Description
please check the project report on Survey on Advertising Skepticism about MNO and Banks
with two advertising channels..
Study to find the advertisement skepticism about MNOs and banks through two main media of advertising. Researchers: M.Nadeem Nasir Javed Saqib Ali Bajwa [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
ABSTRACT This Research has been conducted in order to find out the believability or trust that the people have on the advertisements through different media. For this research the final analysis were performed on the 118 correct responses and correlation analysis were performed to find the relationship between variables and regression analysis were performed to check the validity for the hypothesis. The analysis of the research revealed that there is a positive and significant alliance of self esteem and social desirable responding towards advertising skepticism and also it was found out that the social desirable responding has a greater influence over the advertising skepticism. The results also depict that social desirable responding should be focused for making any advertisement for increasing its credibility. For the best knowledge of researchers this is the first research in which the skepticism towards the advertisements is observed through the self esteem and social desirable responding and its impact on the media used for advertisements was checked out for its credibility which has not been focused before. INTRODUCTION Advertisement is something that comes directly with the contact of the customers, who judge that weather the advertisement is probable or not on the basis of few reason which include the personal behaviors of the consumers, the past experiences of the consumers, the culture and environment of the consumers and the most importantly is the standing of the source or of the intermediate through which the advertisement is being coming into the contact of the customers. These all are the few main factors or causes which play a vital role and enable the customers of a product to judge that weather an advertisement is believable or not.
The purpose of this research is to find out the advertising credibility of two different products and service providers through the two main heads of media by considering skepticism towards advertisements and finding this skepticism through self-esteem and social desirable responding. The two main products and service providers were chosen on the basis of the consumers preferably as the mobile network operators and the banks respectively. From the telecom sector the mobile network operators have been choose on the basis of their large number of customers and the banks have been choose on the basis of their relation basis services providing business. Both of the businesses provide different sort of facilities to their customers and that is why the two main sectors were chosen for the research as they also differ on the basis of their customers targeting and their advertising campaigns. The mediums for evaluating these two above mentioned competency providers were selected with great care as they play a great role to assess the overall performance and the trustworthiness of mobile network operators and the banks. The users for different products and services have various uncertainties about the advertisings and the results of those products and services an in those advertisements. It is also one of those realities that when an advertisement is shown to the consumers then it is most often happens that the advertised products and services do have different meanings in the minds of the customers to whom these products are being shown to, and also there is most of the times in the minds of the consumers that the amount of information provided in the advertisement is only up to the extent the business whose advertisement it is want its consumers to know about it (Lamons, 2002). This is why the television and the newspapers these two main medias have been select to find out the actual sincerity of the two businesses which are mentioned earlier, and the reason for selecting the television is to know the responses of the people who believe that television is the most credible source of advertisements and the cause for selecting the newspapers is to analyze the customers perspective about the trust on the advertisement through this channel, also in Pakistan the television and the newspapers are the two main mediums on which all the advertising businesses mainly depend and focus because near the people these medias are considered as most genuine. To understand the behavior and conduct of the people in the society and with its help finding out the actual integrity of the advertisements the skepticism and the self-worth of the people has been focused so that the true picture of the integrity of the advertisement could be observe and for this purpose the societal
responding of the people has also been under the hub in order to get the clear study of the people who were to selected in order to get their response for the advertising authority judgment. In Pakistan there are so many medias are involved for the promotion and advertisements of different products, and from these medias the two earliest medias in the history of Pakistan and which have most influence on the consumers perception when it comes to advertisement are the television and the newspapers, therefore in this specific study to find out the advertisement credibility in Pakistan the television and on the other hand the newspapers were selected, also the mobile network operators and the banks were taken as the two types of the products or service providers to know the credibility of the medias and the reason for choosing them is that these two are in the direct or indirect linkage with every person in Pakistan. Also in Pakistan the people have different opinions about the different sort of advertisements, the reason for this difference in the attitudes of people was necessary to be observed in order to get the true and actual results of the research that’s why for the first time in Pakistan the dissimilar behaviors of the people are judged through social desirable responding and its impact on the skepticism towards advertisements and this way the actual representation of the consumers behavior towards the credibility of the advertisements and their mediums has been originated. LITERATURE REVIEW Advertising Credibility and Product Type: Credibility is the amount of judgment of the receivers upon the source who is providing some information to them which actually base on the different observations of the person receiving that information (Adler and Rodman, 2000, p. 421). It is a common assumption that when the people come to know that a person is trying to make them convince for something then most often they make up their minds to not believe that person as he is going to take something from them (Hovland et al., 1982, p. 23). Advertising is based on arguing techniques with the purpose of convincing the customers and making them believe the information in it (Cameron, Hallahan (1999b). Some of the research’s have also shown that most of the consumers like the advertisements containing puffery (Haan and Berkey, 2002).
