CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION / BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
In the olden days, the concept of advertising might not have been as an important tool for the marketing of product. Our ancestor simply engaged in trade and barter, or went hunting for the things they need. But today, we are constantly confronted with countless of goods and services, desire and all sorts of aggressive persuasive means to buy them. Money as a medium of exchange has been involved,. So, in this present age of plenty supply which nearly exceed the demand for products and services.
Therefore, advertising doesn’t make any meaning to different people. Many regard it to informing while some say, it is half truth, especially in developing nations like ours where people do not seem to understand the purpose and effective role which advertising play in marketing process. Advertising is only one of the many elements in a successful marketing effort. Other elements include packaging, pricing, point of purchase, promotion, personal selling and publicity. Successful marketing therefore is a total effort and all activities must be properly integrated and related to each other to the point of view of the consumer and their needs.
Essentially, advertising is a communication force and role that can be appreciated by relating this to the classical seven stages identified by R.J Lavidge and G.A. Stanner which move up series steps:
1. Unawareness
2. Awareness
3. Knowledge
4. Liking
5. Preference (first choice)
6. Conviction (desire to buy)
7. Purchase
However, goods advertising must be capable of moving the prospect of awareness level to that of actual purchase. Advertising message must contain some answered questions as set in advertising objective, example includes:
1. How is the brand in comparison with competition brands?
2. What creation do you expect as a direct result of television advertising e.g. creation of awareness, trait purchase, and brand loyalty?
3. How do you want people to perceive your product?
4. Who should be your target audience?
Advertising messages are disseminated to the consumer through mass media i.e. television, radio, cinema, posters, billboard, newspapers and magazine. Among these mass media, television happen to be the one mostly used, for this purpose therefore, television provides one of the most spectacular ways in which an advertisers could reach the greatest number of people at a time. NTA network news claims over 30 million viewers, what makes television so attractive to advertising is that audience can be reached through television via the diversity to programmes, virtually everybody has a few favourite programmes he watches fairly regularly so television provides voices and vision. Hence, it is an initiate medium, since television advertising has become a part of regular television broadcast, viewer’s perception of these advertising messages may influence their buying behaviour of certain products.
However, as Krugman has noted that, what is lacking in the required evaluation of TV advertising in any significant body of research specifically relating advertising to attitude, and these in turn to purchasing behaviour or sales. In order words,it is basically salesmanship on air or in prints. How then do consumers perceive the thousand and one advertising they see daily? Knowledge of what perception entails in necessary for the purpose of this study.
