The Impacts of Billboard Advertising on Product Promotion
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives of the Study
The following are the objectives of the study:
- To find out if advertisers in Enugu metropolis patronize billboard
- To determine the effectiveness of billboard advertising on 7up bottling company product provision and promotion.
- To find out whether it carries the same message with other media in the same
- To find out the contribution of billboards to environmental beauty or otherwise
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Sources of Literature Review
The sources of literature review are gotten from textbooks on advertising, mass media, and introduction to mass communication, encyclopedia and internet.
Within the limited time available for this study, efforts were made to locate literatures in billboards. Such efforts include a trip to the 7up bottling company here in Enugu, National library, Caritas University library.
Review of Related Literature
Bran (1982) states that advertising as an industry that supports our economic system. Without it, new products and business could not be introduced and development in others not announced. Competitive advertising of new products and business powers the “engine of our economy, fostering economic growth and creating jobs in many industries.
He also said that people using advert to gather information before making buying decision, advertising revenues makes possible the “free” media we use not only for entertainment but also for maintenance of democracy by showing us the bounty of our capitalist tree economy. Advertising increase national productivity and improve the standard of living. Since ours is a capitalist society whose economies depends on the exchange of goods and services. Complaints then have less to do with the existence of advertising than with its content and conduct.
Molokwu (1985), advertising agency has four functions namely: planning the strategy for the advert and buying the media in which to run them. The media expected to work with the team to identify the most effective and cost effective way to reach the target audience and negotiate with the media to buy specific spots or space to the best job. For the brand with a growing range of media research available, they have to be literates or able to extract value from media owners, media planners and buyers are usually different people though they have to work closely together.
Bells (1997) states that advertising agencies started in the early nineteenth century as brokers selling and advertising space for newspapers and news sheets. It was only later that they realized that they could make more money and give better service by providing the advertisers with copies to fill space they had sold.
He emphasized that the big break at full service dates back to the late 1960s when a pioneer’s set up specialist agencies to handle media buying. They recognized that this activity was different in character from other agency tasks and argued that by concentrating purely on buying, they could offer better value to advertisers than the traditional agencies. Practices vary from country to country, example; In France, when Carat came to rapidly dominate media business. Media shop could buy blocks of space or time from media owners at a discount and then sell to their clients at whatever price they judged appropriate. They became in effect, media wholesalers and this practice generated revenue for the media house. Bells also stated that one advantage that media house have is, they can easily sell their services to competing conflicting clients in the same field.
Obonna (2003) states that to attract audience, media supply important information to advertisers about their audience. This information is the information of media planning by advertisers agencies and provides an essential service, the descriptive information that media collect include data on the number of people exposed to their content as well as description of readers and viewers of demographic characteristics and in other categories of useful advertisers. In some cases, these data are compiled by the media themselves are substantiated by some outside firm.
A private firm that verifies the readership data released by newspapers, magazines and billboards.
In broadcast media, both potential reception and actual audience measure are made by independent research firms. He added that advertisers vary considerably with the need and objectives of their advertising plans.
Brown (2003) remarks that the advertising budget for consumers durable goods, on the other hand is somewhat different from that of disposable goods, reflecting on the polarities of these advertisers. Marketers of durable goods (such as refrigerator and other major appliances) find the highest concentration of prospects for their products among home owners who are slightly older and better off financially than average television viewer.
He also stated that the product information is important to the buying decision and after represents important advertising components. For this reason, marketers of durable goods concentrate on their target market groups.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter described the method of research design, population of the study, sampling techniques / sample size, description of research instrument, method of data collection and method of data analysis.
Research Design
The research design adopted for this work was the survey research, which involved sampling of opinion of different people using questionnaire in order to get information on what is being studied.
Obasi (2013) states that survey research employs a variety of data gathering instruments or techniques such as the questionnaire, the interview, observation, tests and so on.
Population of the Study
This is the target of the study. It specifies the aggregate of items or persons from whom data pertinent to the study is collected. It is the actual or definite population to be studied and must be obtained from relevant source, office or record book. Population of the study must be stated in figure. (Obasi, 2013).
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA
Data Presentation and Analysis
The researcher distributed a total of 180 copies of 12 items questionnaire to the respondents, out of 180 questionnaire, 174 copies representing 95% of the total number were returned and found useable; while the remaining 6 copies were either badly filled or unreturned which is 5% of the total number of the distributed questionnaire copies. The study, here, made use of the valid copies (174), to represent 100 percent.
Table 4.1.1 shows that out of the 174 respondents, 86 representing 49% were female while 88 representing 51% were male. Those between the age of 26 – 34 were 70 (40%) of the sample, consisting of 30 females and 40 males.
44 (25%) respondents were between the ages of 35 – 45 years, 20 females and 24 males while 46 and above were 16 females and 4 males about (11%).
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Summary
In our present capitalist society whose economics depends on the exchange of goods and services complaints, competitive advertising of products and business powers the “engine of our economy, fostering economic growth and creating jobs in many industries”, Bran (1982). Many practice and behavior exist in our competitive market where the taste of consumers plays a vital role in the designing, pricing production and promotion of goods and services. Basically, the aim of this study has been to capture the impact of billboard advertising in product promotion.
The study revealed that billboard advertising creates awareness of products and services, influence consumers of product and services in their choice of product. Billboard advertising also contribute to nation’s environmental beautification and economic growth.
This study also indicated that billboard advertising messages carries and reinforces electronic and print media messages.
Conclusion
Based on the research conducted by the researcher, it revealed billboard advertising as one of the most important tool for product promotion. It is most suited for intensively distributed impulse goods bought by advertisers by brand name.
According to the research being studied, there is no doubt that billboard advertising promote product and services, billboard creates awareness of product existence especially the newly introduced goods.
Again, billboard generally influences consumer’s decision because it uses irresistible, simple, short and easily understandable slogans that are easy to read and understand making it viewer friendly.
However, billboard advertising should be patronized by advertisers because it do not contradict other advertising messages, thereby it carries the same message on products and services with radio and television, etc.
Government should support billboard advertising because it contributes to economic growth and environmental beautification.
Recommendation
Based on the findings and conclusion of this study, the following recommendations were made.
- APCON should monitor and control advertisers that uses billboard in order for them to follow all the advertising laws and
- Outdoor Advertising Association of Nigeria (OAAN) should endeavor that sites where billboards are cited should be monitored to avoid billboard constituting problems.
- Advertisers should patronize billboard advertising because it is powerful and intrude on the passer-by’s consciousness. Billboard tends to function as reminder
- Government should also encourage and support billboard advertising because it contributes to environmental aesthetics and national economic
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