Television advertising: a consumer viewpoint

Television Advertising: A Consumer Viewpoint by D. Jobber

158 | European Journal of Marketing 8, 2

Despite the fact that almost all consumers have, to a greater or lesser extent, been exposed to television advertising little is known regarding the attitudes of the public towards this form of communication. What is the reaction of the public to the vast sums of money spent on television advertising—soaps and detergents, chocolates and confectionery and beer advertising on television alone came to over £21 million in 1970[1] ? An explanation of this lack of research may be the fact that, as Palda[2] states: "(There is) no logical connection between (aesthetic) enjoyment of an advertisement and the disposition to buy the brand". Thus although from an academic point of view consumers' reactions to a particular advertisement or advertising in toto, may be interesting, from a cor-porate standpoint the emphasis is—and should be, employing a sales or profit objective—on the attitude towards the brand which results from an advertisement, the classical case of incongruity between advertisement and brand attitudes being Daz.

The objective, then, of this paper is to present and analyse the results of an exploratory study into consumer reactions to television advertising. Three criteria are used to assess consumer attitudes:

(1) consumer feelings towards exaggerated and annoying advertising (2) the consumers' subjective assessment of creative advertising (3) consumer assessment of their ideal type of advertisement.

Research Method and Sample The survey was conducted by the author and a small body of marketing degree students who had received interviewer training. Four hundred and eighty television viewers were interviewed by the quota survey method in Manchester, Huddersfield, Stoke, Sutton in Ashfield, Gloucester and London. Eighty respondents, equal numbers of either sex, were selected in each town. Towns were chosen to give a representative balance between north, midlands and south. As far as possible each sample was matched on socio-economic grounds, with the corresponding population proportions (Table I).

Television Advertising | 159

Table I. Population Sampled (%)

Population

Manchester

Huddersfield

Stoke

Sutton

Gloucester

London

Sample Average

AB

12

12

12

12

10

15

12

12

C1

17

19

19

22

19

22

18

20

C2

35

35

34

36

34

33

34

34

DE

36

34

35

30

37

30

36

34

The age group interviewed was between 15 and 65 years, with sub groups of 15 to 24 years (29·4%), 25 to 40 years (35·8 %) and 41 to 65 years (34·8 %), so that all adult age groups were represented in the sample except pensioners.

Research Findings Exaggerated and Annoying Advertising The British Code of Advertising Practice was drawn up to provide guidelines within which advertising in the United Kingdom might function. Many forms of advertising were considered undesirable, including exaggerated and annoying advertising. To determine the extent to which consumers perceive this code to be recognised, respon-dents were asked whether they thought that some advertisements exaggerated or not. Eighty-nine per cent thought that some advertisements did exaggerate. Besides the overwhelming feeling that some advertisements did exaggerate, the other most noticeable factor was the consistency of feeling between regions although a slightly increased tendency for respondents to think that some advertisements exaggerated was discernable from south to north—south 87%, midlands 88% and north 93%. Washing powder advertisements were by far the most cited example of exaggerated advertising. Then respondents were asked whether they thought some advertisements were annoying or not. In this case, the response was not so markedly disparate, 59 % thinking that some advertisements annoyed whilst 41 % did not. Again there was a marginally increased tendency to express annoyance the more northerly the respon-dent—south 56%, midlands 59% and north 62%. But why were they annoyed? Respondents in Gloucester, London and Stoke were asked this question, with the responses being given in Table II. There is a fair degree of similarity between this table and that produced by Bauer and Greyser from US findings published in 1968


Table II. Reasons why certain advertisements are considered annoying ( %). (UK). (Open-ended responses)

Stimulus qualities of advertisement: Intrusiveness Repetition Disliked children or people in advertisements,

their voices, music Too long Too loud Insult to intelligence: silly, ridiculous Content impact: boring/irrelevant Subliminal Too middle class

Informational failure Untrue, exaggerated, unbelievable

Moral concern: Use of sex Exploits emotion Too much influence

Evaluative: Pathetic Unsubtle

Other answers

23·0 11·5 0·9 0·9

29·2 2·7 1·0 1·7

18·6

1·7 1·7 0·9

0·9 0·9 4·4

100%

36·3

29·2 5·4

18-6

4·3

1·8

4·4

100%

18·6

4·3

1·8

4·4

100%

(N = 113 responses)

(Table III). A difference in emphasis was apparent, however. In the United States greater stress was on informational failure, while in the UK greater emphasis was placed on advertisements which were an insult to the intelligence.

It seems that UK advertising suffers, in much the same way as in the United States, in that many respondents feel that some of it is ridiculous, stupid, insulting to the intelligence, exaggerated, unbelievable and repetitious. Moreover, because of this unfavourable concensus of opinion it would be difficult to argue that the Code of Advertising Practice is effective in preventing annoying and exaggerated advertising.

