Consumer Sentiment And Attitude Towards Advertising In Idah
Abstract
Researches on customers’ sentiment and attitude show that there is an ambiguity regarding the existence of positive or negative attitude towards advertisement. The study explores the relationship between the general attitude towards advertising and the attitude towards advertising in Specific media: television, radio, and print. The researcher selected participants of the study from city branch of Union Bank. A total of 395 respondents were participated from a 33,877 population in the survey. The questionnaires were distributed directly to the participating respondents and analyzed using both descriptive and inferential analysis (Correlation and Regression). The present research investigates relationship between the personal belief dimensions which are factors including ‘product information’, ‘Falsity’, ‘hedonic/pleasure’ and specific attitude towards advertisings. It also tried to examine the relationship between the macro belief dimensions which are factors include ‘Good for economy’, ‘Social image’, materialism and general attitude towards advertising. The researcher has also assessed customer general perception about Union Bank advertising. Findings of this study show that personal belief dimensions “product information, hedonic/ pleasure and falsity” is positively related to specific TV, radio and print advertisement of Union bank, correspondingly the three macro belief dimensions “good for economy, materialism and social image” positively relationship with the general attitude of advertising of Union bank. TV and radio advertisement is the main informative advertising means, so the study contributes Union Bank to improve its advertising quality which leads to improvement a positive customer attitude about the advertising as well as the services.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Attitude toward advertising have been studied by the researchers from various perspectives. Attitude towards advertising is an important concept as it is one of the determinants of attitude towards specific advertisements and can influence the way a consumer will respond to any particular advertising.
Bauer & Greyser, (1968) provide evidence that overall attitudes toward advertising in general are influenced by beliefs toward advertising in general. In turn, it is suggested that a relationship exists between consumers’ overall attitudes toward advertising and reasons why certain ads are considered informative, enjoyable, annoying, or offensive. There is a wealth of research on public attitudes to advertising, with studies motivated by various factors. Advertising’s visible and pervasive role in everyday life has attracted the attention of public opinion researchers, while marketers are concerned that public attitudes to advertising may influence perceptions about the need for government regulation (Pollay and Mittal, 1993). Bauer and Greyser’s (1968) classic study of American attitudes to advertising found that these general attitudes were related to respondents’ rating of specific ads as informative, enjoyable, annoying or offensive.
Attitude as one of the internal environmental factors, can affect a person’s decision to purchase the product. Consumer attitude is a response or assessment given by consumers consistently, favorable or unfavorable, positive or negative, like it or not, agree or not to an object. Attitudes have significance role in making marketing decisions and there is a strong tendency to assume that this attitude as the most powerful factor for predicting the future behavior and can help companies predict product demand and to develop appropriate marketing programs. One’s attitude toward the product attributes may vary due to the belief and evaluation of the product attributes. Besides, there are other factors that influence that will ultimately determine his interest in buying a product, namely the external factors are reflected in the individual influence of others on the behavior of the decisions taken, such as family members, other people, peers and vendors(Ramdhan et al, 2012). Advertising and promotion are an integral part of our social and economic systems. Advertising has evolved into a vital communications system for both consumers and businesses. Popular advertising campaigns attract consumers’ attention and can help generate sales for a company.
The nature and purpose of advertising differ from one industry to another and/or across situations. The targets of an organization’s advertising efforts often vary, as do advertising’s role and function in the marketing program. One advertiser may seek to generate immediate response or action from the customer; another may want to develop awareness or a positive image for its product or service over a longer period (Peter & Olson, 2010).
1.1 Statement of the Problem
Creating effective communication with customers is the most important aspect in services marketing. To date with creating effective communication still have poor understanding of the role of effective communication with customers in attracting and maintaining prospective and present customers.
Advertising has the potential to inform the masses, present and prospective consumers about the goods and services of a company and force them to visit the company’s manufacturing and/or distribution centers for further information and making purchase decisions (Leiss et al., 1986).
Many consumers enjoy advertisements, and indeed find advertising entertaining, inspiring, amusing and informative. But which elements of separate advertising media best predict attitudes to advertising in general? Do these opinions continue to reflect people’s general attitudes towards advertising, even in the context of specific media? Are consumers more positive or more negative about advertising? As it is very important and critical to evaluate the effectiveness of any business activity so does to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing communications elements. The main thing here is that the question how we can evaluate the effectiveness of these marketing communication tools. Advertising involves making decisions on the five Ms-mission, message, media, money, and measurement (Kotler, 2001).
Today promoting the reputation of a firm is very important for any business. Especially in advertising by the advertisement campaigns is gaining more importance (Friedman, 1962). Unfortunately, some evidences show most of these ads hurt consumers (Wells et al., 1998).
Studies conducted in Nigeria on the quality of Nigerian Television advertisement (Yohannes, 2002). Finding of this researcher indicated the qualities of TV advertisement are inadequate in terms of the cues communicated and most ads are difficult to understand and this problem arises from lack of clarity and lack of professional in touch.
The second research done in Nigeria focuses on the quality of internet advertisement in Nigeria (Tarekegn,2008).The finding of this research indicated that consumers are generally disappointed with the qualities of internet advertisement in Nigeria, because of too much exaggeration, silly, ridiculous, false and misleading information.
