Introduction
Product promotion is a component of integrated marketing communication instruments and it delivers messages that are influenced by different environmental conditions. It has been argued that the components of adverts, like messages and languages used, are affected by environmental conditions. These environmental conditions include economic, cultural and social movements within a society (Kim & Yoon, 2012). More importantly, these components of adverts affect the effectiveness of product promotion strategies and have great influence on people. This study is concerned with content analysis of adverts and the influence played by cultural, economic and social movements in a society. More specifically, it examines the roles played by brand names, languages used, celebrities, age groups, gender and the appeals of the adverts. This study will achieve its goal through analysis of various television commercials.
Literature Review
Adverts are complex means of communication and normally aim to influence consumer behavior. Adverts seek to achieve positive response from consumers. They are also components of economic and social systems. The importance of advertising has been noted and documented since the first world war. Many organizations are interested in the ability of adverts to communicate with the consumers. Adverts pass different messages to consumers and connect them to the market. Adverts also assist consumers examine issues like the value, price and quality of products. Buyers are able to select information that they need from adverts and make informed decisions.
Various disciplines have contributed to the development of content of adverts. Many studies have examined current issues in product promotion and they have focused on changes in cultural and social behaviors. Other studies have examined the changes that adverts have gone through over time. The transition has been from survival tactics, traditional creative, environmental protection, new consumption class, comic and humor to net generation (Kim & Yoon, 20120. Currently, companies use integrated adverts that fit all the above classes. This study examines the content of adverts in relation to a brand name, gender, age and the appeals created.
Well-being is an issue that many researchers have examined and many adverts seek to promote consumers’ health conditions. It is a dominant issue in many adverts that companies develop. Well-being is an issue that is based on environmental conditions (Lee, 2007). The conceptualization of well-being is simple and it can be associated with numerous products offered by different companies. Hence, this study will include adverts that are associated with promotion of well-being in analysis of television content. Some past studies noted that well-being can be measured in terms of economic and social pointers like income and educational level. Therefore, this study will examine the content of television adverts in relation to well-being. It will examine how the society view brands that are associated with well-being and how celebrities are perceived in adverts that promote health.
Hypothesis Development
The study will be guided by different hypotheses in the analysis of content in television adverts. The hypotheses to be used are listed below.
Effects of Brand Name
The brand name is directly associated with the image of the product being promoted by an advert. It reflects the personality of the product being advertised. A brand name can either be meaningful or non-meaningful (Kohli & Suri, 2000). This study will investigate the relationship between names of products that promote well-being and the titles of television adverts used in marketing the goods. This study hypothesizes that brand names that focus on well-being are effective if the titles are meaningful and well known languages are used.
Effect of Advertisement Persona
Celebrities are well known people in the public. Many studies have noted that the use of celebrities in television adverts result into the production of effective promotion strategies. Celebrities normally echo the representative conceptualization and worth that are directly associated with cultures that have enabled them become famous (Biswas, Hussain & O’Donnell, 2009). Hence, this study hypothesizes that the use of celebrities in television adverts for products that promote well-being is effective.
Moreover, other studies have noted that the age of the celebrity used in an advert has considerable influence on its effectiveness. Thus, marketers normally select celebrities whose ages closely relate to the targeted group. This improves the result of the advert as there is effective communication. On the other hand, well-being is normally associated with younger people. Hence, this study hypothesizes that television adverts that promote well-being normally include young celebrities.
Other studies have also noted the role played by gender on advertisement. Approximately 85% of narration in television adverts are done by men while women are portrayed as housewives (Kim & Yoon, 2012). In addition, females are used in adverts used to promote family products while men appear to benefit from activities undertaken by women. However, numerous changes have taken place and women take more responsibilities (Whipple & Courtney, 1980). Additionally, women improve the effectiveness of adverts. Thus, this study hypothesizes that television adverts that promote well-being are more effective if the person is a female and is a professional.
Effects of Advertising Appeals
Advertising appeal refers to the influence that an advert has on consumers or viewers. It refers to the ability of an advert to capture the attention of the viewers and spark interest. The appeals can be rational, emotional, educational or humorous. Emotional appeals normally evoke emotions. People’s emotions are closely related to well being (Lee, 2007). This study hypothesizes that television adverts for products that promote well-being tend to use emotional content to create appeals.
