The Impact of TV Commercials and Advertisements on Consumer Purchases
Companies are using every facet of life to advertise their latest and greatest products. Some have spent millions on television commercials; others use print ads and billboards. Today companies will even use your browsing habits to customize the kinds of advertisements that come up on your computer. There have been a significant amount of research performed on the influence that commercials and online and print advertisements have on the consumer’s purchasing decisions. They’ve looked into whether or not the investments made in these promotions really help increase sales in the long run.
According to research done at Umeå School of Business and Economics, impulse buying can be linked to promotions through the mail, television commercials, and in-store displays. It was mentioned that “impulse buying may thus be triggered by unconscious memories of adervtising” (Hultén & Vanyushyn, 2014, pg. 1). The clothing industry is frequently using this tactic when trying to increase sales. Retailers will place accessories or pair certain clothing items together on a display or mannequin to encourage impulse buying. Many times, impulse buys in a clothing department accompany an already planned purchase. An example of this is a man goes in the store planning to buy a suit, but because of strategic placement and/or advertising of other items, he may end up buying a shirt or tie to go along with it.
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In the end, he comes out of the store with things he forgot he “needed” or he hadn’t planned on wanting. This frequently happens around Christmastime. This is because many people wait until the last moment and then under the time crunch ends up being more susceptible to in-store promotions and television commercials. The research concludes that impulse shopping typically happens in people who are more frequent shoppers than those who are not. In conclusion, those who have a positive view of television and mail marketing tend to be more effected by in-store promotions and in turn more susceptible to impulse buying.
Humor in television commercials have been thought to influence consumer buying habits. Sometimes the effect was positive, but there were times where the effect was negative. In the research done by The American University in Cairo, Egypt, they surveyed a focus group of teenagers and a group of adults to test the effect of humorous commercials on their buying habits. In the study on teenagers, it was actually found that, if a humorous commercial was not well represented, then it could have an overall negative effect on the consumer and likelihood of them buying the advertised product. A similar conclusion was made in the adult study. It was also found that just because they thought an advertisement was funny, didn’t always mean that they would buy the product as a result. Likewise, “the humor seemed to overcome the message for the watched ad” (El-tazy & Dinan, 2018, pg. 8). Research shows that the more humorous the ad the more viewers watched and the more they talked about the ad and the brand. In this case, the strongest result may just be spreading the information by the word of mouth of the viewers which resulted in increased brand attention.
Overtime, celebrity endorsers have played a major role in advertising. Companies use celebrities to connect the person with the product they are advertising. However, non-celebrities, especially those who are credible in certain fields, can help increase sales as well. Tanuja Kaushik and Rashi Baliyan wrote about their findings on whether or not celebrity endorsements impact the buying habits of the typical fast-moving consumer goods buyer (2017, pg. 1). This study investigated whether a person would buy a certain product over another just because they liked the celebrity who was representing the given product. The research showed that when it comes to home care products, there is not a noticeable difference between the results of a celebrity versus a non-celebrity advertisement.
The same was concluded when researching personal care products. This was thought to be because the quality and convenient product with a lower price was more important to the consumer than whether the celebrity has endorsed it or not. A celebrity endorsement in a food advertisement typically helps with brand recall but doesn’t necessarily coincide with increased sales. An important variable in the consumer’s choice of food is their personal preference when it comes to taste or even the health side of it. Beverages is the one product where there is a noticeable increase in sales when a company has a celebrity endorser. Additionally, there has even been evidence that attractive non-celebrities can also influence the consumer’s buying habits. However, the celebrity endorsement is still significantly more effective than the non-celebrity endorsement.
A celebrity endorsement can give a optimistic view of the brand and can be influential in quick decision and comparing between products. In the end, “customers generally prefer to buy products endorsed by celebrities because they can recall that product easily while shopping and they trust the brand more” (Kaushik & Baliyan, 2017, pg. 13). Different personal factors certainly weighs in on whether a consumer is affected by advertisements that use celebrities versus those who don’t. For example, teenagers and those under the age of 30 are more influence by celebrity endorsement than those that are older. Furthermore, income is another factor that influences purchase choices. While they are aware of certain celebrity and non-celebrity endorsements, professionals in multinational corporations are more aware of being cost-efficient.
Because of this, they look for a product that will give you the most “bang for your buck.” When comparing genders, men are more apt to look at pricing when comparing products. Credibility, however, is typically more closely linked to non-celebrity professional than a celebrity. After reviewing the findings of the research performed, celebrities have a higher influence on the consumers view of a brand and their likelihood to buy their products than non-celebrities.
Restaurants rely heavily on print advertisements, especially in the design of their menus. The menu essentially acts as a salesperson and it is important that it sells its product well. A menu with a functional layout and attractive visuals will most likely be more effective than one that is not. It is inferred that a menu can increase sales based on its layout and design. It has been said that “a consumer only spends an average of two minutes browsing a menu, and a well-designed menu may increase revenues by 2% to 10% through the promotion of special meals” (Lee, Wang, & Lee, 2017, pg. 3). The results of the study suggest that aesthetics play a major role in increasing the probability of the consumer buying the product. It was also concluded that adding information about calories could potentially counteract the influence of aesthetics.
Consumers become more aware of health factors and will look for other options with lower calories. Unmarried consumers are of the most influenced group when it comes to increased impulse buying as a result of the design of the menu. Women are typically more influenced than men, resulting in a concentrated focus on unmarried women when trying to increase impulse sales. In conclusion, it would be to a restaurant's benefit to utilize a menu with a functional layout and impressive aesthetics in order to increase the amount of people who will impulsively buy various menu items as a result of their advertising techniques.
