The Effect of Advertising on Consumer Preference Patterns for Malt Drinks in Enugu Metropolis
ADVERTISING: AN OVERVIEW
Advertising has been defined differently by different people Ebue (2000:53) sees advertising as “all about a sponsor sending a message called advertisement through one or more mass media via radio, newspaper, Television, magazine to a large number of potential users of a product”. According to Kotler and Armstrong (1999:495) defines advertising as “any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor”.
According to Nwokoye (1999:45) advertising is any form of non-personal communication through the mass media that is paid for by a sponsor. All these are some of the opinions and views of some marketing professionals on advertising. On this too Okakunori (1999:191) He sees advertising as where “the message may be oral or visual, and is normally been paid for by a sponsor. It is a key factor in marketing that involves the use of media to inform consumers about a product, and it’s existence, and in effect it brings the product to the doorway of the consumers for decision making among alternatives.
According to Fajen (1998:94) conducting and pre-testing of advertising are all scientific aspects of advertising. When a firm is out for business, he undergoes the process of marketing activities which involves planning and decision making, market research production, when the product is ready for sale, the firm uses all advertising strategies like push and pull, depending on the kind of product when all these are done and the goods are sold profitability, then we can say that advertising has performed it’s business.
Eke (1992:19) He argues that “the effect of advertising is to establish awareness and create favourable attitude to a particular product also stimulate demand for a product or service among potential consumers, all these views and opinions were held by marketing practitioners and professionals on advertising.
2.2 FORMS OF ADVERTISING
Advertising can take many forms depending on it’s functions, hence we have the following forms of advertising.
PRODUCT ADVERTISING
According to Ebue (2000:75) product advertising is aimed at promoting or pushing a product directly or indirectly to the consumers. When advertising makes strong bid for buyers, immediate action is taken to it’s direction, where coupon is use or a promise of free sample, while the indirect action is designed to push the product or service over a long period of time. In product advertising, the advertiser informs the customers about the existence of the product and the benefits to be derived in using the product.
INSTITUTIONAL ADVERTISING
Institutional advertising is a goodwill advertising designed to promote the firms overall quality, image or reputation. It is also called corporate advertising because it enhances the corporate image by creating a favourable attitude programmes. This may be achieved by promoting good causes and by recounting the firm’s social contributions and business official conducts.
Also Read: Advertising: An Effective Promotional Tool for Marketing New Product
According to Stanton (1995:507), he identified three aspects of institutional advertising patronage they includes:
- Public Service Institutional Advertising: This simply promotes public cause.
- Public Relation Institutional Advertising: This explains a firms position in the face of environmental matters, in other words what a firm does in other to comply with applicable environmental laws and regulation.
- Patronage Institution Advertising: This focuses on attracting customer by appealing to patronage buying motive rather than product buying motives.
According to Markin (1999:469) institutional advertising is carried at “dramatizing the social responsibility the strength and character of the firm and to build the firms prestige and enhance it’s image by publicizing it’s support of worthy causes”.
NATIONAL ADVERTISING
National advertising is the advertising by manufacturers of consumer products in contrast with that done by retailers, Ebue (2000:77) here national advertising is aimed at stimulating consumers demand for the product by emphasizing the benefits to be derived from using the product. National or manufacturers advertising message is designed to stimulate demand for the product, the message says “Buy our brand” and the manufacture does not care where the item is purchased. Usually it embarked upon by the old manufacturers who do no seek immediate national distribution for lack of fund, low production capacity, and few personal. Such new manufacturers sell their outputs in the local market, here local media are usually used for local advertising but yet it is classified as national advertising.
RETAIL ADVERTISING: This is the advertising placed by a retailer, which have different goal from national advertising. A retailer is only interested where the consumer makes the purchase not whether it is a specific product or what brand is purchased. Thus the advertising message of a retailer is “buy” X” brand at our store” that is the only way she/he becomes happy, in other words it appeals for patronage buying motive. Wright et al (1983:91) distinguished retail and national advertising in five ways:-
- Territory covered
- Customer relation
- Target audience interest.
- Expected response
- Use of price.
