Perceptions Of Teens And Influence Of Advertising Marketing Essay

The topic I chose for my research is “perceptions of teens and influence of advertising of network operators in Pakistan”. I have researched a lot of articles that have researched in the influence and perception changes of teenagers. In Pakistan a lot of advertisements are now targeting the youth because advertisers have realized that the youth is a major decision maker in the households. Youth influences the children as role models, what adolescents do, the children follow it. So realizing this from what i have learnt and realized is that the youth would go on to become adults and the children would become adolescents which would thereby increase the likely hood that the new youth, who were influenced by the old youth, would be using the same brands. So by influencing the teenagers now would not only cause a brand loyalty within them alone but also a brand loyalty in the soon to be teenagers. There is a boom of network operators in Pakistan. One can see a lot of competitive advertising on the television, billboards, radio and newspapers etc. By looking at this competitive advertising more often i have decided to limit my research to the advertising done by network operators in Pakistan. I have limited myself to this industry because it has boomed over the years and the advertising done by them is the most. The number of advertisements for network operators is so huge that one would find pretty interesting things which includes, how the new network operators try to change the perceptions of brand loyal consumers, how the network operators compete against each other to the extent of being unethical and things like that. There are only a few network operators in the country which are mobilink, ufone, warid, zong and telenor. Jazz enjoys the status of being the first operator in the market and has the largest share while zong is the newest network operator and some way or the other has snatched some market share from the others. This is through their effective marketing strategies, how they have targeted the teenagers and given them what they wanted. They have changed the perceptions of teenagers, convinced them that this product is just as efficient and much more, and made them switch to their network.

1.2: Managerial Concerns

This research which has been focused on the network operator advertisements on the perceptions of teenagers is a first research done in this country. This research can be used by other researchers to gain knowledge and an insight in to the perceptions of adolescents, what makes or breaks their perceptions. This would also be helpful to the marketing students because with this they would know the tactics that are used by advertisers and what weapons do they use in order to attract attention towards their ads and what are some of the variable that make up the perceptions of teens. This research can be carried forward by other researchers and marketers to get a better insight and information in to the teenage mind.

1.3: Student Concerns

As a student this has broadened my horizon. It has made me look beyond the picture, beyond what is being shown. It has broadened my knowledge as to how do advertisers pick and target the different tactics on the consumer. Since one of my majors is marketing, it has lead to a better understanding of this. I am better able to apply the concepts of marketing and made this subject even more wonderful to study and apply.

1.4: Research question

How do network operator advertisements influence the perceptions of teenagers?

1.5: Study objectives

 How advertisers target the youth?

How the perceptions of teenagers are changed?

How are they influenced by the advertisements?

How a brand loyal teenager makes a switch to the other brand?

What attributes are targeted when advertisements are made?

And lastly how network operators fight for their market share through advertising?

1.6: Related definitions

Advertising:

The definition of advertising is as a vehicle to enhance existing brand awareness and at the same time also maintain and improve brand affect

VARIABLES

Skepticism (disbelief and mistrust)

Skepticism is defined as consumers’ negatively valenced attitude toward the motives of and claims made by advertisers (Boush, Friestad, and Rose 1994) Socializing and adolescents’ skepticism toward advertising.(Special Issue on Advertising to Children) Journal of Advertising | September 22, 1998 | Mangleburg, Tamara F.; Bristol, Terry

The article has given four concepts in order to quantify it which are, ‘the advertiser and consumer have different tastes, advertisers intend to persuade, persuasive messages are biased and lastly is that biased messages require different processing strategies than do other messages’. Gaski and Etzels models of sentiment toward advertising

For my research i will quantify this by asking the respondents that ‘consumers are sometimes skeptic about advertisements, is it because of the discrimination between advertisers and consumers interests’, followed up by a five point level of agreement scales.