Media Credibility: The importance of credibility of the source has its roots in the history and therefore its importance has been proved through history (Pendleton, 1999, p. 11). The believability of the advertisements mediums is broadly based on the perception of the viewers and the viewers trust depends on the total amount of ads being attached to that medium (Kiousis, 2001). Every medium or source of advertisement is different from the other source or medium and that how the mediums are indifferent from each other (Aaker and Brown (1972). Advertising Skepticism: Skepticism is mostly connected with the idea that it is the doubt in the minds of the consumers about the argues presented in different ads and due to these doubts the consumers don’t believe the product and even the source for that product (Obermiller and Spangenberg, 1998). The skepticism is the idea in the consumers mind that if it is more in the consumers mind then he or she will be more unclear and uncertain but if it is low then the amount of certainty of the consumer increases about the produce as well as medium (Obermiller and Spangenberg, 1998; Hardesty et al., 2002). The consumers are no believing about the advertisements and therefore they believe those information which have some common points between each other (Harris, 1991). Self Esteem: The main objective of self esteem is to increase the self concept of an individual (Markus and Nurius, 1986). Thinking of the customers is something which builds self esteem in them and this leads to make them decide that which products they don’t like and creates distance between them and the products are not important in their opinion (Shavitt, 1989; 1990). In the study (Sirgy, 1982, pp. 289-90) it was taken out that for the strong self esteem it is required that the person possessing self esteem should take care of his own character, because it will then be easier for him to reject all the products that are not suitable to his character. Social Desirable Responding: The social recognition of a person is that how he thinks that which societal group he belongs to and what are the values of that society members and then adopts those special attributes and
work exactly according to the values which are offered by that social cultural group (Tajfel ,1982, p. 31). Specific rules in a culture are that which build the concept of self esteem in an individual, therefore when a person acts more strongly to these rules and systems then the more new sort of self concept behaviors comes to exist(Kelman, 1961; Verplanken and Holland, 2002). The effects of a region and country’s demographics effect on the customers choices about the trustworthy of the commercials as in the research of (Pornpitakpan, 2004). Liu (2002, p. 123) it was found out that customers with more education have more positive attitude towards ad trustworthy whereas in another study ( Shavitt et al. 1998, p. 7) it was discovered that customers with less learning and the buyers who are young are more likely to have a positive extinct for the ads believability.
“On the basis of the literature review presented the following hypothesis have been proposed”. H1: There is a positive and significant relation between advertising skepticism and self esteem. Table 4 indicates that there is a positive correlation (R: 0.184) between advertising skepticism and self esteem which is also significant at 0.046 level, therefore H1 is accepted. H2: There is a positive and significant relation between advertising skepticism and social desirable responding. Table 4 indicates that there is a positive correlation (R: 0.244) between advertising skepticism and social desirable responding which is also significant at 0.008 level, therefore H2 is accepted. H3: There is a positive and significant relation between self esteem and social desirable responding. Table 4 indicates that there is a positive correlation (R: 0.170) between self esteem and social desirable responding but is not significant at 0.065 level by a very small margin, therefore H3 is rejected.
METHODOLOGY
The research has been conducted in order to find out that which type of products/services are mostly liked by the customers and also that which are the media that make customers to think about the trustworthy of that product or service being advertised through them. The consumer’s behavior towards advertisement in relationship toward ambiguity and sense of worth has also been surveyed. In favor of this rationale a sample of 120 questionnaires was filled from the University of Sargodha, Sargodha which is one of the prominent universities of Pakistan. The questionnaire which is endorsed for this research was taken from the studies of Prendergast et al.’s (2002b); Spangenberg’s (1998); and Boush et al. (1994). The questionnaire for this particular research were filled from the students of different departments of the university and also from the Central Library of the University and the time taken by the entire questionnaire to be filled for this research took about four days. For this specific research two products were selected such that banks and MNOs (Mobile Network Operators) which are mainly in Pakistan are named as Mobilink, Telenor, UFone, ZONG and Warid on the basis of the customers high interest towards them and two media were selected as print media (Newspaper) and electronic media (Television) on the basis of their interaction with people and also because in Pakistan all the product and service providers usually use these two medias to advertise their products through them. Out of the total 120 questionnaires, 119 questionnaires were returned, one of the questionnaires was lost during the process and the remaining one of them was wrongly filled. In order to check the response of the respondents five point Likert type scale was adopted representing 1= Strongly Disagree up to 5= Strongly Agree. The questionnaire for the research consisted of a total 22 questions out of which one question was about the age of respondents and one was about their age respectively, the additional 20 questions were related to the variables of the research, the respondents of the research consisted of 68 male and 50 female respondents. Descriptive statistics and the comparison of mean have been used to study the response of the sample. The Cronbach's Alpha revealed the result for the overall items of scale used in this research to measure the variables on the basis of the respondent’s response although the result of the combined cronbach's alpha was not the highest one (0.653) but as this research has focused on the various dimensions related to the advertising and its mediums and also observed the behaviors of the different advertising audience that is the reason why this reliability is also an encouraging one, also as this is an exploratory research therefore the alpha is acceptable (Hair et al., 1998). Correlation analysis was used to study the relationship between the variables. Regression analysis was also applied in order to test the hypothesis for this research.
DATA ANALYSIS Table 1 “Gender” Gender of respondents Frequency Male respondents Female respondents Total respondents 68 50 118 Table 1.1 “Age” Age of respondents 17-19 Years 20-22 Years 23 Years and above Total
Frequency 28 82 8 118
Tables 1 and 1.1 show that that there are total “118” respondents in which “68” respondents are male and “50” are females and 28 respondent’s age is between 17 to 19 years, 82 respondents are between 20 to 22 and 8 respondents are of the age of 23 years and above respectively. Table 2 Descriptive Statistics of means
N Claims made in the advertisements of all Banks are true and can be believed Claims which are made in the advertisements of mobile network operators Advertisements by mobile network operators (Ufone, Mobilink etc) on T.V are convincing Advertisements by mobile network operators (Ufone, Mobilink etc) in newspapers are convincing Advertisements by banks on T.V are convincing for people Advertisements by banks in Newspapers are convincing for people 118 118 3.4576 3.5424 1.03481 0.86374 118 3.4322 0.91967 118 3.7119 0.98798 118 3.0424 1.16497 118 Mean 3.0763 Std. Deviation 1.00560
Table 2 shows that advertisements on the television by the mobile network operators are very much convincing because of the related item has a high mean value as compared to the item related to the believability upon the claims made in those advertisements because it has low mean, therefore the mobile network operators should focus on increasing the believability of the customers related to their claims in their different advertisements.
