end. As personal questions are considered sensitive and participants could reject to answer them, non-compromising answers categories were given. It was asked their perceived financial situation instead of income, as it was made in Wang et al. (2015) and Hung et al. (2016a). The criterion for including participants in the study was people who were lamb meat eaters. Therefore, a screening question was posed at the beginning of the interviews.
Butchers’ questionnaire included a screening question to choose those retailers who have decided to sell the new lamb cuts. To evaluate the level of importance that butchers place to different promotion tools they were asked to indicate the importance they give to some concrete promotion tools proposed in a list, a 5-points importance scale was used ranging from ‘not important at all’ (=1) to ‘very important’ (=5) including the “No answer/Don’t know” option. The same items posed to consumers (Fig. 4) were asked to traditional butchers in order to compare both responses and investigate if there is agreement in the best way to promote these lamb cuts. Socio-demographic questions were gathered: age, level of studies and total number of staff members.
Table 2. Socio-demographic characteristics of consumers’ sample.
[1]Population data refers to Zaragoza (2018). Na: not available.
Statistical analysis
Data were analysed with SPSS Statistics 22.0. Uni-variant analyses were used to develop frequency tables and percentages and their corresponding bar graphs. Bivariate analyses were used to develop contingency tables with their respective chi-square test. In addition, Mann-Whitney U tests and Kruskall-Wallis test were performed on data comparing differences in the impor-tance attached by consumers to promotion tools between groups of age, educational level and establishment of purchase and proving differences in the importance at-tached by consumers and traditional butchers to promo-tion tools. Mann-Whitney U test (performed to compare differences between two independent groups) and Krus-kal-Wallis test (performed to compare differences be-tween three or more non related groups) are used when variables don’t fit the assumptions of normality and ho-moscedasticity, when sample sizes are different or when sample size is small (Rivas-Ruiz et al., 2013). In order to determine whether the variables follow a normal distribution or not the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used (Berlanga-Silvente & Rubio-Hurtado, 2012).
Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to reduce the number of variables and to explore common factors that explain the responses to the items of the test (Lloret-Segura et al., 2014). In our study it has been used an orthogonal rotation, Varimax, appropriate when factors are extracted by principal component method (Frías-Na-varro & Pascual, 2012). Data’s adequacy to the model was measured using KMO index (0.753) and Bartlett’s test for Sphericity (p < 0.000).
To identify consumers segments regarding the impor-tance attached to promotional tools, it has been conducted a hierarchical cluster analysis using factors got in the PCA. Secondly, a K-means cluster was conducted in order to classify participants into the segments. In order to define the segment profiles, ANOVA tests were performed to exa-mine associations with socio-demographic characteristics.
Lastly, to verify if differences found in the importance attached to promotion tools by consumers and retailers was significant, a Mann-Whitney U test was conducted.
Figure 2. Specific questions to measure the recall of new lamb cuts advertisement
Figure 3. Advertising posters of the new lamb cuts showed to participants
Figure 4. Question posed to respondents about the importance attached to promotion tools
ResultsTop
Sample
The sample was well adjusted to age, however, regarding to gender, the proportion of women was greater than men because women have been traditionally responsible of home shopping. The sample was entirely composed by lamb meat consumers who also indicated their consumption frequency, where 48% of the sample were frequent consumers (more than once a week and once a week) and 52% were occasional consumers (less than once a week and less than once a month).
Recall and perception about promotion campaign-tools
More than three quarters of the participants (74%) had not remembered any advertisement related to the new lamb cuts. Among the 26% of the respondents who had seen some information on that subject, 42% had seen them at butcher’s shop, 26% of these consumers had seen advertisements on TV, 10% had seen them at Carpa del Ternasco and 9% of the subjects remembered posters in the city, as Fig. 5 shows. Carpa del Ternasco is local annual event where the new lamb cuts where promoted and a music show took place.
When the two advertising posters (Fig. 3) that have been posted in the city were shown to participants and they were specifically asked if they remembered any of them, 22.4% of the sample remembered some of the posters while 77.6% did not recognised any of them. When participants were asked specifically if they had attended to Carpa del Ternasco the 31% (n = 126) had visited it and from these respondents 27% (n=34) remembered had seen these new lamb cuts.