Product importance

Operationally the author has defined product importance as the central component of enduring involvement, while this involvement is an antecedent of purchase involvement or concern about the purchase. So this means that the more the teenager likes or gives importance to a product, the more will be his or her involvement in its purchase decision.

In this study the respondents were shown an item or a product and then were asked how much important it was to them. This was followed by a five point measurement scale from not important to most important. In my research the same method shall be used but rather than showing the respondents the product a question will be asked that how much is a specific network operator important to them.

Teenage financial resources

Operationally the definition given by the author has been taken from another theory that suggest resources affect the dominance an individual has on resources. In the article it was quantified by asking teenager a question that if he or she could put together $300 for a purchase anytime if he needed to during the previous school year, which was followed by a 5 point likert scale.

This will be quantified by asking the respondents how much is their monthly income which will be followed by numeric figures where the respondent would find himself in between. Apart from that the respondents will be asked how much do they use on their cell phones monthly again followed by numeric values.

Product knowledge

Product knowledge was defined as consumers’ knowledge of product as compared to others. This study utilized the 2-item scale developed by Bloch, Ridgway, and Sherrell (1989): “Relative to others, what do you think about your knowledge of this type of beverage?” and “Relative to your friends, what do you think about your knowledge of this type of beverage?” Anchors for the 7-point Likert scale ranged from “Completely no knowledge” to “Very knowledgeable”. Higher scores indicated better product knowledge. (Relationship between Consumer Information Exposure, Product Knowledge, and Impulse Purchasing Behaviour: An Empirical Analysis Liang, Ying-Ping, Liang, Jin-Long, Duan, Yi-Shiang)

Brand loyalty

Strength of brand loyalty is conceptualized as the intensity of customer loyalty toward the brand, whereas size of brand loyalty is conceptualized as the proportion of consumers in the market loyal to the brand. (Effect of Brand Loyalty on Advertising and Trade Promotions: A Game Theoretic Analysis with Empirical Evidence)

Celebrity Influence

Celebrities are people who enjoy public recognition by a large share of certain

groups of people. Whereas attributes like attractiveness, extraordinary lifestyle or special skills are just examples and specific common characteristics cannot be observed, it can be said that within a corresponding social group celebrities generally differ from the social norm and enjoy a high degree of public awareness. (http://worldlywriter.com/images/portfolio/Proposals/Celebrity_Branding.pdf)

Chapter 2: Literature Review

Boush, David, Friestad, Marian, & Rose, Gregory. (1994) focused their research “Adolescent skepticism toward tv advertising and knowledge of advertiser tactics”, 165-175 on two issues. One is how adolescents think and feel about television advertising and their beliefs about the tactics that advertiser use to persuade them and lastly how all this affects their attitude towards the advertisers. That was the first issue that was discussed. While the secondary issue is to see and evaluate how this advertising does has an impact on the attitudes and beliefs and relate to other individual differences like esteem and skepticism. It was found out that very large changes occur between the ages 11 to 14 and after that age, very little differences occur. There also has been a research that shows that older adolescents are better able to choose and make comparisons between products and their attributes, than the younger ones. They have an accepting of advertisers as important agents. Five hypotheses were laid down in this research, which are:

“Knowledge about advertiser tactics will develop in the direction of adult knowledge during early adolescents (proved)

Skepticism toward advertising will increase with age during early adolescence (proved)

Advertising skepticism will be positively related to knowledge about advertisers tactics (proved)

Self esteem will be positively associated with advertising skepticsim (proved)

Consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence will be negatively related to advertising skepticism (had mixed views)”

Variables taken in the article

belief about advertiser tactics

knowledge about advertiser tactics

Skepticism (disbelief and mistrust)

Self esteem

This article is relevant to my topic because it talks about how teenagers view advertisements; how they know the different tactics of advertisers and how does this affect their perceptions.