Table 3 Comparison of Means w.r.t “Gender”
Gender
Claims made in the advertisements of all Banks are true and can be believed Claims which are made in the advertisements of mobile network operators Advertisements by mobile network operators (Ufone, Mobilink etc) on T.V are convincing Advertisements by mobile network operators (Ufone, Mobilink etc) in newspapers are convincing 3.4853 68 .90591 3.3600 50 .94242 3.4322 118 .91967 Advertisements by banks on T.V are convincing for people Advertisements by banks in Newspapers are convincing for people
Male
Mean N Std. Deviation
3.1029 68 1.02418 3.0400 50 .98892 3.0763 118 1.00560
2.8676 68 1.20824 3.2800 50 1.06981 3.0424 118 1.16497
3.7059 68 1.09352 3.7200 50 .83397 3.7119 118 .98798
3.5588 68 1.09793 3.3200 50 .93547 3.4576 118 1.03481
3.5882 68 .90166 3.4800 50 .81416 3.5424 118 .86374
Female
Mean N Std. Deviation
Total
Mean N Std. Deviation
In the table 3 the item with the maximum mean regarding male respondent is the one which studies that the ads which the mobile network operators advertise through the television media are very much effective as compared to the other media such as newspapers similarly the female respondents have also grade the same medium as more credible for the mobile network operators as compared to others media, the male have responded that the claims which are made in the advertisements of the mobile network operators are not trustable regarding their deals in those ads. On the other hand the female group has responded that the claims which are made in the ads of the banks are not trustworthy as compared to mobile network operators. Now when the combine mean is analyzed then it is found out that again the advertisement related to the mobile network operators are very much induced as compared to the ads regarding banks on different mediums where as the combined mean of both genders suggest that the claims in the mobile network operators are not the one which can be believed and this is something which is damaging the credibility of the mobile network ads.
Table 3.1 comparison of Means w.r.t. “Age”
Age
Claims made in the advertisemen ts of all Banks are true and can be believed Claims which are made in the advertisements of mobile network operators Advertisements by mobile network operators (Ufone, Mobilink etc) on T.V are convincing Advertisements by mobile network operators (Ufone, Mobilink etc) in newspapers are convincing Advertiseme nts by banks on T.V are convincing for people Advertisement s by banks in Newspapers are convincing for people
1 7 to 1 9
Mean N Std. Deviation
3.0357 28 .88117 3.0976 82 1.06121 3.0000 8 .92582 3.0763 118 1.00560
2.8571 28 1.23871 3.0854 82 1.16747 3.2500 8 .88641 3.0424 118 1.16497
3.8214 28 .86297 3.6341 82 1.02454 4.1250 8 .99103 3.7119 118 .98798
3.6071 28 .99403 3.3293 82 .88965 3.8750 8 .83452 3.4322 118 .91967
3.3929 28 1.13331 3.5000 82 1.00922 3.2500 8 1.03510 3.4576 118 1.03481
3.5714 28 .83571 3.5000 82 .90608 3.8750 8 .35355 3.5424 118 .86374
2 0 to 2 2
Mean N Std. Deviation
23 years and above
Mean N Std. Deviation
Total
Mean N Std. Deviation
The table shows that the respondents aged between 17-19 years have a greater believe on the ads of the mobile network operators ads through the television and the same sort of response was obtained through the other respondents age ranging from 20 years and above it which shows that the advertisements by MNOs on the television are very much convincing for the customers of those networks. On the other hand the respondents age between 17 to 22 years rated that those claims which are made in the advertisements of the mobile network operators are not true and cannot be trusted while the age group respondents belonging to 23 years and above responded against the claims which are made in the ads of the different banks in newspapers, therefore the banks should focus on other media rather than newspapers.
Table 4 “Correlation”
Advertising Skepticism Advertising Skepticism Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) Social Desirable Responding Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). 0 .1 8 4
*
Self Esteem
Social Desirable Responding
1
0 .1 8 4
*
0 .2 4 4
**
0 .0 4 6 1
0 .0 0 8 0 .1 7 0 0 .0 6 5
Self Esteem
0 .0 4 6 0 .2 4 4
**
0 .1 7 0 0 .0 6 5 118
1
0 .0 0 8 118
118
There is a positive and highly significant relationship between advertising skepticism and social desirable responding (r =0.244*, Sig: 0.008). There is positive and significant relationship between advertising skepticism and the self esteem (r = 0.184*, Sig: 0.460). There is positive but no significant relationship between social desirable responding and self esteem (r =0.170, Sig: .065). Table 5 “Regression”
R 0 .2 8 4
a
Std. Error of the Estimate 0.54733
Durbin-Watson 1 .7 1 1
F 5 .0 3 7
Sig. 0 .0 0 8
a
a. Predictors: (Constant), Social Desirable Responding, Self Esteem b. Dependent Variable: Advertising Skepticism
Regression analysis have been performed to check out that whether the hypothesis are suitable or not. Through regression analysis it was discovered that the R value (correlation) is 0.284 which
shows a strong association between dependent and independent variables. The F value (5.037) is significant at 0.008 levels. The Durbin-Watson is also within the standard ranges which explain that there is no autocorrelation. On the basis of regression analysis conducted to test our hypothesis we accept our hypothesis i.e. there is a significant positive relationship of advertising skepticism towards self esteem and social desirable responding.