Creativity and Purchase Activity The second criteria used to examine consumer attitudes toward television advertising was creativity. The objective was to establish, albeit unsophisticatedly, some relation-ship between creative advertising and purchase activity. This relationship is especially interesting in view of the tendency for some advertising agencies to attempt to sell themselves with claims of higher or better creativity than their competitors. Even if this assertion proved true, is creativity important? The main problem associated with the creative phenomenon is one of definition. No one knows exactly what it is.

Many writers have attempted to define creativity in the marketing context. M. Bell [4] defines creativity as " the process whereby new and potentially profitable ideas are brought into existence and matured to the point where they take the form of marketing action . . . Nothing dampens the success of a marketing effort more surely than a


Table III. Reasons why certain advertisements are considered annoying (%). (US). (Open-ended responses)

Stimulus qualities of advertisement Intrusiveness: Heard or seen it too often Disliked people in advertisement, their

voices, music Internal repetition Too long or large Too loud Insult to intelligence: silly, ridiculous, absurd Talked down to me, patronising Unreal situation or demonstration Content impact: unimportant sales arguments Made me feel depressed Boring Confusing

Informational failure Misleading, false, dishonest, fake

demonstration Don't believe claims Contradicted experience with product Exaggerated products ability

Moral concern Type of product should not be advertised Advertisement bad for children

Evaluative Advertisement is poorly written or performed All advertisements for this product say the

same thing, look or sound alike Other answers

It was just annoying or no further answer

14 6 4 3 3 6 4 4 3 2 2 2

10 11 4 4

4 3

4

3

4 100%

30

14

9

29

7

7

4

100%

53

29

7

7

4

100%

* In the original table percentages added to more than 100% because of multiple mentions. The table shown here is reduced to the 100% level so that comparison

may be easier.

stereotyped and worn out promotion". His latter comment certainly is at variance with available evidence. Some of the most successful long term advertising campaigns can be said to be stereotyped, yet related brands are generally considered successful. Brand examples include Fairy Liquid, Daz and Schweppes Tonic Water. Indeed Reeves[5] is at pains to point out this misconception, which he calls the "Multi-Million Dollar Error", "too frequent change of your advertising campaigns destroys penetration . . . it is one of the oldest principles of advertising, yet none is more generally ignored: for there are few brands on the market today that have not changed campaigns five, ten, fifteen or twenty times in the past twenty years".

Stein's definition of creativity[6] differs marginally from that of Bell: "Creativity is the development of new or original ideas that have value to a significant group of other persons". His definition in effect substitutes the notion of 'value' for that of 'potentially profitable'. An idea may give value to a group of individuals for a whole host of reasons, only one of which may be profitability. Increased sales, personal prestige, a quiet or a hectic life may also result from Stein's creative idea, whereas the


creative effort as seen by Bell must result in a potentially profitable idea. Other definitions do not even include a yardstick, for example, Steiner[7]: "Creativity has to do with the development, proposal, and implementation of new and better solutions".

A useful distinction between aesthetic creativity and problem-solving creativity is made by Kotler[8]. In the former case, creativity is an extension of one's own person-ality and perceptions. Problem solving creativity is a more formalised process, stimu-lated by an externally defined goal or problem. As Kotler explains, the two forms often merge: "The advertising copywriter is assigned to develop an advertisement which meets certain specifications about media and message. But within this problem-solving framework, the truly creative copywriter will leave the stamp of a higher personal vision and form of expression."

However, there is some contention regarding the validity of problem solving as a creative act, Mauser[9] says "Creativity has been defined as an order of style appearing out of a disorder in time. The process grows neither out of analysis nor by following rules". According to this definition, problem solving cannot be creative since it does follow rules and regards analysis as an essential ingredient in the process. Creativity assumes esoteric dimensions. Hence the creative artist is caricatured as being apart from society, as being different, weird, unconventional. To him creativity certainly is not explainable.

The problem with the concept of creativity is that there is no universally accepted definition. This is particularly so in advertising, where to isolate the creative contribu-tion within an advertisement and relate it to some definable corporate objective such as sales or profits is difficult if not impossible, and thus intermediary objectives such as attitudes change or recall are used as control tools. Cowan and Jones[10] sum up the problem: "While it (creativity) has found a place in most of the advertising literature it is doubtful if there is any generally agreed definition of its meaning. Certainly our search for such a definition has proved abortive. Even allowing that it does communi-cate some meaning, there is often a fundamental misunderstanding of its application. It tends to be applied purely to the output of 'creative' departments. It is just as important that 'creativity' (whatever it means) should be applied to the planning of advertising strategies as to defining goals and setting targets against which the advert-isements are written".

