INFLUENCE OF ADVERTISING ON PARENT’S BUYING BEHAVIOR OF PASTA PRODUCTS
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1BACKGROUND TO STUDY
Advertising according to Dominick (2011:342) is any form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services usually paid for by an identified sponsor. It is a form of communication for marketing which is used to encourage or persuade an audience i.e. viewers, readers or listeners to convince them or make them take an action. The desired result is to drive consumer behaviour with respect to commercial offerings. The purpose can also be to build a brand image or to reassure stakeholders that a company is successful.
Katke, 2007 as cited by European Journal of Business and Management, all marketing weapons, advertising is renowned for its long lasting impact on viewer’s mind, as its exposure is much broader. Advertising is a subset of promotion mix which is one of the 4P’s in the marketing mix i.e. product, price, place and promotion. As a promotional strategy, advertising serve as a major tool in creating product awareness in the mind of a potential consumer to take eventual purchase decision. Advertising, sales promotion and public relations are mass-communication tools available to marketers.
Advertising is vigorous, often obtrusive, often overwhelming form of communication that influences us both directly and indirectly. [Diwan 1999:1].
Motivation can be used to explain advertising and communications goal. For people to buy a brand or service advertisers try to make the brand the best alternative for satisfaction or fulfilment of a consumer’s need. This is why many advertisements focus on how a product solves a consumers’ problem. Advertising is not only directed at selling or at achieving the objectives of gaining acceptance for a worthwhile idea or programme. It can also be an instrument for developing basic motivations for creating resources for buying goods and services or generating favourable conditions for the acceptance for an idea.
Advertising is no longer limited to the traditional media- television, radio, newspaper, and magazine and bill boards to send their messages. Technology has enabled advertising to reach consumers efficiently through a means of other interactive media like the internet.
According to Wikipedia, television has grown faster than any other advertising medium in history. It is a universal medium that attracts more people and it has become an important part of society. This is due to the combination of sight, sound and motion which makes watching it a captivating experience and also a unique advantage to advertisers over competing media. It is used for demonstrating uses of a product to viewers. Also, it is a useful tool for education that has high entertainment capacity.
Since consumers have an overwhelming range of products to choose from even within the same category which is also bombarded with many advertising messages, a good advert must be communicated effectively to keep the consumers loyal to the brand i.e. the advertisement should be able to tell the audience why they should buy the brand and not the competitors.
Another factor the advertisers put into consideration are the target audience. Every product has various and different target audience. For example the audience for sanitary towel is women who are menstruating. This simply means that the type of product determines the type of target audience. After determining who the target audience is the next step is to study the behaviour and attitude of the consumer because the behaviour of consumers affect purchase decisions. The American Marketing Association defines Consumer Behaviour as “The dynamic interaction of effect and cognition, behaviour and the environment by which human beings conduct the exchange aspects of their lives” [Paul Peter and Olson 2005:5]. He further explains that consumer behaviour involves the thoughts and feelings people experience and the actions they perform in consumption process.
Bovee and Arens (1987:197), while highlighting the importance of consumer behaviour, explained that as societies change their attitude towards dress, recreation, morals, religion, education, economics or even other people, advertising techniques changes too, because behavioural characteristics of large groups of people give the directional force to any advertising aimed at these groups.
Advertising has various meanings to different people to the Advertising Practitioner of Nigeria (APCON) it means “a communication in the media, paid for by an identified sponsor and directed at a target audience, with the aim of impacting favourable information about a product, service, idea or opinion” (APCON code, 4th edition:3). To the consumer it means one of the several incoming messages directed to the consumer, the salience of which is influenced by the emotional, physical and need state of the individual. [Diwan 1999:4]. Advertising from the societal perspective is an institution of society that has the capability of informing the citizen, stimulating economic growth, and providing knowledge useful in decision making as well as the tendency both to misallocate scarce economic resources and lead consumers to engage in [a] behaviour that may not be in their own best interests [Diwan 1999:5. Finally, to the CEO of a multinational corporation, it is an essential marketing tool that helps create brand awareness and loyalty (O’Guinn et al 1997:6). To the art director in the agency, advertising is the creative expression of content.