Table 5.1 “Coefficients”
Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients B (Constant) Self Esteem Social Desirable Responding 2 .3 2 0 0 .1 2 9 0 .1 9 4 Std. Error 0 .3 9 7 0 .0 8 0 0 .0 8 0 0 .1 4 7 0 .2 1 9 Beta Sig. 0 .0 0 0 0 .1 0 9 0 .0 1 7
a. Dependent Variable: Advertising Skepticism
In this coefficients table the beta value of self esteem is lower as compared to the beta value of social desirable responding, therefore the social desirable responding with the beta value (0.219) has a greater impact on the advertising skepticism and is also significant at the level of (0.017). FINDINGS AND MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS On the basis of the results of the data analysis through various different responses, it was observed that the when it came to select the media for the two product types such as mobile network operators and banks in order to find out their advertising credibility then it was observed that the respondent have chosen the television as the best sort of media for the advertisements of the mobile network operators as compared to their advertisements through newspapers, also the respondents suggest that newspapers are the credible source of advertisements for the banks as compared through television media therefore on the basis of these results the mobile network operators should focus on the ads through television but they should also focus that the claims in those ads are as such which are fulfilled and the people can trust on them while the banks should
focus on the newspapers because their claims in those ads have been rated as more true as compared to the claims of the mobile network operators in their television ads. In this research it has been found out that the respondents belonging to all age groups and genders have highly rated the television as a source of credible advertisements as compared to the newspapers for all sort of products credibility. In the correlation analysis it was found out that there is a positive relation between advertising skepticism, self esteem and social desirable responding but just the relation between self esteem and social desirable responding is not significant thus the results reveal that the skepticism towards the advertisements is positively tended by the social desire response of the people or customers. The research also revealed that from the two independent variables i.e. self esteem and social desirable responding the socio desirable responding has a greater impact towards the dependent variable advertising skepticism. Therefore on the basis of these pieces of information the credibility of the advertisements can be increased by focusing on the social responses of the people as by understanding the people responses in a society the believability of customers can be increased towards any product and service through different mediums. LIMITAITONS The research which has been conducted has unlimited boundaries which should be addressed in the future. The data for this research has been collected from the students of the University of Sargodha, Sargodha as it should be conducted with the responses of the other people outside the University as well. The banks and mobile network operators were selected only on the basis of their high number of customers to check their credibility whereas the other product and service providers were ignored which should be addressed as well. The two mediums selected for the research were television and newspapers and the other important media were not used for conducting this research such as internet, radio and cable network etc. The media credibility was studied out with the help of skepticism towards the different advertisements through different medias, as the media were limited therefore the skepticism of the customers towards the other media is still to be addressed by other researches. As the research is limited to one city therefore the different behaviors regarding other cities are still to be figured out with the increase in the sample size of the research.
REFERENCES Aaker, D.A. and Brown, P.K. (1972), “Evaluating vehicle source effects”, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 11-16. Adler, R.B. and Rodman, G. (2000), Understanding Human Communication, 7th ed., Harcourt College Publishers, Ft Worth, TX. Cameron, G.T. (1994), “Does publicity outperform advertising? An experimental test of the third party endorsement”, Journal of Public Relations Research, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 185-207. Haan, P. and Berkey, C. (2002), “A study of the believability of the forms of puffery”, Journal of Marketing Communications, Vol. 8, pp. 243-56. Hair, J.F., Anderson, R.E., Tatham, R.L. and Black, W.C. (1998), Multivariate Data Analysis, 5th ed., Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Hallahan, K. (1999b), “No, Virginia, it’s not true what they say about publicity’s ‘implied thirdparty endorsement’ effect”, Public Relations Review, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 331-50, available at:http://lamar.colostate.edu/ , pr/novirginia.pdf (accessed 2 September 2004). Hardesty, D.M., Carlson, J.P. and Bearden, W.O. (2002), “Brand familiarity and invoice price effects on consumer evaluation: the moderating role of skepticism toward advertising”, Journal of Advertising, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 1-15. Harris, T.L. (1991), The Marketer’s Guide to Public Relations: How Today’s Top Companies are Using the New PR to Gain a Competitive Edge, Wiley, New York, NY. Hovland, C.L., Janis, I.L. and Kelley, H.H. (1982), Communication and Persuasion: Psychological Studies of Opinion Change, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT. Kelman, H.C. (1961), “Process of opinion change”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 25, pp. 5778. Kiousis, S. (2001), “Public trust or mistrust? Perceptions of media credibility in the information age”, Mass Communication and Society, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 381-403. Lamons, B. (2002), “Advertising drops ball, new champ is PR”, Marketing News, Vol. 36 No. 19. Liu, W. (2002), “Advertising in China: product branding and beyond”, Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 117-25. Markus, H. and Nurius, P. (1986), “Possible selves”, American Psychologist, Vol. 41 No. 9, pp. 954-69.
Obermiller, C. and Spangenberg, E. (1998), “Development of a scale to measure skepticism toward advertising”, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 159-86. Pendleton, S.C. (1999), “‘Man’s most important food is fat:’ the use of persuasive techniques in Procter & Gamble’s public relations campaign to introduce Crisco, 1911-1913”, Public Relations Quarterly, Vol. 44 No. 1, pp. 6-19. Pornpitakpan, C. (2004), “The persuasiveness of source credibility: a critical review of five decades’ evidence”, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 34 No. 2, pp. 243-81. Shavitt, S., Lowrey, P. and Haefner, J. (1998), “Public attitudes toward advertising: more favorable than you might think”, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 38 No. 4, pp. 7-22. Shavitt, S. (1989), “Operationalizing functional theories of attitude”, in Pratkanis, A.R., Breckler, S.J. and Greenwald, A.G. (Eds), Attitude Structure and Function, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 311-38. Shavitt, S. (1990), “The role of attitude objects in attitude functions”, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 26, pp. 124-48. Sirgy, M.J. (1982), “Self-concept in consumer behaviour: a critical review”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 9, December, pp. 287-300. Tajfel, H. (1982), Social Identity and Intergroup Behavior, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Verplanken, B. and Holland, R.W. (2002), “Motivated decision making: effects of activation and self-centrality of values on choices and behavior”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 82 No. 3, pp. 434-47.
doc_142572790.pdf
please check the project report on Survey on Advertising Skepticism about MNO and Banks
with two advertising channels..