Despite these difficulties of definition, respondents were asked which advertisements they considered creative. Difficulty was found in recalling a suitable advertisement and, in fact, only 48·5% of those interviewed could name a creative advertisement This is not as damning to the advertising industry as it might seem, for the large number of short duration commercials produced for television produces a maze of confusion when one attempts to specify one or two of them. Further, the transmission of a message may be the goal of the advertiser, rather than recall of the commercial. Indeed, the concept "creativity" is so nebulous as to enhance this confusion. Having identified the advertised brand, however, the interviewees were asked to name the brand which they normally purchased from the relevant product group. This second


Table IV. Effect of creativity in purchase decision Category

Creativity advertised brand related to normal purchase (i) unrelated (ii) N =

AB

15

14 29

C1

18

29 47

C2

40

46 86

DE

40

31

71

question did not follow the first but was placed at the end of the questionnaire so as not to appear linked to the "creativity" question.

Does the evidence support the hypothesis that creativity in advertising plays an increasingly significant part in the purchase decision as one moves from middle to working class? The data in Table IV were tested and differences were not significant at the 0·05 and 0·01 levels of significance. Thus the evidence does not support this hypothesis; it suggests that creativity is an equally important element in advertising in all socio-economic groups.

Viewer Segmentation by Advertisement Type Do viewers have identical tastes in advertisements or are tastes clouded by age, sex and socio-economic factors? In particular, do viewers want more facts in advertising? To answer these questions respondents were asked to choose their ideal type of advertisement, and then the worst type, from a list. Bias was eliminated by different ordering of advertisement type for each interviewer and for each town.

Table V (A) shows the results classified by socio-economic and sex criteria. For all groups, except AB males, advertisements which were amusing were the most popular, but significantly those which presented the facts were second in popularity except in the female AB category. Sexy advertisements were more appreciated by C2 DE men than their AB C1 counterparts, while AB DE people appreciated cartoon advertisements more than those in the C1 C2 categories. In general, advertisements which contained well known entertainers, or were trendy, or romantic, seemed least popular. The homely type of advertisement did poorly, too, except for DE females.

Table V (B) emphasises this lack of popularity and also spotlights the apparent resentment of sexy advertisements, particularly by females, although bias may have been present. Indeed in many ways Table B is a mirror image of Table A.

The most notable feature regarding Table V(A) and V(B) is the uniformity of response across socio-economic categories. Advertisements which are amusing or present the facts are popular within all groups: those which use well known entertainers or are romantic are similarly unpopular. Chi-squared test was used on Table V (A) to test the null hypothesis that preference for an advertisement type did not depend on


Table V(A). Respondents' ideal type of advertisement by sex/socio-economic classification (%)

Advertisement Type

Has a catchy saying

Contains well known entertainers

Presents the facts

Amusing

Sexy

Homely

Trendy

Romantic

Uses cartoon characters

None or other

N =

Responses AB

M

2·6

0

3 · 9

33·3

5·1

2·6

2·6

0

17·9

0

39

F

10·0

0

5·0

60·0

5·0

0

0

0

20·0

0

20

C1 M

14·9

4·3

21·3

42·6

6·3

0

0

2·1

8·5

0

47

F

10·0

2·5

30·0

32·5

0

5·0

7·5

2·5

10·0

0

40

C2 M

9·5

1·2

28·6

41·7

7·1

0

3·6

0

7·1

1·2

84

F

13·5

4·5

23·6

32·6

4·5

5·6

2·2

1·1

12·4

0

89

DE M

7·1

5·7

21·4

22·9

5·8

4·3

2·9

7·1

21·4

1·4

70

F

9·9

4·4

21·9

25·3

1·1

14·3

2·2

11

16·5

3·3

91

Table V(B). Respondents' worst type of advertisement by sex/socio-economic classification (%)

Has a catchy saying

Contains well known entertainers

Presents the facts

Amusing

Sexy

Homely

Trendy

Romantic


None or other

N =

AB M

7·7

17·9

5·1

2·6

20·5

10·3

5·1

15·4

5·1

10·3

39

F

15·0

10·0

0

0

45·0

15·0

0

10·0

0

5·0

20

C1 M

2·1

29·8

0

0

23·4

10·6

8·5

21·3

0

4·3

47

F

0

17·5

0

2·5

25·0

7·5

15·0

17·5

5·0

10·0

40

C2 M

4·8

21·4

4·8

2·4

23·8

8·3

7·1

21·4

3·6

2·4

84

F

2·2

15·7

0

1·1

53·9

2·2

9·0

6·7

4·5

4·5

89

DE M

7·1

14·3

5·7

4·3

25·8

2·8

11·4

15·8

1·4

11·4

70

F

1·1

17·8

1·1

1·1

51·6

2·2

3·3

12·0

3·3

6·5

91


Table VI(A). Respondents' ideal type of advertisement by age/sex classification (%)