As one of the private financial institution operating in the extremely competitive market based economy of Nigeria, the survival and success of Union Bank is dependent not only on the quality of services that it renders, but also its advertisement programs in communicating with its potential market. In this respect, the bank has been employing different advertising strategies. It has been disseminating messages about its services using almost all sorts of the advertising media such as broadcast, print and sales promotion in order to communicate with its customers and to achieve its overall marketing and communication objectives.
Regarding of the topic “Customer Attitude towards Advertising in the Case of Union Bank” there is no written research conducted yet, because of this gap the researcher initiate to conduct the study. Such a study is hopefully expected to fill the gap in literature of customers’ attitude towards advertising of service industry and also will help the company to achieve its overall marketing and communication objectives.
1.2 Basic Research Questions
The research raised the following research questions
- What is the relationship between personal belief dimensions (product information”, “hedonic/pleasure” and falsity) and specific attitude towards Union Bank TV, radio, and print advertising?
- What is the relationship between macro belief dimensions (“Good for Economy”, “materialism” and “Social Image”) and the General attitude towards Union Bank advertising?
- Which media type is the main source of information for customers of Union Bank (TV, radio, print media)?
- What is the customer perception about Union Bank advertising?
1.3 Objectives of the Study
1.3.1 General Objective of the Study
The main objective of the study is to investigate customer’s sentiment and attitude towards advertising in Idah.
1.3.2 Specific Objectives of the Study
The specific objective of the study is:
- To investigate the relationship between personal belief dimensions (“product information”, “hedonic /pleasure” and falsity) and specific attitude towards Union Bank TV, radio, print media advertising.
- To test the correlation between macro belief dimensions (“Good for Economy”, “materialism” and “Social Image”) with the general attitude towards Union Bank
- To explore customers major source of information for learning about Union Banks product and services.
- To evaluate customer perception of Union Bank advertising
1.4 Significance of the Study
Theoretically, the study fills an important gap in the literature and can serve as an input on which future studies can be built. On the practical side, this study can helpful for advertisers to implement their advertisings in the way that can build positive attitude towards their company’s product and service they are promoting. Furthermore, the study specifically helps Union Bank in identifying which media has been preferred by its customers. It will also help the bank gaining a better understanding of its customers’ attitude towards advertising. By understanding consumers’ attitude towards advertising, designers and marketers of the bank can better manage their advertising.
1.5 Delimitation/Scope of the Study
Geographically this study limited on customers of Union Bank PLC who are found in Idah LGA. Even it not applicable for customers of the bank residing out of Idah LGA as customer’s exposure to media may differ.
The research framework, only focus on the relationship of personal belief dimension (product information, hedonic/pleasure and falsity) and specific attitude towards Union Bank TV, radio and print advertising and macro belief dimensions (Good for economy, materialism and social image) and the general attitude towards Union Bank advertising.
Other elements or underpinnings measurements of customer attitudes are beyond this study. This study only focused on Banking sector, (Union Bank PLC); other banks sectors are not involved. The study used administer questioner to collect the data from the customer of Union Bank through non-probabilistic convenience sampling technique.
1.6 Limitation of the Study
Due to the financial and time constraints the researcher limited his work only in a small sample of Union Bank customers live in Idah LGA of Kogi State; it is not fully represent the behavior of the entire population. Unable to get adequate number of researches conducted the same topic on Union Bank PLC context are some of the limitation the researcher faced.
1.8 Definition of Terms
Attitude: –Attitude is an individual personal evaluation, emotional feeling attached and action tendency toward some objects or ideas (Kotler, 2000).
Advertising: –Advertising is a non-personal communication in the structure of information, usually paid for and generally persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by acknowledged sponsors through an assortment of media (Bovee and Arens, 1992).
Attitude towards advertising: –Defined as a learned predisposition to react in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner to advertising (Lutz, 1985).
Hedonic /Pleasure: – An individual’s experience of specific consumption and the satisfaction of an individual’s desire relates to hedonic expression (Cardoso and Pinto, 2010).
Macro belief dimensions: –Macro belief dimensions are factors which include consumer manipulation, good for economy, materialism and social image (Pollay and Mittal’s, 1993).
Personal belief dimensions: –Personal belief dimensions are factors which include product information, hedonic/pleasure, falsity, interactivity, and attitude toward privacy (Pollay and Mittal’s, 1993).
Falsity: –Falsity refers to consumers’ perception of the truthfulness and believability of advertising in general (MacKenzie and Lutz, 1989).
Consumer Manipulation: –Describes when advertising can be seen as intentionally misleading, or more benignly, as not fully informative, insignificant, silly, confusing, etc. It creates artificial needs in consumers and manipulative (Shavitt, Lowery, and Haefner, 1998).
Social Image: –Social integration is the belief of consumers that advertising can influence consumers’ lifestyle and formation of social status, image, and structure (Wang and Sun, 2010). Materialism: –Materialism is a set of belief structures that sees consumption as the route to most, if not all, satisfactions (Munusamy and Wong, 2007).
Economic condition: –Economic conditions reflect market circumstances in the environment with respect to inflation, interest rate and price movement (Wang and Sun, 2010).
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