Study to find the advertisement skepticism about MNOs and banks through two main media of advertising. Researchers: M.Nadeem Nasir Javed Saqib Ali Bajwa [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
ABSTRACT This Research has been conducted in order to find out the believability or trust that the people have on the advertisements through different media. For this research the final analysis were performed on the 118 correct responses and correlation analysis were performed to find the relationship between variables and regression analysis were performed to check the validity for the hypothesis. The analysis of the research revealed that there is a positive and significant alliance of self esteem and social desirable responding towards advertising skepticism and also it was found out that the social desirable responding has a greater influence over the advertising skepticism. The results also depict that social desirable responding should be focused for making any advertisement for increasing its credibility. For the best knowledge of researchers this is the first research in which the skepticism towards the advertisements is observed through the self esteem and social desirable responding and its impact on the media used for advertisements was checked out for its credibility which has not been focused before. INTRODUCTION Advertisement is something that comes directly with the contact of the customers, who judge that weather the advertisement is probable or not on the basis of few reason which include the personal behaviors of the consumers, the past experiences of the consumers, the culture and environment of the consumers and the most importantly is the standing of the source or of the intermediate through which the advertisement is being coming into the contact of the customers. These all are the few main factors or causes which play a vital role and enable the customers of a product to judge that weather an advertisement is believable or not.
The purpose of this research is to find out the advertising credibility of two different products and service providers through the two main heads of media by considering skepticism towards advertisements and finding this skepticism through self-esteem and social desirable responding. The two main products and service providers were chosen on the basis of the consumers preferably as the mobile network operators and the banks respectively. From the telecom sector the mobile network operators have been choose on the basis of their large number of customers and the banks have been choose on the basis of their relation basis services providing business. Both of the businesses provide different sort of facilities to their customers and that is why the two main sectors were chosen for the research as they also differ on the basis of their customers targeting and their advertising campaigns. The mediums for evaluating these two above mentioned competency providers were selected with great care as they play a great role to assess the overall performance and the trustworthiness of mobile network operators and the banks. The users for different products and services have various uncertainties about the advertisings and the results of those products and services an in those advertisements. It is also one of those realities that when an advertisement is shown to the consumers then it is most often happens that the advertised products and services do have different meanings in the minds of the customers to whom these products are being shown to, and also there is most of the times in the minds of the consumers that the amount of information provided in the advertisement is only up to the extent the business whose advertisement it is want its consumers to know about it (Lamons, 2002). This is why the television and the newspapers these two main medias have been select to find out the actual sincerity of the two businesses which are mentioned earlier, and the reason for selecting the television is to know the responses of the people who believe that television is the most credible source of advertisements and the cause for selecting the newspapers is to analyze the customers perspective about the trust on the advertisement through this channel, also in Pakistan the television and the newspapers are the two main mediums on which all the advertising businesses mainly depend and focus because near the people these medias are considered as most genuine. To understand the behavior and conduct of the people in the society and with its help finding out the actual integrity of the advertisements the skepticism and the self-worth of the people has been focused so that the true picture of the integrity of the advertisement could be observe and for this purpose the societal
responding of the people has also been under the hub in order to get the clear study of the people who were to selected in order to get their response for the advertising authority judgment. In Pakistan there are so many medias are involved for the promotion and advertisements of different products, and from these medias the two earliest medias in the history of Pakistan and which have most influence on the consumers perception when it comes to advertisement are the television and the newspapers, therefore in this specific study to find out the advertisement credibility in Pakistan the television and on the other hand the newspapers were selected, also the mobile network operators and the banks were taken as the two types of the products or service providers to know the credibility of the medias and the reason for choosing them is that these two are in the direct or indirect linkage with every person in Pakistan. Also in Pakistan the people have different opinions about the different sort of advertisements, the reason for this difference in the attitudes of people was necessary to be observed in order to get the true and actual results of the research that’s why for the first time in Pakistan the dissimilar behaviors of the people are judged through social desirable responding and its impact on the skepticism towards advertisements and this way the actual representation of the consumers behavior towards the credibility of the advertisements and their mediums has been originated. LITERATURE REVIEW Advertising Credibility and Product Type: Credibility is the amount of judgment of the receivers upon the source who is providing some information to them which actually base on the different observations of the person receiving that information (Adler and Rodman, 2000, p. 421). It is a common assumption that when the people come to know that a person is trying to make them convince for something then most often they make up their minds to not believe that person as he is going to take something from them (Hovland et al., 1982, p. 23). Advertising is based on arguing techniques with the purpose of convincing the customers and making them believe the information in it (Cameron, Hallahan (1999b). Some of the research’s have also shown that most of the consumers like the advertisements containing puffery (Haan and Berkey, 2002).