Buijzen, Moneik, & Valkenburg, Patti. (2002) in their research Appeals in television advertising: a content analysis of commercials aimed at children and teenagers, 349-364 analyzed 601 commercials and it was found out that the stereotypical commercials are highly directed towards teenagers and children and it showed a strong age disparity in them. Some commercials were targeted at male teens and others were at girl teens. The characteristics of male teen ads were that they targeted ‘having the best, rivalry and attainment’ while as far as characteristics of females were concerned they targeted romance, sexuality and belongingness. The research showed that the purchase intent as well as the brand loyalty is determined largely by consumers’ attitudes and perceptions towards the commercial. The research was done in Netherlands but is applicable to almost all the western societies. With the research it was found out that the teenagers on whom the commercial was targeted were likely to be cool and having the best and seizing opportunities. The research showed that the gender roles of both males and females are stereotyped and pre determined. It was also found out through the research done that teenagers do not like to be addressed with appeals like safety and health.

Variables: values of the teenager (social identity, sexuality etc)

The relevance of this article to my topic is that it has shown how advertisers target the appeals of the teenage boys and girls, and how that influences teenagers to consume their product.

Kraak, Vivica, & Pelletier, David. (1998) in their article, The influence of commercialism on the food purchasing behavior of children and teenage youth, 11(3), got a better insight in to the purchase intent, behaviours and the purchase pressure when it comes to the pressure of children and teenagers by reviewing different marketing literature. Also to examine and evaluate the power of commercialism when it comes to food purchase. Research has found when it comes to eating the patterns have changed over the past 20 years, within the children and adolescents. Now the pattern of food consumption is that they would eat a lot of food from outside their homes, get a larger intake of their daily nutrients in the form of snacks and have more food deliveries from fast food joints. This is the reason why the youth is becoming fat, they just are not following their daily nutritional diet. The youth now doesn’t meet the nutritional plan which leads to fatness. The authors have defined commercialism as ‘the means of transport for communication that creates customer alertness and induces the want for specific products and its mission is to increase customer order’. in this decade it has been seen that the influence of children and teenagers over the family purchase decisions is becoming more and more as days go by. The major reason of this trend of the huge influence of teenagers and children over the purchasing decisions of the family is tv advertisements and prime time programs. After the research done it was found out that out of the whole sample, two thirds of the teenagers had working mothers and half of their mothers work full time. It was also found that boys are less likely to shop for groceries. One important thing to note is that teenage youth identifies product more often by brand name rather than food category. Results show that:

Beverages and salty snacks are one of the most requested food items but mostly sugar dessert products are requested by teenagers

Children usually request for these things while they go for shopping while older teenagers request for these things when they are at home.

The main reason young children ask for candy is because of its presence in the shop but for older teenagers it was thought by their mothers that a lot of factors contribute towards their purchase intentions.

Variables in the article: family, economic power, peers, ethnicity, culture, school environment, commercialism.

The article is related to my topic because of its research on commercialism and the impact of commercialism on the youth. For example in this paper it was said that market research reveals that children and teenage youth identify products more frequently by brand name rather than food category. So this gives me a good idea of how much does commercialization affects the perceptions of youth.

Beatty, Sharon, & Talpade, Salil. (1994) in their article, Adolescent influence in family decision making: a replication with extension, 332-341 drew their information from previous studies which were done by E. Foxman, P. Tansuhaj, and K. Ekstrom’s 1989 study of adolescent influence, so this is an extended version of it. It has evaluated two things, first is the affect of the status of parents on the teenagers authority and secondly it measure the perceptions of gender based differences. Research has shown that the economic position of the parents influences the perceptions of teens. Two theories are used in this study i.e resource theory and relative investment theory. The methodology used in this paper is a list of durables based on previous studies. Using “the most recent purchase from each list, respondents answered 26 influence questions generated from the literature to represent the three stages of the decision. Seven point response scale was used to measure respondent’s perceived contribution. An integrative model of teenage influence as well as measurement concerns by creating a reliable multi item, dual stage scale that examines teens’ influence”. The research has also focused on the economic status of the parents and how it relates to the influence of the adolescent’s decisions in the family. It also shows that how does this all is affected or is related to the financial resources of the teenager as well as the parents. So according to this, a teenager would have more money meaning more to spend on items which would then influence the purchase decisions of the household due to a higher resource in income. This is because the parent would have more respect for the child viewing them as responsible members of the family.

