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THE MEDIA CHOICE AND ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS: A SURVEY OF USERS OF SOFT COMPLEXION CREAM.

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study
The modern day business environment is, to say the least, very volatile and dynamic. Thus, it is becoming increasingly difficult for business organizations to hold firmly to their target markets and maintain a competitive operation. A lot of concerns have crumbled just as fast as they sprang up in the face of heavy competition in on environment where only the “fittest” survives. Top business executives have came to realize that the need for urgent actions has become inevitable. Hence, many of them who had erstwhile neglected the “rigours” and “cost” of advertising have now found it a lucrative avenue for enhancing organizational objectives.

Nadube (2010) defines advertising as consisting of any paid form of non-personal presentation of goods, services, organizations and ideas made by an identified sponsor through a mass communication medium. The message is communicated through various media amongst which are newspaper, radio, magazines, direct mail, outdoor, and television. Although advertising is not usually always aimed at generating immediate increase in sales, its ultimate objective is with returns to sales. Advertising must, therefore, stimulate sales to justify its enormous expenditure.

Even then, it is beyond doubt that a large part of the sum spent on advertising campaigns may be mis-spent. The need to avoid costly mistakes, to determine the relative strength of media choices to used, and increase advertising efficiency generally made organizations consider favourable advertising media choice that would reach their target markets while money spent is justified.

However, it has, only been fairly recently that concerted steps have been made towards developing methods to test effectiveness of each media, which is not only because advertising has just grown out of its and traditional approach, but that management has come to realize the importance of a reliable base to aid managerial decision –making. However, advertising has not been able to devise useful methods of its own. Thus, ideas about how advertising works are still a mixture of speculations and hypotheses derived from other behavioural sciences. The value of this costly activity have often been undermined owing to the fact that many of the methods used in testing are some what unproveable and there is only limited theoretical knowledge. For instance, advertisers sometimes forget that advertising effects may go beyond the intended scope. This requires, therefore that the researcher look father than the fulfillment of the basic goal to see what other effects the campaign has achieved. This is not to say that advertising effectiveness should not be measured in terms of its specified objectives. Rather, there should not be excessive fixation by the evaluation method on the exact way in which it is supposed to achieve such goals.

One very important area of the advertising phenomenon that has attracted a lot if concern in recent times has been the choice of media to be used. Once a message has been created and agreed, a media choice should be determined. The aim of the media choice is to devise an optimum route for the delivery of the promotional message to the target audience. This function is normally undertaken by top executives.

Media choice borders on media planning and is essentially a selection and scheduling exercise. However, several factors complicate this seemingly straightforward task. First, the variety of available media and secondly, the characteristics of the target audience are changing rather too fast. One further element; money since the organizations have scare or limited financial resource, the media choice to be adapted should be able to deliver the messages not only effectively but also efficiently.

The organization, therefore faces the task to deliver advertising messages through a selection of media that match the viewing and/or reading habits of the audience at the lowest cost possible. In order for these tasks to be accomplished, three sets of decisions need to be made the choice of media, vehicles and schedules (Nadube, 2010).

It is clear that deciding on which media to use to use is alone fraught with difficulties, let alone deciding on the optimal combination how much of each media should be used before even considering the cost burden. It is based on the above premises, that a research study on media choice and advertising effectiveness will serve to justify or otherwise, the rational behind the continuing sinking of scarce organizational resources into this venture. Because of the peculiarities of various media of promotion, the need to start a study on these media cannot be over emphasized.

1.2 Statement of the Problem
One of the key task before top executives (managers), is to decide which combination of media vehicles should be selected to carry advertising messages to the target audience. Advances in IT have made decisions about media vehicle choice a much faster, more accurate process and capable of adjusting to fast –changing consumer lifestyles and market conditions. The range of media has grown dramatically over the years and is continuing to grow as technology in particular, advances. The various media characteristics and the characteristics of the target audience falls fore front on the mind of the manager when deciding on the optimal media mix. However, events of the past have shown that many organizations have failed to know the viewing and /or online habits of their target audience before deciding on which media to use to convey the message to elicit the desired response.

Researchers have also failed to show dearly how the choice of media vehicle affects advertising effectiveness. Magnify of the studies have not found much useful result and it a relationship does actually exist, it is very partial and of little, practical value to the organization.

1.3 Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this research study is to examine the Media Choice and Advertising Effectiveness. Additionally, the emphasis of this research will also be based on the following:
1. To examine the traditional media and Brand Awareness.
2. To examine the traditional media and Brand Recognition.
3. To examine the new media and Brand Awareness.
4. To examine the new media and Brand Recognition.

1.4 Research Questions
From the foregoing, it is the main task of this study to answer the following questions:
1. To what extent does traditional media enhances Brand Awareness?
2. To what extent does traditional media enhances Brand Recognition.
3. To what extent does new media enhances Brand Awareness.
4. To what extent does new media enhances Brand Recognition.

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