Media Credibility: The importance of credibility of the source has its roots in the history and therefore its importance has been proved through history (Pendleton, 1999, p. 11). The believability of the advertisements mediums is broadly based on the perception of the viewers and the viewers trust depends on the total amount of ads being attached to that medium (Kiousis, 2001). Every medium or source of advertisement is different from the other source or medium and that how the mediums are indifferent from each other (Aaker and Brown (1972). Advertising Skepticism: Skepticism is mostly connected with the idea that it is the doubt in the minds of the consumers about the argues presented in different ads and due to these doubts the consumers don’t believe the product and even the source for that product (Obermiller and Spangenberg, 1998). The skepticism is the idea in the consumers mind that if it is more in the consumers mind then he or she will be more unclear and uncertain but if it is low then the amount of certainty of the consumer increases about the produce as well as medium (Obermiller and Spangenberg, 1998; Hardesty et al., 2002). The consumers are no believing about the advertisements and therefore they believe those information which have some common points between each other (Harris, 1991). Self Esteem: The main objective of self esteem is to increase the self concept of an individual (Markus and Nurius, 1986). Thinking of the customers is something which builds self esteem in them and this leads to make them decide that which products they don’t like and creates distance between them and the products are not important in their opinion (Shavitt, 1989; 1990). In the study (Sirgy, 1982, pp. 289-90) it was taken out that for the strong self esteem it is required that the person possessing self esteem should take care of his own character, because it will then be easier for him to reject all the products that are not suitable to his character. Social Desirable Responding: The social recognition of a person is that how he thinks that which societal group he belongs to and what are the values of that society members and then adopts those special attributes and
work exactly according to the values which are offered by that social cultural group (Tajfel ,1982, p. 31). Specific rules in a culture are that which build the concept of self esteem in an individual, therefore when a person acts more strongly to these rules and systems then the more new sort of self concept behaviors comes to exist(Kelman, 1961; Verplanken and Holland, 2002). The effects of a region and country’s demographics effect on the customers choices about the trustworthy of the commercials as in the research of (Pornpitakpan, 2004). Liu (2002, p. 123) it was found out that customers with more education have more positive attitude towards ad trustworthy whereas in another study ( Shavitt et al. 1998, p. 7) it was discovered that customers with less learning and the buyers who are young are more likely to have a positive extinct for the ads believability.
“On the basis of the literature review presented the following hypothesis have been proposed”. H1: There is a positive and significant relation between advertising skepticism and self esteem. Table 4 indicates that there is a positive correlation (R: 0.184) between advertising skepticism and self esteem which is also significant at 0.046 level, therefore H1 is accepted. H2: There is a positive and significant relation between advertising skepticism and social desirable responding. Table 4 indicates that there is a positive correlation (R: 0.244) between advertising skepticism and social desirable responding which is also significant at 0.008 level, therefore H2 is accepted. H3: There is a positive and significant relation between self esteem and social desirable responding. Table 4 indicates that there is a positive correlation (R: 0.170) between self esteem and social desirable responding but is not significant at 0.065 level by a very small margin, therefore H3 is rejected.
METHODOLOGY
The research has been conducted in order to find out that which type of products/services are mostly liked by the customers and also that which are the media that make customers to think about the trustworthy of that product or service being advertised through them. The consumer’s behavior towards advertisement in relationship toward ambiguity and sense of worth has also been surveyed. In favor of this rationale a sample of 120 questionnaires was filled from the University of Sargodha, Sargodha which is one of the prominent universities of Pakistan. The questionnaire which is endorsed for this research was taken from the studies of Prendergast et al.’s (2002b); Spangenberg’s (1998); and Boush et al. (1994). The questionnaire for this particular research were filled from the students of different departments of the university and also from the Central Library of the University and the time taken by the entire questionnaire to be filled for this research took about four days. For this specific research two products were selected such that banks and MNOs (Mobile Network Operators) which are mainly in Pakistan are named as Mobilink, Telenor, UFone, ZONG and Warid on the basis of the customers high interest towards them and two media were selected as print media (Newspaper) and electronic media (Television) on the basis of their interaction with people and also because in Pakistan all the product and service providers usually use these two medias to advertise their products through them. Out of the total 120 questionnaires, 119 questionnaires were returned, one of the questionnaires was lost during the process and the remaining one of them was wrongly filled. In order to check the response of the respondents five point Likert type scale was adopted representing 1= Strongly Disagree up to 5= Strongly Agree. The questionnaire for the research consisted of a total 22 questions out of which one question was about the age of respondents and one was about their age respectively, the additional 20 questions were related to the variables of the research, the respondents of the research consisted of 68 male and 50 female respondents. Descriptive statistics and the comparison of mean have been used to study the response of the sample. The Cronbach's Alpha revealed the result for the overall items of scale used in this research to measure the variables on the basis of the respondent’s response although the result of the combined cronbach's alpha was not the highest one (0.653) but as this research has focused on the various dimensions related to the advertising and its mediums and also observed the behaviors of the different advertising audience that is the reason why this reliability is also an encouraging one, also as this is an exploratory research therefore the alpha is acceptable (Hair et al., 1998). Correlation analysis was used to study the relationship between the variables. Regression analysis was also applied in order to test the hypothesis for this research.
DATA ANALYSIS Table 1 “Gender” Gender of respondents Frequency Male respondents Female respondents Total respondents 68 50 118 Table 1.1 “Age” Age of respondents 17-19 Years 20-22 Years 23 Years and above Total
Frequency 28 82 8 118
Tables 1 and 1.1 show that that there are total “118” respondents in which “68” respondents are male and “50” are females and 28 respondent’s age is between 17 to 19 years, 82 respondents are between 20 to 22 and 8 respondents are of the age of 23 years and above respectively. Table 2 Descriptive Statistics of means
N Claims made in the advertisements of all Banks are true and can be believed Claims which are made in the advertisements of mobile network operators Advertisements by mobile network operators (Ufone, Mobilink etc) on T.V are convincing Advertisements by mobile network operators (Ufone, Mobilink etc) in newspapers are convincing Advertisements by banks on T.V are convincing for people Advertisements by banks in Newspapers are convincing for people 118 118 3.4576 3.5424 1.03481 0.86374 118 3.4322 0.91967 118 3.7119 0.98798 118 3.0424 1.16497 118 Mean 3.0763 Std. Deviation 1.00560
Table 2 shows that advertisements on the television by the mobile network operators are very much convincing because of the related item has a high mean value as compared to the item related to the believability upon the claims made in those advertisements because it has low mean, therefore the mobile network operators should focus on increasing the believability of the customers related to their claims in their different advertisements.
