The impact of television commercials on purchasing habit of students

Thesis Overview

<p> </p><p>1.0 INTRODUCTION / BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY<br>In the olden days, the<br>concept of advertising might not have been as an important tool for the<br>marketing of product. Our ancestor simply engaged in trade and barter,<br>or went hunting for the things they need. But today, we are constantly<br>confronted with countless of goods and services, desire and all sorts of<br>aggressive persuasive means to buy them. Money as a medium of exchange<br>has been involved,. So, in this present age of plenty supply which<br>nearly exceed the demand for products and services.<br>Therefore,<br>advertising doesn’t make any meaning to different people. Many regard it<br>to informing while some say, it is half truth, especially in developing<br>nations like ours where people do not seem to understand the purpose<br>and effective role which advertising play in marketing process.<br>Advertising is only one of the many elements in a successful marketing<br>effort. Other elements include packaging, pricing, point of purchase,<br>promotion, personal selling and publicity. Successful marketing<br>therefore is a total effort and all activities must be properly<br>integrated and related to each other to the point of view of the<br>consumer and their needs.<br>Essentially, advertising is a communication<br>force and role that can be appreciated by relating this to the<br>classical seven stages identified by R.J Lavidge and G.A. Stanner which<br>move up series steps:<br>1. Unawareness<br>2. Awareness<br>3. Knowledge<br>4. Liking<br>5. Preference (first choice)<br>6. Conviction (desire to buy)<br>7. Purchase<br>However,<br>goods advertising must be capable of moving the prospect of awareness<br>level to that of actual purchase. Advertising message must contain some<br>answered questions as set in advertising objective, example includes:<br>1. How is the brand in comparison with competition brands?<br>2.<br>What creation do you expect as a direct result of television<br>advertising e.g. creation of awareness, trait purchase, and brand<br>loyalty?<br>3. How do you want people to perceive your product?<br>4. Who should be your target audience?<br>Advertising<br>messages are disseminated to the consumer through mass media i.e.<br>television, radio, cinema, posters, billboard, newspapers and magazine.<br>Among these mass media, television happen to be the one mostly used, for<br>this purpose therefore, television provides one of the most spectacular<br>ways in which an advertisers could reach the greatest number of people<br>at a time. NTA network news claims over 30 million viewers, what makes<br>television so attractive to advertising is that audience can be reached<br>through television via the diversity to programmes, virtually everybody<br>has a few favourite programmes he watches fairly regularly so television<br>provides voices and vision. Hence, it is an initiate medium, since<br>television advertising has become a part of regular television<br>broadcast, viewer’s perception of these advertising messages may<br>influence their buying behaviour of certain products.<br>However, as<br>Krugman has noted that, what is lacking in the required evaluation of TV<br>advertising in any significant body of research specifically relating<br>advertising to attitude, and these in turn to purchasing behaviour or<br>sales. In order words,it is basically salesmanship on air or in prints.<br>How then do consumers perceive the thousand and one advertising they see<br>daily? Knowledge of what perception entails in necessary for the<br>purpose of this study.</p><p>1.1 PERCEPTION<br>Perception is one of the psychological process by<br>which we get to know and deal with information and things. It is a<br>complex process by which people select, organize and interpret sensory<br>stimuli into meaningful picture of the world. Perception has an<br>important influence on consumer’s behaviour because it relates to the<br>mental process by which individuals select organize and interpret<br>information to create a meaningful picture of an objective situation<br>which decisions are made.<br>Cognition is the term given to the mental<br>process that enable mankind gives meaning to the environment and<br>experience cognitively perception is the process by which the organism<br>takes in information from the environment through the sensory organs and<br>by differentiating and fitting the information to individual needs and<br>experiences, which gives meaning to stimuli perceived.<br>People can emerge with different perceptions of the same stimulus object because of three perceptual processes.<br>1. Selective exposures<br>2. Selective perception<br>3. Selective retention</p><p>1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM<br>Over the years, the principal role of<br>advertising has been as that of creating awareness for an advertised<br>product. Advertising scholars go further and extended the role to<br>include that of persuasion and an invitation to action.<br>But critics<br>of advertising believe that advertising is an economic waste on the<br>ground that consumers know what they want and they do not want to<br>subside. The purpose of this study therefore are to:<br>1. Find out the influences of tv commercials on the buying behaviour of the students of University of Lagos.<br>2.<br>To search for the impact and contributions that TV commercials can make<br>to improve standard of living i.e. getting to be aware of feet needs<br>and how to satisfy these needs.<br>3. To determine whether these TV<br>commercial make the students loyal to a brand or switch to another brand<br>whose advert is more pleasing or attractive to them e.g. the use of<br>toilet soaps.</p><p>1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY<br>Business organizations are persuaded by<br>print and electronic media to come for space in their media. Today, one<br>sees different advertisement in the print and electronic media where<br>entrepreneurs of various business announce the products or services<br>rendered by their company with the ultimate aim to convince consumer’s<br>to purchase them. A measure of how the students perceive advertising<br>could be obtained through these entrepreneurs generating sales or<br>turnovers. It is also assumed that this study will reveal that<br>investment in TV commercials are not wasted but a necessity and part of<br>production cost.</p><p>1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS<br>This study will attempt to find answers to the following questions:<br>1. In what way are TV commercials creating awareness for student needs?<br>2. How the needs get satisfied?<br>3. How do the students perceive TV commercials?<br>4. What kind of information do student want to receive in TV commercials?<br>5. What are the effect of TV commercials?</p><p>1.5 OBJECTIVES<br>The objectives of this study are to:<br>1. Know if TV commercial actually motivate consumers to purchase.<br>2. Know if the shortcomings of television (as a medium) affect its ability to influence consumers purchasing habits.</p><p>1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY<br>The scope of this study is limited to the<br>students of University of Lagos as consumers. This is because, the<br>society is too big to be researched as it might take a very long time<br>doing the research and we might not be able to complete it at the end.</p><p>1.7 LIMITATION<br>It could be argued that the more defined analysis<br>is required for a more reliable and valid conclusion to be drawn about<br>such issue as people’s attitude and impression of TV commercial is. The<br>time for the research is too short, as such does not permit long, time<br>observation.</p> <br><p></p>