The purchasing behaviour of a consumer after listening or viewing and advertising message involves a mental decision process that takes place overtime. This study therefore investigates the influence of Pasta advertisement on parents buying pattern.
According to Calvert 2008, youths also shape the buying patterns of their families. From vacation choices to car purchases to meal selections, they exert a tremendous power over the family pocketbook. Experts estimate that two- to fourteen-year-olds have sway over $500 billion a year in household purchasing. Thus, to influence youth is to influence the entire family’s buying decisions. Rapid growth in the number of television stations and online venues has also led advertisers to market directly to children and youth. Because children and youth are heavy media users and early adopters of newer technologies, media marketing and advertising campaigns using both television and newer media are efficient pathways into children’s homes and lives.
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Television audience are people of different cultures, religion, social strata, socio-political setting, etc and various factors influence their choice of products. Some of the factors are: price, quality, choice, branding, children, etc.
Since children are believed to be heavy viewers, the research aims at ascertaining if they influence the choice of products parents buy. Also, the study will attempt to find out the role of television advertisement play in keeping products in the mind of parents and the ability of the advert to change consumer buying pattern.
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This study focuses on five major research questions as follows:
- What are the factors that influence the buying pattern of parents?
- Does television advertisement influence consumers buying pattern?
- Are there relationships between advert recall and buying pattern of pasta?
- Do children influence the products parent purchase?
- Are there other purchase reasons?
- Do parents prefer Indomie to Mimi Noodles or vice versa?
1.4 PURPOSE OF STUDY
Advertising is a form of communication for marketing which is used to encourage or persuade an audience. Companies advertise their products through various mass media-newspaper, magazine, internet, billboards, television, etc. television adverts are used to demonstrate how a product works to the public thereby appealing to sight and sound.
This study tries to ascertain if it’s the television advertisements or children that make parents purchase pasta products. The study equally seeks the elements in the advert parent and children recall during purchase. It would also find out the role advertisement play in parents buying pattern of Pastas.
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
This research work will be significant to advertising agencies, advertisers, consumers, young entrepreneurs, individual writers and researchers and other marketing communication professional.
Marketing communication professionals will have knowledge of the best advertising methods to create product awareness. It would help advertising agencies to understand how the creation and presentation of television advertisements for products influence the buying pattern of their target audience.
Advertisers would understand how the television advertisements affect the sales of their product and how the public perceive the product. The young entrepreneur would understand the efficiencies in branding a product and it would broaden his knowledge about who the consumer is and what makes them purchase a particular product.
Finally, for individual researchers and writers it would add to extant knowledge.
1.6 SCOPE OF STUDY
This study is limited to pasta products. The population sample would be drawn from the parents living at Redemption Camp, Mowe, Ogun State.
1.7 LIMITATIONS OF STUDY
The information gathered was gotten from answers provided by respondents in the questionnaires. The major problem was administration and retrieval of the questionnaires used for the data collection but attempts were made to distribute and collect the questionnaires appropriately.
1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS
• Influence: this is the power to have an effect on people or things in other to change the perception, belief or behaviour they have towards someone or something.
• Buying pattern: this is the manner in which a consumer buys goods. It refers to the factors that make the consumer purchase a good at a particular time. It can also refer to the reason behind him purchasing a particular good.
• Advertisement: Microsoft Encarta’s definition is incorporated into this study. Microsoft Encarta 2009 explains advertisement as a picture, short film or song which tries to persuade or convince people to buy a product or service. It also takes it to mean a public announcement in the newspaper or on the radio, television or internet promoting something such as product for sale or an event. It also entails the use of photographs designed to sell products or services by capturing viewer’s attention. For example, magazine, catalogue, etc. This photograph can stand alone or may be combined with words to sell a product or illustrate the product via the television.
• Parents: these are the people who buy goods, products or service for their children. They can also be called consumers who purchase a particular product
• Television: this is one of the traditional medium used in mass communication for the dissemination of information and advertising messages to a large heterogeneous audience. This medium appeals to sight and sound and it’s used in describing the functions of a products to its target audience. • Pasta: according to this research it refers to either Indomie or Mimi Noodles
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