Table 3 Comparison of Means w.r.t “Gender”
Gender
Claims made in the advertisements of all Banks are true and can be believed Claims which are made in the advertisements of mobile network operators Advertisements by mobile network operators (Ufone, Mobilink etc) on T.V are convincing Advertisements by mobile network operators (Ufone, Mobilink etc) in newspapers are convincing 3.4853 68 .90591 3.3600 50 .94242 3.4322 118 .91967 Advertisements by banks on T.V are convincing for people Advertisements by banks in Newspapers are convincing for people
Male
Mean N Std. Deviation
3.1029 68 1.02418 3.0400 50 .98892 3.0763 118 1.00560
2.8676 68 1.20824 3.2800 50 1.06981 3.0424 118 1.16497
3.7059 68 1.09352 3.7200 50 .83397 3.7119 118 .98798
3.5588 68 1.09793 3.3200 50 .93547 3.4576 118 1.03481
3.5882 68 .90166 3.4800 50 .81416 3.5424 118 .86374
Female
Mean N Std. Deviation
Total
Mean N Std. Deviation
In the table 3 the item with the maximum mean regarding male respondent is the one which studies that the ads which the mobile network operators advertise through the television media are very much effective as compared to the other media such as newspapers similarly the female respondents have also grade the same medium as more credible for the mobile network operators as compared to others media, the male have responded that the claims which are made in the advertisements of the mobile network operators are not trustable regarding their deals in those ads. On the other hand the female group has responded that the claims which are made in the ads of the banks are not trustworthy as compared to mobile network operators. Now when the combine mean is analyzed then it is found out that again the advertisement related to the mobile network operators are very much induced as compared to the ads regarding banks on different mediums where as the combined mean of both genders suggest that the claims in the mobile network operators are not the one which can be believed and this is something which is damaging the credibility of the mobile network ads.
Table 3.1 comparison of Means w.r.t. “Age”
Age
Claims made in the advertisemen ts of all Banks are true and can be believed Claims which are made in the advertisements of mobile network operators Advertisements by mobile network operators (Ufone, Mobilink etc) on T.V are convincing Advertisements by mobile network operators (Ufone, Mobilink etc) in newspapers are convincing Advertiseme nts by banks on T.V are convincing for people Advertisement s by banks in Newspapers are convincing for people
1 7 to 1 9
Mean N Std. Deviation
3.0357 28 .88117 3.0976 82 1.06121 3.0000 8 .92582 3.0763 118 1.00560
2.8571 28 1.23871 3.0854 82 1.16747 3.2500 8 .88641 3.0424 118 1.16497
3.8214 28 .86297 3.6341 82 1.02454 4.1250 8 .99103 3.7119 118 .98798
3.6071 28 .99403 3.3293 82 .88965 3.8750 8 .83452 3.4322 118 .91967
3.3929 28 1.13331 3.5000 82 1.00922 3.2500 8 1.03510 3.4576 118 1.03481
3.5714 28 .83571 3.5000 82 .90608 3.8750 8 .35355 3.5424 118 .86374
2 0 to 2 2
Mean N Std. Deviation
23 years and above
Mean N Std. Deviation
Total
Mean N Std. Deviation
The table shows that the respondents aged between 17-19 years have a greater believe on the ads of the mobile network operators ads through the television and the same sort of response was obtained through the other respondents age ranging from 20 years and above it which shows that the advertisements by MNOs on the television are very much convincing for the customers of those networks. On the other hand the respondents age between 17 to 22 years rated that those claims which are made in the advertisements of the mobile network operators are not true and cannot be trusted while the age group respondents belonging to 23 years and above responded against the claims which are made in the ads of the different banks in newspapers, therefore the banks should focus on other media rather than newspapers.
Table 4 “Correlation”
Advertising Skepticism Advertising Skepticism Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) Social Desirable Responding Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). 0 .1 8 4
*
Self Esteem
Social Desirable Responding
1
0 .1 8 4
*
0 .2 4 4
**
0 .0 4 6 1
0 .0 0 8 0 .1 7 0 0 .0 6 5
Self Esteem
0 .0 4 6 0 .2 4 4
**
0 .1 7 0 0 .0 6 5 118
1
0 .0 0 8 118
118
There is a positive and highly significant relationship between advertising skepticism and social desirable responding (r =0.244*, Sig: 0.008). There is positive and significant relationship between advertising skepticism and the self esteem (r = 0.184*, Sig: 0.460). There is positive but no significant relationship between social desirable responding and self esteem (r =0.170, Sig: .065). Table 5 “Regression”
R 0 .2 8 4
a
Std. Error of the Estimate 0.54733
Durbin-Watson 1 .7 1 1
F 5 .0 3 7
Sig. 0 .0 0 8
a
a. Predictors: (Constant), Social Desirable Responding, Self Esteem b. Dependent Variable: Advertising Skepticism
Regression analysis have been performed to check out that whether the hypothesis are suitable or not. Through regression analysis it was discovered that the R value (correlation) is 0.284 which
shows a strong association between dependent and independent variables. The F value (5.037) is significant at 0.008 levels. The Durbin-Watson is also within the standard ranges which explain that there is no autocorrelation. On the basis of regression analysis conducted to test our hypothesis we accept our hypothesis i.e. there is a significant positive relationship of advertising skepticism towards self esteem and social desirable responding.