According to them, the retailer generally works in a smaller geographic market than those national advertisers whose interest is long-range acceptance and favourable attitude. This means that the retailer’s message is more tailored to the likes, preferences, and buying habit of the audience than the national advertising and the retail advertising customers whose search for the advertisement of their favourite retail store where the retail advertiser is interested in immediate response to the local advertising.
LOCAL ADVERTISING
The local advertising is used to describe the advertising sponsored by local business firms that are not necessarily retail establishment. They are manufacturers of services that operate on the local level; this form of advertising is aimed at achieving “Brand loyalty” from the local public. The advertising is placed in the local media, local newspaper local radio and television station. But it cannot be classified as retail advertising just because it is placed by a local firm.
CO-OPERATIVE ADVERTISING
Cooperative advertising is usually used to describe advertising that is not paid for by a single sponsor and the manufacturer usually join hands with the retailers or distributors to advertise the product. The manufacturer provides all the necessary materials for the advertising but the media cost are usually showed between the parties concerned. Cooperative advertising could be vertical or horizontal advertising (Ebue 2000:79) respectively.
VERTICAL CO-OPERATIVE ADVERTISING: This is an advertising co-operation existing between the manufacturer and the wholesaler or retailer, her the wholesaler and manufacturer reaches an agreement.
Horizontal Co-operative Advertising: This is handled by competitors within the same industry for the mutual benefits of all members, for example in the insurance companies, the idea of horizontal co-operative advertising is to increase the market they share among themselves.
BUSINESS ADVERTISING:
Business advertising is the advertising by the manufacturers of industrial products/goods. It is the advertising to buyers who are producers, informing and educating them about the product existence and persuading and convincing them to make purchase. Kotler (1997:403) identifies four categories of business advertising which are as follows:-
TRADE ADVERTISING:
This is an advertising designed to induce retailers to stock the manufacturers products or to increase there shelf space for the product. It encourages the manufacturers to increase inventory of those item advertised for customers to buy, the principal channel of trade advertisement are: direct mail journals, magazines, newspaper, or business times, also personal selling by company sales persons.
INDUSTRIAL ADVERTISING:
The industrial advertisement is directed at manufacturers of industrial products like machine, industrial equipment, etc. personal selling is more effective in the sales of this goods the advertising appears in industrial and business magazines, it also contains details specification on products and it’s benefits.
FARM ADVERTISING:
This type of advertising is aimed at the farmers and at the same time used the same promotional strategies at those applied in industrial products.
PROFESSIONAL ADVERTISING:
This is the type of advertising that is directed to the professionals themselves, they are easily reached through advertising in professional journals such as medical review, medical journal, pharmacists guide, personal selling, direct mail and product sampling is also important in reaching the professionals. These professionals can advertise by recommending or prescribing the product to their clients.
2.3 ROLE OF ADVERTISING IN THE MARKETING OF CONSUMER GOODS.
According to Ebue (1995:65) “advertising is a powerful marketing communication tool used by companies to fullil the promotional task, in essence, all about advertising is a sponsor sending a message called advertisement. Through one or more mass media (radio, Television, Newspapers, Magazines) etc to reach large number of potential users of a product”. By this “Advertising is a vital marketing tool that helps to sell goods, services, images, ideas, thoughts, through information and persuasion. There have been many arguments as to whether the task of advertising should be expressed in times of sales or communication effects.
According to Adirika, Ebue, and Nnolim (1996:106) which stated that “More advertisement are designed to make both people selling and sales promotion easier by informing, persuading, re-minding, reassuring, reinforcing and establishing positive attitude and images towards products and the company”.
This suggests that advertising enhances the potential customer to respond to companies activities. Furthermore, many firms allocate greater percent of their capital in promotional budget to advertise their products, as an indication of it’s vital role in the sale and marketing of consumer goods. At this point, it may be useful to examine some of the important reasons for advertising that warrant such expenditure. This further suggest or enumerated six roles of advertising in the marketing and selling of consumer goods which are as follows.
TO INTRODUCE A NEW PRODUCT:
This article was extracted from a Project Research Work Topic
“THE EFFECT OF ADVERTISING ON CONSUMER PREFERENCE PATTERNS FOR MALT DRINKS IN ENUGU METROPOLIS (A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GUINNESS MALTA AND AMSTEL MALTA)”