With the purpose of finding which promotion tools were considered more important to consumers for getting visibility of the product, nine promotion activities were proposed. Four of them were intended to perform inside the point of sale and five of them were intended to perform outside the point of sale. “More visibility at the point of sale” (mean = 4.4) was the most important promotion tool for respondents, followed by events (mean = 3.7) and sales promotions or contest (mean = 3.5), on scales ranging from one to five (Fig. 6).
When comparing the influence of demographic variables on the importance attached to promotion tools using Kruskall Wallis and Mann-Whitney U test, no significant differences were found between genders, although significant differences were found among age, level of education and purchase place. Regarding groups of age, younger respondents attached higher importance to tastings at the point of sale, identification as new, advertising posters, social networks and internet, events and promotion sales than older consumers. Concerning level of studies, participants with high level of education attached higher importance to naming these cuts as a new product, advertising posters and internet. Finally, subjects who were interviewed at butcher’s shops attached higher importance to information at the point of sale and advertising posters displayed in the city.
Figure 5. Respondents recall of advertising tools used in the promotion campaign analysed.
Market segmentation (factor and cluster analysis)
Through PCA the nine variables related to the importance attached to different promotion tools were reduced to three factors which explain 52.5 % of the total variance (Table 3), where KMO index was 0.753 and Bartlett’s test for Sphericity p < 0.000. Factor 1 had positive correlation with three variables: advertisements make on radio, internet and posters by the city. This factor was interpreted as “passive promotion activities outside the point of sale”. Factor 2 was highly associated to three items: events, sales promotions and contest and tasting of the product. The interpretation of this factor was “active promotion activities”, because consumers are more actively involved. Factor 3 was positively related to measures taken inside the point of sale: more visibility, identifying the cuts as a new product and information leaflets or posters. This factor was described as “passive promotion activities inside the point of sale”. Table 3 shows the results from the Component Analysis Rotated Matrix.
Market segmentation was performed based on the three factors extracted by PCA. A three-cluster solution was selected as the optimal number of segments. In order to classify the three segments according to the factors extracted, the final cluster centres from K-means analysis were used, as it is show in Table 4. Segments were distributed in the factors following the biggest cluster centre. After that, the three segments were named with reference to their factor. Cluster 1 included individuals who considered useful the three types of promotional tools, al though they attached more importance to active promo-tion activities, followed by passive promotion activities inside-the-point-of-sale and lastly to passive promotion activities-outside-the point-of-sale. They were named as “Attentive to in-and-out marketing”. Cluster 2 grouped subjects who don’t think that passive promotion activities are useful to them to better know the new products. They prefer active promotion activities. They were named as “Attentive to active promotional tools”. Cluster 3 included subjects who consider that passive promotion activities inside-the-point-of-sale are important promotional tools for them (they don’t like promotion activities outside-the-point-of-sale or active promotion activities). They were named as “Attentive to in-store marketing”.
An ANOVA test was conducted to identify significant differences in the characteristics among groups (Table 5).
Segment 1 “Attentive to in-and-out marketing” included 49.39% of the sample. This group were characterized by considering useful the three types of promotional tools. This segment contains the biggest percentage of young people. The main level of studies is high education (uni-versity) and financial situation of subjects in this cluster is considered to be moderate. Segment 2 “Attentive to active promotional tools” accounted 20.69% of the sample and included consumers who don’t think that passive promotion activities, both included outside and inside the point of sale, are useful to them to better know the new products. This group is composed basically by middle-age and older people. The main level of studies is intermedia-te education and household economic situation is consi-dered to be moderate. Segment 3 “Attentive to in-store marketing” (29.92% of the sample) referred to subjects who only consider useful passive promotion activities in-side-the-point-of-sale. This group is mainly is composed by people above 55 years-old, subjects with high education, considering their financial situation is well-off.
Figure 6. Importance attached to promotional tools. The asterisks* indicate the mean score for each promotion tool.