Table 5.1 “Coefficients”
Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients B (Constant) Self Esteem Social Desirable Responding 2 .3 2 0 0 .1 2 9 0 .1 9 4 Std. Error 0 .3 9 7 0 .0 8 0 0 .0 8 0 0 .1 4 7 0 .2 1 9 Beta Sig. 0 .0 0 0 0 .1 0 9 0 .0 1 7
a. Dependent Variable: Advertising Skepticism
In this coefficients table the beta value of self esteem is lower as compared to the beta value of social desirable responding, therefore the social desirable responding with the beta value (0.219) has a greater impact on the advertising skepticism and is also significant at the level of (0.017). FINDINGS AND MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS On the basis of the results of the data analysis through various different responses, it was observed that the when it came to select the media for the two product types such as mobile network operators and banks in order to find out their advertising credibility then it was observed that the respondent have chosen the television as the best sort of media for the advertisements of the mobile network operators as compared to their advertisements through newspapers, also the respondents suggest that newspapers are the credible source of advertisements for the banks as compared through television media therefore on the basis of these results the mobile network operators should focus on the ads through television but they should also focus that the claims in those ads are as such which are fulfilled and the people can trust on them while the banks should
focus on the newspapers because their claims in those ads have been rated as more true as compared to the claims of the mobile network operators in their television ads. In this research it has been found out that the respondents belonging to all age groups and genders have highly rated the television as a source of credible advertisements as compared to the newspapers for all sort of products credibility. In the correlation analysis it was found out that there is a positive relation between advertising skepticism, self esteem and social desirable responding but just the relation between self esteem and social desirable responding is not significant thus the results reveal that the skepticism towards the advertisements is positively tended by the social desire response of the people or customers. The research also revealed that from the two independent variables i.e. self esteem and social desirable responding the socio desirable responding has a greater impact towards the dependent variable advertising skepticism. Therefore on the basis of these pieces of information the credibility of the advertisements can be increased by focusing on the social responses of the people as by understanding the people responses in a society the believability of customers can be increased towards any product and service through different mediums. LIMITAITONS The research which has been conducted has unlimited boundaries which should be addressed in the future. The data for this research has been collected from the students of the University of Sargodha, Sargodha as it should be conducted with the responses of the other people outside the University as well. The banks and mobile network operators were selected only on the basis of their high number of customers to check their credibility whereas the other product and service providers were ignored which should be addressed as well. The two mediums selected for the research were television and newspapers and the other important media were not used for conducting this research such as internet, radio and cable network etc. The media credibility was studied out with the help of skepticism towards the different advertisements through different medias, as the media were limited therefore the skepticism of the customers towards the other media is still to be addressed by other researches. As the research is limited to one city therefore the different behaviors regarding other cities are still to be figured out with the increase in the sample size of the research.
REFERENCES Aaker, D.A. and Brown, P.K. (1972), “Evaluating vehicle source effects”, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 11-16. Adler, R.B. and Rodman, G. (2000), Understanding Human Communication, 7th ed., Harcourt College Publishers, Ft Worth, TX. Cameron, G.T. (1994), “Does publicity outperform advertising? An experimental test of the third party endorsement”, Journal of Public Relations Research, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 185-207. Haan, P. and Berkey, C. (2002), “A study of the believability of the forms of puffery”, Journal of Marketing Communications, Vol. 8, pp. 243-56. Hair, J.F., Anderson, R.E., Tatham, R.L. and Black, W.C. (1998), Multivariate Data Analysis, 5th ed., Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Hallahan, K. (1999b), “No, Virginia, it’s not true what they say about publicity’s ‘implied thirdparty endorsement’ effect”, Public Relations Review, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 331-50, available at:http://lamar.colostate.edu/ , pr/novirginia.pdf (accessed 2 September 2004). Hardesty, D.M., Carlson, J.P. and Bearden, W.O. (2002), “Brand familiarity and invoice price effects on consumer evaluation: the moderating role of skepticism toward advertising”, Journal of Advertising, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 1-15. Harris, T.L. (1991), The Marketer’s Guide to Public Relations: How Today’s Top Companies are Using the New PR to Gain a Competitive Edge, Wiley, New York, NY. Hovland, C.L., Janis, I.L. and Kelley, H.H. (1982), Communication and Persuasion: Psychological Studies of Opinion Change, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT. Kelman, H.C. (1961), “Process of opinion change”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 25, pp. 5778. Kiousis, S. (2001), “Public trust or mistrust? Perceptions of media credibility in the information age”, Mass Communication and Society, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 381-403. Lamons, B. (2002), “Advertising drops ball, new champ is PR”, Marketing News, Vol. 36 No. 19. Liu, W. (2002), “Advertising in China: product branding and beyond”, Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 117-25. Markus, H. and Nurius, P. (1986), “Possible selves”, American Psychologist, Vol. 41 No. 9, pp. 954-69.
Obermiller, C. and Spangenberg, E. (1998), “Development of a scale to measure skepticism toward advertising”, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 159-86. Pendleton, S.C. (1999), “‘Man’s most important food is fat:’ the use of persuasive techniques in Procter & Gamble’s public relations campaign to introduce Crisco, 1911-1913”, Public Relations Quarterly, Vol. 44 No. 1, pp. 6-19. Pornpitakpan, C. (2004), “The persuasiveness of source credibility: a critical review of five decades’ evidence”, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 34 No. 2, pp. 243-81. Shavitt, S., Lowrey, P. and Haefner, J. (1998), “Public attitudes toward advertising: more favorable than you might think”, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 38 No. 4, pp. 7-22. Shavitt, S. (1989), “Operationalizing functional theories of attitude”, in Pratkanis, A.R., Breckler, S.J. and Greenwald, A.G. (Eds), Attitude Structure and Function, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 311-38. Shavitt, S. (1990), “The role of attitude objects in attitude functions”, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 26, pp. 124-48. Sirgy, M.J. (1982), “Self-concept in consumer behaviour: a critical review”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 9, December, pp. 287-300. Tajfel, H. (1982), Social Identity and Intergroup Behavior, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Verplanken, B. and Holland, R.W. (2002), “Motivated decision making: effects of activation and self-centrality of values on choices and behavior”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 82 No. 3, pp. 434-47.
doc_142572790.pdf