On the topic of design, there is also something to be said for whether the size and font impacts the way viewers perceive the ad, especially when it comes to listing the original and sale price on an advertisement. When buying an item on sale, many consumers want to know the amount of money they are saving by knowing the original price of the item. Typically, “a deal-prone buyer focuses on the savings afforded by the promotion” while “to a value conscious buyer, the focus is not the savings but on the value the deal provides” (Aggarwal & Vaidyanathan, 2016, pg. 3). The results concluded that when the font size of the regular price or sale price was increased, there was an increased amount of attention toward the compared prices. No matter which you decided to increase the font size for, it increased the consumers buying habits to some degree.
Social media platforms are becoming increasingly popular as time goes on. Marketing teams are starting to turn to platforms, such as Facebook, to advertise their products. As social media becomes more popular, they request for a larger budget to dedicate to advertising to the population of these social media users. In the study conducted by the Department of Marketing at Cape Peninsula University of Technology, over 60% of the participants logged into Facebook at least once a day (Duffett, 2015). It was found that the people who updated their profiles on a daily basis were more likely to have a higher intent-to-purchase than those who only updated their profile ever week or so.
Conclusively, it could be inferred that the amount of times a given person updates their social media profiles correlates to their intent-to-purchase. Furthermore, the longer someone was logged into their account, the more likely they would buy the product advertised. As a rule, advertising on Facebook was most successful when the user spent at least two hours on Facebook because it would give them more time to come in contact with the advertisement. To get good results, you can’t just post information to your business’s Facebook page and expect to get instant results. You must carefully tailor your advertisements to be more interactive and stimulating in order to gain attention from your targeted audience.
Even outside social media, online advertising is an increasingly popular way to get brand recognition especially amongst the younger generation. As time goes on, adolescents are becoming more and more brand conscious when making purchasing decisions. Most research done today focuses on the adult consumers, while it is during adolescence that consumption skills begin to develop. “Online advertising empowers consumers to control what they see” which means the advertisers have to be creative in their strategies of keeping the consumer’s attention since they can skip an advertisement much easier online than you can on television or radio (Eshghi, Sarkar & Sarkar, 2017, pg. 11). They also must be able to narrow down whether the audience they are targeting is primarily researchers or surfers because that will determine the kind of advertisement is used. Depending on what the majority of your audience is composed of will conclude whether a more narrative or factual advertising strategy should be used. No matter which approach is taken the ultimate goal of online advertising is to increase brand awareness and develop a positive outlook toward the given brand.
There are so many facets in which companies are utilizing to spread awareness of their brand. These facets include, but are not limited to, television commercials, print ads, and social media and online advertisements. Many companies cater their advertisements to increase impulse buying amongst their consumers. Other strategies used by advertisers include the use of celebrities or credible non-celebrities to endorse their products in order to gain a larger following and in turn increase revenue. Aesthetics and design are another major component that is taken into consideration when making advertisements as it does play a role in increasing a consumer’s intent-to-purchase. Our world is becoming so focused on material goods that sometimes we must step back and pay attention to what truly matters in life.
The Bible is very clear about the trap we can fall into when we put too much value into material goods. Jesus talks about being careful to not store up for ourselves treasures in earth, but to store up treasures in heaven (Matthew 6, New International Version). Additionally, when Jesus tells the story of the rich fool, he warns those listening to not store up treasures for themselves, but instead be rich toward God (Luke 12, New International Version). This doesn’t mean we can’t have nice things or buy brand name items, but we must evaluate the value those things have in our lives. Advertising has a huge influence in the consumer’s purchasing habits. They can be very influential in painting images of the brand and the product they are selling in order to get the most sales possible. It is our job to be good stewards of what God has given us and making sure we keep the right perspective on the role that material goods should have in our lives.
References
Aggarwaal, P., & Vaidyanathan R. (2017). Is font size a big deal? A transaction – acquisition utility perspective on comparative price promotions. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 33(6), 408-416. Retrieved from http://www.emeraldinsight.com
Duffett R.G. (2015). Facebook advertising’s influence on intention-to-purchase and purchase amongst Millenials. Internet Research, 25(4), 498-526. Retrieved from http://www.proquest.com
El-tazy, G.W., & Dinana, H.O. (2018). The impact of humorous advertising on consumers’ buying, word of mouth and recall. Journal of Business and Retail Management Research, 12(2), 202-211. Retrieved from http://www.proquest.com.
Eshghi, A., Sarkar, J.G., & Sarkar, A. (2017). Impact of online advertising on adolescent’s brand attitudes. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 35(6), 706-723. Retrieved from http://www.proquest.com
Hultén, P., & Vanyushyn V. (2014). Promotion and shoppers’ impulse purchases: the example of clothes. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 31(2), 94-102. Retrieved from http://www.emeraldinsight.com
Kaushik, T., & Baliyan, R. (2017). A study on impact of celebrity and non-celebrity endorsed FMCG advertising on the consumer purchase behaviour. Global Management Review, 11(1), 27-42. Retrieved from http://www.proquest.com
Lee, Y., Wang, C., & Lee, W. (2017). Does looking delicious mean really delicious? The effects regarding menu design on consumer’s ordering behavior. Journal of Accounting, Finance, and Management Strategy, 12(1), 1-23. Retrieved from http://www.proquest.com
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