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ASSIGNMENT COVER

REGION: MATABELELAND SOUTH

PROGRAM: BACHELOR OF ARTS AND MEDIA STUDIES INTAKE: 14

FULL NAME OF STUDENT: NQOBILE MPOFU PIN: P1139827C

MAILING ADDRESS: 1253 DULIBAVHADZIMO, BEITBRIDGE

CONTACT TELEPHONE/CELL: 0774010725 ID. NO.: 02-050604R 02

COURSE NAME: ADVERTISING AND THE MEDIA COURSE CODE: BAMS205

ASSIGNMENT NO. e.g. 1 or 2: 1 DUE DATE: 09/09/2018

ASSIGNMENT TITLE: With the aid of examples, analyse the extent to which advertising
is providing critical information to consumers for the informed purchase of products.

MARKER’S COMMENTS: ______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

OVERALL MARK: _____________ MARKER’S NAME: ________________________

MARKER’S SIGNATURE:_______________________________ DATE: ___________

The world is a global community that is fast growing with an industrialization
process that is extremely growing with all companies and organizations that use
advertising to generate awareness of the different products and services ,the
advertising focuses on the mind of the potential customers of the different products
and services .Advertising has now become the key of the capitalist system seeking
not only the control of peoples purchasing action but also continuously knocking
and stuck to peoples’ minds .The product and service mostly ,as it is has the
capability of selling itself through name ,its packaging ,distribution and also its
price are all part of advertising .Advertisers invest huge amounts of money on the
different advertising strategies and by doing that face a major challenge in
influencing the final purchase decision of customers in favor of their product or
service .In doing that ,advertisers need to know the specific need that the
consumers are striving to satisfy and how these needs then push to a purchase
decision .I believe that consumers collect information from the various sources and
this information is then the one used again to push a purchase decision.

What is advertising ?, one may ask .Arens .F.W.(2002:7) defines advertising as

“the structured and composed non-personal communication of information usually
paid for and usually persuasive in nature , about goods , services , ideas by
identified sponsors through various media”.He then states that advertising is first a
type of communication , a structured form of communication with both verbal and
non- verbal elements that are aimed at specifics by the sponsor .The Institute of
practitioners in advertising defined advertising and says “ the most persuasive
possible selling message to the right prospects for the product or service at the
lowest possible cost “.In the above definition it states that advertising is a
combination of creativity , marketing , research and economic media buying
though it might not be free but costs money which will then come back after a
successful advertising endeavor .Rosser Reeves (2000,46) defines advertising as
“the art of getting a unique selling proposition into the heads of most people at the
lowest possible cost “.In this definition , it shows that the target of advertising is
the minds of people with the creation of the right message to push people into
buying the product or service .Jefkins , F(1991 , 13) then comes on to define
advertising as “the means of making known in order to sell .”Which then makes
the main aim of advertising selling of products and services .Kotler (1990) defines
advertising as “any paid form of non-personal presentation of ideas , goods and
services by an identified sponsor , addressed to selected target groups with the
objective of selling , influencing , and persuading people to buy and be more
inclined towards these ideas , goods and services.”The definition specifically states
that the objective of advertising is selling.

In view of advertising, it shows that it is a form of communication aimed at

convincing people to take action towards making a decision to buy the products
that are being advertised. To take action to buy, a person has to make an informed
decision about a product or service that is intended to be bought. A company has to
invest in promotional activities so as to be well known as a brand at this same time
informing feeding prospective buyers with information about the product because
looking at the infested market with similar goods , for example , there are various
brands of dishwashing liquid , sunlight liquid , Maq dish washing liquid , Boom ,
for a customer to choose a dishwashing liquid suitable , they should be well
informed about the product . As Kotler said that the aim of advertising is to show a
non-personal presentation of ideas for people to buy .For the advertiser to reach as
many prospective customers as possible and get to influence their buying through
awareness, attitudes , and buying decision not to mention keeping the customer
preferring the specific brand thus contributing to brand choice through advertising .
Douglas et al (1978, 62) says “goods are a non-verbal medium of transmitting
massages about brands to the people around.”

Advertising has positive impacts, which is connecting with the customer

emotionally and at the same time building awareness on products and services. For
example, if an organization uses a celebrity like Killer. T in their advertisements ,
it will be a successful campaign because celebrities have become role models of
people and again the campaign gets more recall because of the celebrity used .
Actors, musicians, Influential people can strongly and positively influence the
views of the product thus causing the product or service to be purchased.

The buying decision process is a cognitive process .The customer has to first
discover a want or need that has to satisfied but the awareness of the customer is
not an automatic one but a selective process . There is exposure to millions of
products with different advantages and also giving different information on the
products and using the different media platforms .All the mass information seeks
the customers attention, making the customer to sieve out in order to make the
decision of buying a product .In making a purchase decision, they are three stages
according to Leiss et al (1990) “idolatry, iconology , narcissism and
totenism.”Idolatry is when the message mainly focuses on the product and the
stressed on product benefits, features and other beneficial characteristics, mostly
the product and its utility for example the advertisements in facial products.
Iconology means the product-image centered advertisement where the product is
given minimal attention while symbolic meaning is emphasized, for example
baking products .At this stage, the focus is shifted to the product –personality. The
products are equated to the various emotional states of human beings for example
alcohol advertisements. The narcissism stage is when the focus is on product –
personality. It focuses on the human psyche and the personality of people .And
totenism, the focus is on all three stages meaning product-lifestyle.