Methodology
This study will conduct content analysis through investigation of different television commercials. It will involve examination of adverts used in promotion of well-being. A total of 500 commercials will be examined. Additionally, data will be obtained from websites that provide different television commercials. The commercials to be used in the content analysis are those used internationally. This is essential as it enables the production of universally applicable conclusions.
Data to be used in the content analysis will be collected from different categories. However, the categories will closely relate to well-being. The main categories to be used in the content analysis includes food, attractiveness, beverages, health and household appliances. Additionally, the adverts to be used must be those that are aired on countrywide and cable channels. The sample to be used also include only the adverts that contain a human persona. Additionally, the adverts to be used must show gender roles and have specific age groups.
Coding Procedure
The study will use codes in content analysis of the television adverts. Numbers will be assigned to different hypotheses developed for the study. The study will assign the number “1” to represent a meaningful brand name and “0” to represent a non-meaningful title. Additionally, “1” will be assigned to a brand name in local language and “0” for one in a foreign language. The study will also assign “1” to use of known celebrities and “0” to use of less famous individuals. The number “1” will also be assigned to use of older people, inclusion of occupation, use of a male persona and creation of informational appeal. Conversely, “0” will be used in case the persona is less than 45 years old, occupation is not included, a female character is used and emotional appeal is created. The table below shows a summary of the codes and the hypotheses developed by the study.
The study used 120 people to judge the television adverts used in the investigation. The judgement was based on the criteria shown above. Ninety eight judges felt that use of a meaningful brand name in the adverts increased their effectiveness. Additionally, 89 people noted that the use of a local language increased the effectiveness of television adverts. One hundred and two judges agreed that inclusion of celebrities in the content of adverts increased effectiveness. Almost all agreed that the use of a young person in adverts for products that promote well-being increased the effectiveness of the advertising strategies. Nevertheless, fifty six judges recognized that the focus on occupations in the adverts does not have much influence. Furthermore, thirty nine judges considered an informational appeal to be important compared to emotional application of the adverts.
The graph above shows the obtained results in the form of a bar graph. The categories are placed against the percentages obtained from the analysis.
Reflection on the Findings
The content analysis shows main issues that influence consumer behavior. Many past studies observed that the content of television adverts normally employs numerous fields like business and economics, roles of people in the society and communication among others. Through analysis of economic, cultural and social environments, this study examined the roles played by the content of television adverts in determination of consumer behavior. This study focused on brand name, the familiarity, age and gender of the person used and the appeals of an advert.
This paper performed a content analysis to determine the influence that the substance of a television advert has on viewers. It mainly focused on adverts that promoted the well-being of the viewers. It showed that the content of the adverts has considerable influence on the viewers or customers. Adverts that have meaningful brand names, use local or native languages and known personalities are highly effective. Additionally, from the results, it is clear that the inclusion of young people and females in the content of television adverts and the creation of emotional appeal influences consumer behavior.
The main study will not be able to include specific categories of products that encourage well-being. This may cause biases in the expected results. Additionally, it will include judges who are not more than thirty years old in the analysis of the different categories of hypotheses developed. The methodology also experienced difficulty in collection of data. A lot of time was consumed in examination of different television commercials and documentation of names, languages used, celebrities viewed and age and gender of the people in the adverts. In conclusion, the content of television adverts influence consumer behavior.
References
Biswas, S, Hussain, M & O’Donnell, K. (2009). Celebrity Endorsements in advertisements and Consumer Perceptions: A Cross-Cultural Study. Journal of Global Marketing, 22 (5), 121-137.
Kim, K. & Yoon, C. (2012). A Content Analysis of Advertising Transitions: Impact of Brand Name, Persona and Appeals. Journal of Business and Economics Research, 10 (9), 501-511.
Kohli, C, & Suri, R. (2000). Brand names that work: A study of the effectiveness of different types of brand names. Marketing Management Journal, 12(8), 112-120.
Lee, D. (2007). Consumer Well-Being Marketing. Seoul, Korea: Parkyeongsa.
Whipple T, & Courtney, A. (1980). How to portray women in TV commercials. Journal of Advertising Research, 20(2), 53-59.