Variables used: product importance, teenage financial resources, single parent households, product knowledge

This article is relevant to my research is because this tells how commercials influence the perceptions of the youth and how does this influence further influence the family decision making. It shows how the influence of teenagers increases as the status of the parents increases.

George P. Moschis, Linda G. Mitchell (1986), in their article ‘television advertising and interpersonal influences on teenagers’ participation in family consumer decisions’ Pages: 181-186, presented the result of a study purely designed to test the effects of television advertising on the purchase intentions of teenagers. The effects of these processes are evaluated in the context of household decision making. Specifically, the research examines the effects of television advertising, family and peer communications about consumption on the teenager’s participation in household decision making.

The hypothesis in this study is that the extent of the teenager’s influence on the household decision process and the Hypothesis taken in this are

“H1: Television advertising viewing is positively related to the youth’s propensity to play a more influential role than his/her parents in: (a) mentioning the need for products, (b) discussing purchase of products, (c) deciding what should be purchased, and (d) actually buying products. (little support)

H2: Concept-orientated family communication structure is positively related to the youth’s propensity to play a more influential role than his/her parents in: (a) mentioning the need for products, (b) seeking information, (c) deciding what should be purchased, and (d) actually purchasing products. (no support)

H3: Socio-oriented family communication structure is negatively related to the youth’s propensity to play a more influential role than his/her parents in: (a) mentioning the need for products, (b) seeking information, (c) deciding what should be purchased, and (d) actually purchasing products. (supported)

H4: The youth’s frequency of communication with peers about consumption will be associated with greater influence in the family decision making process by increasing his/her likelihood of ( a) mentioning the need for products, (b) discussing products with parents, (c) deciding to purchase products, and (d) actually Purchasing products. (no support)

H5: Age is positively related to the adolescent’s propensity to play a more influential role than his/her parents in (a) mentioning the need for products, ( b) discussing consumption with parents, (c) deciding whether to buy certain products, and (t) independently purchasing products. (supported)

H6: With increasing money earned outside the home, young people are less likely than their parents to (a) mention the need for products, (b) discuss the purchase of products, (c) decide whether to buy certain products, and (d) independently purchase products for individual or family use. (supported)

H7: Female adolescents are more likely than their male counterparts to have influence over his/her parents in (a) mentioning the need for products, (b) discussing purchase of products, (c) deciding what should be purchased, and (t) actually buying products. (offers support)”

Variables: family, television, peers. the dependent variables are (a) the extent to which the child mentions the need, (b) discusses buying, (c) decides, and (d) actually purchases products for child’s and family’s use in relation to other family members.

This is relevant to my topic because this talks about how television makes a change in the perceptions of teenagers and how this influences their decision making process.

Roshan, Ahuja, Michels, Tara, Walker, Mary, & Weissbuch, Mike. (2004) in ‘Teen perceptions of disclosure in buzz’, 151-159, focused their study to investigate teenagers’ perceptions about buzz marketing and the issue of disclosure. As far as the definition for buzz marketing is concerned, there is no fixed, it varies from person to person. Hazily speaking buzz is something catchy, a word of mouth that is going around the society. Commercializing word of mouth or the buzz is known as buzz marketing.

The method used for this study was a structured focus group methodology. The main objectives of this research was to use a qualitative methodology, focus groups, to examine teens perceptions on buzz marketing in general and obtain teens opinions on the issue of disclosure. In total there were 24 teens who took part in one of the four

Focus groups as follows:

“1 Group 1: girls 13 and 14: six participants.

