CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY  

Advertising plays an important role in our everyday life. It mainly determines the image and way of life and it has an impact on our thinking as well as on the attitude towards ourselves and the world around us. Advertising shows us ready forms of behavior in a certain situation. It determines what is good and what is bad. We buy what people say or “advise”. I chose this topic because it is very relevant today and it is interesting by its complexity and psychological essence. Everyone, even without realizing it, is influenced by advertising. We do not notice how it affects us. We have become slaves of scientific and technical progress, and advertising uses that skillfully.

The pressure of advertisement is growing every day. A significant amount of money is spent on advertising campaigns bringing to the companies multi-billion profits. Moreover, it is a “product of the first necessity” for any enterprise, aimed at a commercial success, and it is becoming more and more expensive. According to statistics media the money spent on advertising in Finland was 1313, 1 million euro in 2012 and 1206, 7 million euro in 2013. (Finnish Advertising Council, TNS Gallup, Ad Intelligence 2014).

Advertising is directly linked to politics. It determines not only the purchase of toothpaste, but also the choice of political candidate. In the end it determines the path of political development of the country and the politics itself. This function of advertising is very important in our society.

Advertising is any paid form of non-personal communication about an organization or its product to a target audience through a mass/broadcast medium by an identified sponsor. It should be observed that for any promotional activity to be called advertisement it must be paid for.

In the real sense, it is the method used by companies for creating awareness of their products, as well as making new products known to the new and potential consumers.

This thesis however, centers on the impact of advertising on the sales volume of a product. This work will shed light on how advertising can really affect a consumer’s buying decisions in a growing economy like that of Nigeria and how successful advertising can keep businesses going even in the midst a tough competition.

More so, advertising as a promotional tool also tends to remind, reassure and influence the decisions of the consumers because an advertisement itself enlightens, educates, and persuades consumers on their acceptability of the product offering.

Advertisement in such a media as print (newspaper, magazines, billboards, flyers) or broadcast (radio, television) typically consist of pictures, headlines, information about the product and occasionally a response coupon. Broadcast advertisement on the other hand consists of an audio or video narrative that can range from 15seconds spots to longer segments known as infomercials, which generally last 30 to 60 minutes (Busari 2002).

Advertisements can also be seen on the seats of grocery carts, on the wall of airport walkways, on the sides of buses, airplane and train. Advertisements are usually placed anywhere an audience can easily and/or frequently a access visual and/or video (Busari 2002). Therefore, this study focuses on the the effect of mass media advertisement on the promotion of products, a case study of Indomie PlC.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The major economic negative aspect of advertising is that it boosts the price of goods and services. The source of this contention is that, when organizations subsidize the mass media with advertising, we, the purchaser, subsidize advertising by compensating a grossly increased price for heavily advertised goods and services. An easy example of this is that a packet of washing powder generally costs around fifty to sixty rupees while the market price of the product would be ninety to hundred rupees. The fact behind this is that the remaining proportion goes in heavy advertising in television and print media. So, the impact of advertising on our society is in a jumble form, depending on the functions and implementations of numerous campaigns. Our society and the marketing of products depend very badly upon advertising. The companies have become much dependent of advertising that even its negative impacts can never outweigh the many positive social and economic effects.

The most important element of advertising is not information but suggestion more or less making use of associations, emotions (appeal to emotion) and drives dormant in the subconscious of people, such as sex drive, herd instinct; of desires, such as happiness, health, fitness, appearance, self-esteem, reputation, belonging, social status, identity, adventure, distraction, reward; of fears (appeal to fear), such as illness, weaknesses, loneliness, need, uncertainty, security or of prejudices, learned opinions and comforts. “All human needs, relationships, and fears – the deepest recesses of the human psyche – become mere means for the expansion of the commodity universe under the force of modern marketing. With the rise to prominence of modern marketing, commercialism – the translation of human relations into commodity relations – although a phenomenon intrinsic to capitalism, has expanded exponentially.” ’Cause-related marketing’ in which advertisers link their product to some worthy social cause has boomed over the past decade. These problems make it glaring that there is a need to carry out a study on the effect of mass media advertisement on the promotion of products, a case study of Indomie PlC.

1.3     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY  

The general objective of the study is to examine the effect of mass media advertisement on the promotion of products, a case study of Indomie PlC. The specific objectives are:

1.     To ascertain if Indomine PLC uses the mass media as an advertisement channel towards product promotion.

2.     To find out the influence of mass media advertisement of products on the price of indomie products.

3.     To examine the implication of mass media advertisement on people’s awareness of indomie products.

4.     To determine the effect of mass media advertisement in convincing the audience.

5.     To investigate if there is a relationship between mass media advertisement and the promotion of products.

1.4     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The relevant research questions related to this study include the following:

1.     Does Indomine PLC uses the mass media as an advertisement channel towards product promotion?

2.     What is the influence of mass media advertisement of products on the price of indomie products?

3.     What is the implication of mass media advertisement on people’s awareness of indomie products?