Table 3. Component rotated matrix for promotion tools
Differences in retailers and consumers perceptions
A total of 55 butchers were interviewed but only 26 were selling the new lamb cuts. A longer questionnaire was posed to those butchers selling the new lamb cuts in-cluding the question where they had to indicate the im-portance they attached to different promotion tools. The more relevant promotion tools to traditional butchers were: visibility at the point of sale (mean = 4.5), posters at store (mean = 3.8) and events (mean = 3.8), on scales ranging from one to five (Fig. 7, dark-grey bars). When comparing with consumers’ answers it was noticed that retailers attached higher importance to most promotional activities proposed, especially to internet (Fig. 7). The biggest difference found was using internet and social networks as an informative site to enhance consumers’ knowledge regarding this new lamb presentation. In order to verify if these differences in means were significant, a Mann-Whitney U test was conducted. The only significant difference was found in using internet and social networks as a promotional tool (p = 0.009). The rest of tools were considered to have similar importance. Therefore, consumers’ and retailers’ opinion regarding which is the most useful tool to promote these cuts was very close, with the exception of internet.
Table 5. Segment profile in terms of socio-demographic characteristics and ANOVA test identifying differences among groups
Figure 7. Importance attached to promotional tools by consumers and by retailers. Mean scores.
DiscussionTop
The first purpose of the present study was to investiga-te the level of recall of the adverting campaign promoting the new lamb meat cuts. These new cuts were launched into the market in order to modernize consumers’ per-ception towards lamb meat. Different cuts presentation may contribute to change consumers habits towards lamb meat. As it is showed in Hopkins & Fowler (2018), in the Australian market the development of new cuts leads to boneless and fat-free cuts. The creation of value-added retail cuts is one method of increasing consumer appeal.
In this way processing and marketing are used to add va-lue and alter the characteristics of meat products. Bernués et al. (2012) found that 1–2 person households have in-creased their preference for lighter cuts and young lamb consumers showed a preference for eating out and less traditional ways of cooking lamb meat. Finally, Scozzafa-va et al. (2016) studied the role that different cuts play in consumers' purchase decisions and their results revealed that meat cut was the third most important factor when choosing bovine meat. The second objective was to in-vestigate which promotion tools are more important to consumers when they are in the food purchase process and when they are out of the stores. Finally, the third aim was to explore which promotion tools are more important for retailers. Promotion tools included as variables were those used to promote and advertise the new lamb cuts.
Results from the survey showed that more than three quarters of the sample didn’t remember any advertise-ment of the new lamb cuts. As Kucuk (2017) says, mass advertising reaches high recall levels quickly but that these also disappear quickly in the following weeks since human beings, forget 75% of the new information they learn after a week. Thus, if the memory is not refreshed, new information that is introduced will eventually leave the consumers’ memory permanently after six months to a year, what could explain why only 26% of the sample remembered some information about the new lamb cuts. On the other hand, those respondents who remembered having seen some information about the new lamb cuts assured it was at store, mainly at butchers’ shop. This outcome is in line with the responses regarding the most important promotion tool where consumers considered in-store marketing as the most important promotion tools to better know about the new lamb cuts. Therefore, the promotion tool that the respondents remembered the most was also that one they considered as an important way of promoting the new meat product. It has been studied the differences in the influence of in-store marketing and out-store marketing among consumers. As reflected in a review (Vukmirovic, 2015) on how exposure to food advertising affects food related to behaviours and per-ceptions, customers are quite susceptible to in-store food advertising, being two out of three food-related purchase decisions made in-store (Cohen & Babey, 2012). In the same line, Inman et al. (2009) reported that the majori-ty of brand choice decisions are made inside the store. And Escaron et al. (2013) reported that five out of se-ven interventions using point-of-purchase advertising positively influence the sales. However, Chandon et al. (2009) found that in-store marketing activity influences consumer behaviour at the point of purchase but only to a certain extent since they remarked that only improving the way attention is drawn is not a sufficient condition to drive consumers’ food choice.
Events, classified as an out-store marketing activity, were also considered as an important promotion tool by respondents. However, results from the survey showed that from all the people in the sample who had assisted to the local event only 27% had realised on the advertising regarding the new lamb cuts.
Contrary to what we previously thought, spreading in-formation in social networks and internet had the lowest mean score, although it must be noted that 75% of the sample have an age above 35-years-old.
Regarding demographic variables influencing consu-mers’ perception towards advertising tools, no significant differences were found between gender and the impor-tance attached to advertising tools. That result seems to be consistent with the findings in the review reported by Vukmirovic (2015) who indicate that although some authors have found significant differences in gender, other studies reported that the influence of gender on the impact of food advertising is inconclusive.