2 Group 2: boys 13 and 14: seven participants.

3 Group 3: girls 15 and 16: six participants.

4 Group 4: boys 15 and 16: five participants.”

The paper finds that teenagers like being buzz agents. They like doing this job and usually stay secretive when doing their jobs. They also don’t see anything unethical when it comes to not revealing their status.

This is relevant to my topic as it tries to identify the role of teenagers in buzz marketing.

J. Bush, Alan, Martin, Craig, & D. Bush, Victoria (2004), in the article, Sports celebrity influence on the behavioural intentions of generation Y, found that adolescents spend around 153 billion dollars on everything. In order to seek the latest products and fashion labels, every trend conscious teenager makes use of media and advertising. Now advertisers have greatly realized the importance of understanding the role model influences and they effectively target and communicate to the market. In this paper the effect of athlete role models on teenagers purchase intentions and behavior is examined. In this study a survey total of 218 adolescents are discussed..

In the paper the definition of role models was given which said, “Role models can be anyone the individual consumer comes in contact with who can potentially influence the consumer’s consumption decision”. It has been seen that the fastest growing industry in the country today is Sports and entertainment industry. Since this is the fastest growing industry, it has been seen that major advertising agencies are expanding their services to include sports marketing and sponsorship opportunities to their clients. In this study the Gen Y was selected as a sample. There has been a great deal of variation

The hypothesis used in this paper is:

“H1: Teenagers’ athlete role model influence is positively related to product switching and complaint behavior. (not supported)

H2: Teenagers’ athlete role model influence is positively related to favorable or positive word-of mouth behavior. (supported)

H3: Teenagers’ athlete role model influence is positively related to brand loyalty. (proved)

H4: Female teenagers’ athlete role model influence is more positively related to (a) product switching and complaint behavior, (b) favorable word-of-mouth behavior, and (c) brand loyalty than male teenagers. (H4a not supported, H4b proved)

It was found that females agreed more than males that athlete role models influence them to buy certain brands.”

Variables: occupational goals, career aspirations, role of model influence, behavior and brand loyalty

This is relevant to my topic as it focuses its research on how much does the celebrity endorsement attracts consumers buying pattern and how their perceptions about the sports celebrity influences it.

Bun Lee, E, & Browne, Louise. (1995) in their article ‘Effects of television advertising on African American teenagers’, 523-536 did a research which showed that television advertising greatly influences the minds of consumers, especially children and adolescents. The use of African Americans actors is increasing with the increase in the population of African. With the previous researches done, it has been quite evident that African American teenagers watch more television than the White teens and are most likely to watch and evaluate television ads as being more realistic and believable. The research done in this is mainly to find out the rate at which African American teenagers respond to ads which show African American athletes, the effect of these athletes on the perception of people and how does this create awareness and lastly how does this affect the minds of children and youth to desire te product. The measures used in this paper were questionnaires and the alternative media preferences that were examined. One part of the questionnaire has focused on athletic shoes and athletic shoe commercials. The respondents were asked if they were wearing athletic shoes. If they were, the second question was what were the brand name and its price. It was found out that when It comes to selection of shoe brand, celebrity endorsements are highly influential. “The perceived influence of African American sports figures in the ads was measured by asking, “How much influence do you think African American sports celebrities have on your decision to buy a particular brand of athletic shoes?”. In order to measure the perceptions of influence of African American celebrities endorsing the ads people were asked, “How much influence do you think African American sports celebrities have on your decision to buy a particular brand of athletic shoes?”

Variables: perceived influence of celebrities, perceived influence of sports celebrities

This article is relevant to my research topic because this article shows how the ethnicity changes the buying behavior of consumers.

