THE IMPACT OF ADVERTISING ON CONSUMERS

This study examined the impact of advertising on consumer buying behavior in Enugu State Nigeria. Most organizations in Nigeria pay lukewarm attitude in advertising their products and services through effective advertising medium, and this have adverse effect on their output in terms of sales. They do not see the need of spending part of their budget in advertisement to promote their products and services and influence consumer buying behavior. With great increase in technological advancement, effective advertising has become extremely important to be able to have competitive advantage, hence the need for this study. This study adopted a survey research design. It involves collection of data from respondents through questionnaire to test hypotheses. Multiple regression technique was used to test hypotheses. The research findings show that a significant and positive relationship lie between the independent variables emotional response, environmental response towards brand, brand awareness and sensory stimulated advertising and dependent variable consumer buying behavior. All the independent variables have statistically significant t-ratio and have positive relationship with consumer buying behavior. This result is consistent with the literature. We recommend that for effective advertising to take place, the target audience must be extensively reached to know their consumption pattern and behavior toward products and services. And that effort should be directed more on emotional related advertising, since consumers patronage are highly induced through their emotion. Keyword: Advertising, Consumer buying behavior, Target audience, emotional response, environmental response, consumer. Cite this article: B.A. CHUKWU, E.C. Kanu & A.N. Ezeabogu (2019). The Impact of Advertising on Consumers Buying Behaviour. International Journal of Arts and Commerce, 8(1), 1-15 Copyright: © 2019 Chukwu et al. International Journal of Arts and Commerce ISSN 1929-7106 www.ijac. org.uk 2 INTRODUCTION The impact of mass communication is felt all over the globe through advertising, newspaper, internet, music, films, videos, magazine, movies and billboards. Among these media, advertising is the one that has lasting impact on viewers mind, since its exposure is much broader (Katke, 2007). Advertising is the main source of communication tool between the producer and the consumer. Advertising is a subset of promotion mix and is one of the 4ps in the marketing mix which comprise product, price, place and promotion Advertising is a promotion strategy which serves as a major tool in creating product awareness in the mind of the consumer to take purchasing decision. Advertising, sales promotion and public relations are mass communications tools used by marketers. Advertising through mass media influences audience, but television has mass reach and is the strongest medium of advertising. Advertising can influence the attitude of individual behavior, life style in the long run as well as the culture of the country (Latif & Abideen, 2011). A company can enhance the brand of their product by investing in promotional activities in order to compete in a consumer market that is dominated through advertising (Hussainy, Riaz, Kazi & Herani, 2008). The primary aim of advertiser is to reach consumers and influence their awareness, attitude and buying behavior. Their major preoccupation is to keep individuals interest in their product through spending on advertising. They also need to understand what influence customers behavior. Advertising has the potential to contribute to brand choice of consumers (Latif & Abideen, 2011). It impacts on consumer behavior. Advertising impact on brands change frequently in peoples memory. Brand memories consist of those associations that are related to brand name in consumer’s mind. These brand cognition influence consideration, evaluation and final purchase (Romaniuk & Sharp,2003). Consumer behavior should be analyzed for effective advertising, to know why consumers behave in particular ways under certain circumstances. And also to know the factors that influence consumer behavior, especially the economic, social and psychological aspects (Ayanwale, Alimi & Ayabinpe, 2005). Advertising also creates advertisement which carry emotional bond with consumers. Positive emotional appeals also provide a strong brand cue and stimulate category based processing (Abideen & Latif, 2011) With successful categorization, the effect and beliefs associated with this category in memory are translated to the objective itself. Consumers try to categorize the brand association with the existing memory, when thousand of products are faced by them and might reposition memories to a brand image and perception towards new products. In this way, they can categorize latest information in particular brand and shore accordingly in their memory. Some organizations do not attach importance in advertising their products and this have adverse effect on their output in terms of sales of product. Others use different advertising media like television, internet (face book; email) newspaper, billboard, magazine etc to convey their product message to their target audience. Companies spend major part of their budget on advertising strategies to promote their products/services. These advertisement strategies influence consumer buying behavior (Abideen & Latiff, 2011) Objectives of the study This study attempt to determine the impact of advertising on consumer buying behaviors. In specific terms, the objective of the study are to: International Journal of Arts and Commerce Vol. 8 No. 1 January 2019 3 i. identify the effect of emotional response on consumers buying behavior ii. ascertain the effect of environmental response towards brand on consumer buying behavior iii. determine the effect of Brand awareness on consumer buying behavior iv. identify the effect of sensory stimulated advertising on consumer buying behavior. Statement of Hypotheses The following null hypotheses were formulated to guide this study Ho1: Emotional response does not positively affect consumer buying behavior Ho2: Environmental response towards brand does not positively affect consumer buying behavior Ho3: Brand awareness does not positively affect consumer buying behavior Ho4: Sensory stimulated advertising does not positively affect consumer buying behavior Significance of the Study The study would be of great benefit to the following stakeholders  Companies/Organizations: The study would help organizations to find possible measures/strategies to advertise their products and services. It would be of great interest and valuable to marketing managers and help them to sell their products/services and make reasonable profits to the company/organization.  Consumers: It will create brand awareness to motivate them emotionally to buy the product. Scope of the Study The study examined the impact of product advertising on consumer buying behaviours. The scope of this study would delimit all consumers in Enugu metropolis. The consumers are located at five popular existing markets in the metropolis (which are Ogbete market, twenty super markets including Shoprite and ten high traffic points across the metropolis. Therefore, the population of the study cut across the markets in Enugu State and environs. The study adopted a survey research design through the administration of structured questionnaire raised on a five point likert scale to the sampled respondents for the study. However, the sample size of this study was determined by Taro Yamane statistical formula. Limitations of the study  The population of consumers are not known. Since the exact number of consumers in the metropolis cannot be estimated as there are no existing data, the purposive sampling technique was used for sampling, which cannot be used to generalize result. In this sampling design, there is no probabilistic way to estimating the representativeness of the selected samples.  Statistical Modeling Another challenge facing the study was statistical modeling of the determinants of the impact of advertising on consumer buying behavior. The modeling of the variables (emotional response, environmental response, Brand awareness and sensory stimulated advertising was so tedious for the researcher. Therefore the technical nature of the study also limits the study under investigation International Journal of Arts and Commerce ISSN 1929-7106 www.ijac. org.uk