After classifying consumers in the sample by their importance attached to different kinds of advertising tools three segments were found. A first segment composed by those who were “attentive to in-and-out marketing”, a second group of customers “attentive to active promotional tools” and a third segment with people who were “attentive to in-store marketing”. People in these three groups differed significantly in personal characteristics (age, level of studies and financial situation). Segment 1 contains the biggest percentage of young customers, with high level of education, that have a moderate financial situation, while cluster 2 contains the biggest percentage of people with basic and intermediate education. Cluster 3 contains the biggest percentage of older people and the biggest percentage of consumers considering their financial situation was moderate to well-off. Chandon et al. (2009) reported that in-store marketing works particularly well for younger, more educated, and “opportunistic” consumers, because these consumers are more willing to consider and choose brands that are brought to their attention as a result of in-store marketing. As Hung et al. (2016b) suggested, communication can be customised according to the target segments. In their study, they found four consumer segments with different attitudes toward process meat products and they proposed different communication strategies for each of these segments. For “Enthusiasts” who showed high levels of interest in the new meat products they expect that they would try or purchase the new meat products without great marketing and communication efforts. For “Accepters” who have positive attitudes, they suggest focusing marketing and communication efforts on stimulating trial and experience (e.g. product sampling) to enhance their future purchase intention. For “Half-hearted”, they state that their attitude can be made more positive through providing more extended information such as advertisements or product labelling that highlights the benefits of the new meat products. Finally, for “Uninterested” who might be unresponsive towards these meat products, they propose that the communicated messages will have to be comprehensive and simple enough to avoid confusion since this segment was predominantly composed of consumers with a lower education level.
As the results of the present study suggest, age and level of education influence consumer’s importance attached to different advertising tools. In line with these outcomes, Grunert et al. (2010) reported that age and education were positively associated with a better comprehension of information placed in food labels. Therefore, it could be suggested that younger consumers and more educated consumers pay more attention to available sources of information when purchasing food, either advertising or food labels.
Understanding consumption frequency as a kind of brand experience, in the present study no significant differences were found between occasional and frequent consumers and their recall of new lamb cuts advertising. However, Zenetti & Klapper (2016) suggested that advertising is more effective for buyers without recent brand experiences. Their outcomes indicated that consumers’ heterogeneous cognitive and emotional evaluations of a brand’s advertisement and previous experience with a brand can have a significant influence on short- and longterm advertising effectiveness.
Some studies revealed that meat retailers play a key role in the purchasing behaviour of their customers and are the main source of information for their buying selection (Miranda-de la Lama et al., 2013). That is the reason why this study has included interviews with traditional butchers’ and analyses and compares consumers’ perception with retailers’ point of view. Results suggested that butchers considered that giving more visibility at the point of sale, using more posters at store and more events were the most relevant promotion tools to make customers aware of these new products.
Comparing between consumers and butcher’s opinion the only significant difference was found in using internet and social networks as a promotional tool. The rest of tools were considered to have similar importance. Therefore, consumers’ and retailers’ opinion regarding which is the most useful tool to promote these cuts is very close.
The results of the present study suggest that the promotion campaign has not contributed as much as expected to spread the knowledge of the new lamb cuts among consumers. In particular, it has been noticed that advertising posters have not attracted enough attention from consumers and the existence of the new lamb cuts has not been sufficiently disseminated. Additionally, the outcomes of this research suggest that not all promotion tools have the same effectiveness on consumers since not all consumers attached the same importance to different promotion channels. However, a general trend has been observed since the majority of consumers consider that the most important promotions tools are those conducted inside the point of sale such as giving more visibility to the product displayed in store shelves, tastings or information given inside the store. In the same way, retailers also attached more importance to these tools related to in-store promotion. On the view of these results, it could be better for future campaigns to increase promotional effort inside the point of sale, where consumers make their final purchase choice. Further research is needed to clarify which specific aspects influence consumers perception and attitudes towards advertising tools conducted inside the-point-of-purchase. Also, which marketing tools better fits each distribution channel and check if differences exist attracting consumers’ attention should be studied further.
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