Pechmann, Cornelia, & Ratneshwar, S. (1994) in their article, ‘The effects of antismoking and cigarette advertising on young adolescents’ perceptions of peers who smoke, 236-251, focused their research to investigate the effects of antismoking and cigarette advertising on nonsmoking youths’ perceptions of a peer who smokes. People were shown certain anti smoking advertisements and judged the smoker in the ad to be relatively juvenile and unspectacular. The main focus of this was on the perceptions of people rather than brand attitudes because it was seen with the help of old research that there is a strong association between the perceptions of teens smokers and smoking initiation. In this the usage intentions or behaviors were not considered. There has been research over the past which explains that anti smoking activists consider some type of ads to be very troublesome for example ads which show an attractive model or the ones who are engaged in exciting stuff which might cause an association with the impressionable youth between the desirable traits of models and people who smoke. There are teenagers who would not be convinced straight away that smoking is cool and one appears more glamorous because these teens have been taught that smoking is not healthy for the body and not intelligent to smoke. The hypothesis that have been used in the article is:

“Hl: Young adolescents who are exposed to anti-smoking ads (vs. unrelated-to-smoking ads, i.e., control) should (a) judge a smoker more negatively, (b) produce more negative inferences on the basis of the smoker label, and (c) generate more negatively valence thoughts regarding trait information about the smoker.”

There was the same thing that was used over and over in smoking ads which mostly were models who were depicted as sexy, cool and popular. There was a lot of skepticism towards this type of advertising so teenagers were not affected by it much even though the ads clearly depicted that smoking leads to desirable psychosocial consequences. Apart from this the advertisers of smoking ads caused the youth or the subjects to perceive the information given more positively which resulted in good thoughts about the person. Even with this, their negative perceptions about the smoker did not change that much and they evaluated a smoker the same way. In addition to this those positive thoughts about the smoker did not cause a higher ratings in terms of his appeal, glamour and maturity one of the majors reasons of the weak effects of these advertisements was because of the fact that those ads featured familiar brands that are more promoted by others in the category. The most important reason and explanation as to why did the ads affect thoughts but not their judgments because these ads conflicted with the youth’s strongly held beliefs that doing this is unhealthy and not intelligent.

This is relevant to my topic because it focuses on one major topic which is smoking ads influence and perceptions that are changed due to those ads. My research topic is related to this article as it seeks to determine the relation between perceptions of teenagers and advertisements and if they are influenced by advertisements, then how?

Hobbs, Renee, & Broder, Sharon. (2006) in their article ‘How adolescent girls interpret weight-loss advertising’, 719-730, talk basically about the deceptive advertising done throughout the world. The study is focused on weight-loss advertising done mainly on teenage girls. In this research a diverse sample of 7 different geographic regions was taken to get a good idea of the adolescent’s perceptions towards weight-loss advertising. these days girls are more focused upon their physical appearances so they try to do anything that would help them lose weight. It was found out the in the high income nations this is at a boom and the sales of weight loss products has doubled over the years. The sample from the population was shown TV advertisements and print ads and was asked how they rate them and what they perceive about them.

The study population included 42 teenagers who were between the ages of 9 till 17 from 7 geographic regions in America. The sample was asked about their interpretations towards the print and TV ads being shown to them. All the participants were shown 7 ads which included print and tv ads.. the questions were open ended and they were something like ‘What’s the first thing you think about when you look at this ad? What do you notice specifically when you look at this ad? Which elements catch your eye? How do you feel when you look at this ad? What does this remind you of?’

This is relevant to my topic because this tells us that how much a person would believe the false and deceptive advertising if it emotionally is related to them or targeted towards them. This only proves the point that advertisers do actually have the power to control and change the perceptions of teenagers.

Variable taken from this article is deceptive advertising.

Variables from literature reviews

Knowledge about advertiser tactics,

Skepticism (disbelief and mistrust)

Self esteem,

Values of the teenager (social identity, sexuality etc)

Family,

Economic power,

Peers,

Ethnicity,

Culture,

School environment,

Commercialism,

Product importance,

Teenage financial resources,

Single parent households,

Product knowledge,

Occupational goals,

Career aspirations,

Role of model influence,

Positive word of mouth,

Brand loyalty,

Perceived influence of celebrities,

Television,

Deceptive advertising.