Most of the information about goods and services are received from commercial
sources meaning that information on goods and services comes from advertising
(word of mouth, billboards, magazines, visual and audio).This makes the
knowledge on the product is what will influence the customers purchase decision
.The consumer information through advertisements, right information , can be
given to customers to guarantee purchase. According to Moyo. L (2016,22) States
that a marketer without advertising can face problems because he can make the
best products ,price them affordably ,place them conveniently , but as long as
consumers do not know about the products they don’t sell “advertising sells
products and disposes them off the shelves’ through the ability to persuade buyers
through mass media.

Products have different features and the features are a form f advertising .the
producers get to provide information on the product cover with persuasive
picturing .The consumer then has to read at point of purchase the information that
will enable the customer to choose a specific product to others,for example cereal
boxes have a lot of information ,so a customer can prefer the Cerevita brand to
Pronutro brand depending on the information provided on the product as it is a
form of advertising. Warlop and Wendel (2002,) says that advertisement is able to
influence the consumer behavior because advertising is able to attract attention of
the public When the attention and attraction increases upon a product ,the customer
develop a positive perception and likely to get more information and then make an
informed decision to buy the product but if the customer does not declare or see
potential on a product then he or she won’t buy the product or service, for example
the product is placed at a visible position and a ‘save ‘sticker attached to it, the
product may disappear from the shelves as fast as lightning.

As we know that the major objective of advertising is to have total impact on the
consumer buying behavior, however this impact should be strengthened frequently
in the memories of people (consumers).The memories about the product are what
are called associations with the brand name in the consumers ‘ mind .These brand
recognition attributes influences consideration, evaluation and finally purchase of
the product over and over. When young people choose a product, they choose one
associated with information and characters with their role models .They may not
only identify with them but also intend to copy them in terms of which products
they use and also use them .Therefore advertisers give the concept of brand image
by creating the character of a caring mother in a Dettol advertisement ,the
company gives of care, emotion and associate with the product This makes the
consumer to keep buying the particular product.

Product packaging and labels are a form of advertising that is used by marketers, in
that marketers give off information on the product thus influencing customer
purchase behavior. In today’s market there is saturation by ever increasing number
of products, all claiming different but positive attributes .Belch and Belch(1999)
says “the average supermarket holds approximately twenty thousand products
competing to attract the attention .”with a similar mindset is Keller (2008) who
says “consumers are faced with more than 20 000 choices within a 30 minute
shopping session”.Whith so many choices to evaluate, a purchase decision is made
.in this the product packaging then plays a vital role as an advertising tool
companies can use to sell products .Kotler and Keller pint out that ,for a company
to advertise properly they should provide with information that will enable the
product to be at a competitive advantage. More than 60% of all buying, decision is
done at the purchase point, making the information on the product of prior
importance to a purchase decision thus needing to be fully utilized as an
advertising tool. Nilson and Osrom( 2005) “the product packaging design includes
the brand name, colour, typography and images ,all of which influence how
quickly and easily a product catches the eye”. The labels are of importance as they
convey important information like informing on things like information on
ingredients or material used in the production of different products and also
enhancing name recognition.

In the global environment social media has become one of the most influential
advertising platforms; this means that many companies have made social media a
preferred platform for advertising their products and services showing that more
than 70% of consumers spend a lot of time on social media and are likely to
purchase items based on social media. For many consumers ,the reasons being that
what is advertised on social media is what is trending and then they search online
on benefits of the product and then make a purchase decision based on the
advertisement and information provided research by Forbes show that more than
70% of people said that they social media posts of companies influence their
buying decisions .Companies now create advertisements that are easily sharable to
boost their social media strategy .Again it creates pages that provide statistics ,data
,reviews from different customers and also on product insight as their marketing
strategy. To provide information to the customer, the advertiser of a brand should
customize a brand page, showcase the product and provide the potential customer
with all information they might need to convince them to choose a specific product
to another.

As a main reason ,advertising is for persuading people to choose to buy a specific

product to another in one market .Another advertising platform that offers
information to customers through advertising is the visual platform ,the television
media .Television has been a stample for advertising since its inception .It
influences viewers’ purchase decision .Mostly , television uses the visual and audio
to turn the customer to a certain product thus influencing purchase .The visual with
the attractive audio makes the potential customer to choose that product.

The above write up tried to focus on the impact of advertising on the purchase
decisions. The advertisements were examined to determine how they determine
purchase of a product. Because buyers must act on the basis of gaining
information, they automatically and consciously .The size of this risk or
satisfaction depends on a purchase
REFERENCES

1. Bray .J 2008 Consumer behaviour TheoryApproaches and models.

http://eprints .bournmouth.ac.uk/10107/

2 .Kotler .P (1990) Principles of Marketing London , SAGE publications.

3. Leiss W. et al( 1990),Social communication in advertising ,London

,ROUTLEDGE.

4.Jefkins F advertising handbook (1991) Pitman publishing ,London.