Advertisement Type

Has a catchy saying

Uses well known entertainers

Presents the facts

Amusing

Sexy

Homely

Trendy

Romantic


None or other

N =

Responses 15—24

M

4·0

2·7

26·6

45·3

8·0

0

2·7

0

10·7

0

75

F

12·1

1·5

21·5

42·4

0

4·5

3·0

1·5

12·1

1·5

66

25—40 M

7·8

2·2

25·6

32·2

5·6

2·2

2·2

4·4

17·8

0

90

F

7·3

7·3

24·5

32·9

1·2

3·6

6·1

0

15·9

1·2

82

41—65 M

13·3

5·3

25·3

30·7

4·0

4·0

0

2·7

12·0

2·7

75

F

14·1

2·2

21·7

23·9

1·1

17·4

1·1

2·2

15·2

1·1

92

Table VI(B). Respondents' worst type of advertisement by age/sex classification (%)

Advertisement Type

Has a catchy saying

Uses well known entertainers

Presents the facts

Amusing

Sexy

Homely

Trendy

Romantic


None or other

N =

Responses 15—24

M

6·7

24·0

8·0

4·0

14·7

12·0

9·3

18·7

1·3

1·3

75

F

7·6

24·3

1·5

0

33·3

6·1

10·6

12·1

3·0

1·5

66

25—40 M

4·4

23·3

2·2

1·1

16·7

7·8

11·1

22·2

3·3

7·8

90

F

0

18·3

0

1·2

45·1

6·1

8·5

12·2

2·4

6·1

82

41—65 M

5·3

13·2

2·7

1·3

41·4

4·0

1·3

14·8

4·0

12·0

75

F

1·1

8·6

0

1·1

60·9

1·1

3·3

9·8

4·3

9·8

92


social class. For social class the differences are significant at the 0·05 level of signifi-cance but this is explained almost wholly by differences within the homely category. Indeed, differences were insignificant at the 0·01 level of significance. Results thus support the null hypothesis.

Segmentation by socio-economic classification would appear difficult except by the sex ratings of homely categories—a popular commercial is popular within all such groups. This conclusion links well with the notion that products advertised on tele-vision should be for the mass market, for it is possible for one advertisement or campaign to appeal to all sectors of the community. This finding would explain the success of campaigns for Guinness and Double Diamond in using humour to appeal to all social groups.

Again, looking at Table VI (A) and (B), the same consistent problem arises. Table VI (A) was tested to determine whether preference for advertisement type depended on age or not. Scores were significant at both the 0·05 and 0·01 levels although they were not significant when the homely category was omitted.

Some trends are manifest. Appreciation of amusing commercials increases with decreasing age. Conversely, homely advertisements, as one would expect, increase in popularity with increasing age. Factual commercials maintain their high ranking in all age groups. There appears as far as the negative aspects are concerned, sexy advertise-ments are disliked more as age increases. Except for the obvious disparity between male and female ratings of sexy and homely advertisements there appears to be no serious disparity between male and female assessment of advertisement type in toto.

This conclusion is supported by the chi-squared test, differences being significant at the 0·05 and 0·01 levels when sex and homely categories are included but not significant when they are omitted.

Thus segmentation by age is restricted to the fairly obvious bases of amusing, homely and sexy where amusing and sexy advertisements are more likely to be popular in lower age groups, and homely advertisements in higher female age groups.

Conclusions Viewer reaction to television commercials is disturbing. Eighty-nine per cent of all respondents felt that some advertisements exaggerated. Further, fifty-nine per cent were annoyed by some advertisements. By far the most common offenders in both categories were washing powder advertisements. The most common reasons for annoyance were that advertisements were untrue, exaggerated or unbelievable, an insult to the intelligence, and repetitive.

Discussion and testing of hypotheses regarding creativity is difficult since no universally accepted definition is forthcoming within the advertising world. Given this difficulty, however, a relationship between a creative advertising campaign and normal purchase behaviour was examined. The evidence suggests that creativity is an equally important element in advertising in all socio-economic groups.


Differences in response to advertisement type by socio-economic, age, or sex groupings were not found to be significant except in the sexy and homely categories Thus segmentation by advertisement type to appeal to one sector of adults appears difficult. Further, results do support the hypothesis that consumers want more factual advertisements.

Clearly an extension of this exploratory project would be useful. In particular it should be possible to study the relationship between a favourable attitude towards a brand's advertising and:

(i) a favourable attitude towards the brand itself, (ii) purchase behaviour with regard to that brand.

It is anticipated that this will be done, using a number of specific advertising campaigns in order that, rather than depending upon the respondent's subjective recall of advertising in general, the researcher may relate consumer attitudes to particular forms of advertising appeal.

References 1. Legion Publishing Figures, Advertising Weekly, 5th February, 1971. 2. Palda, K. S., "The Hypothesis of a Hierarchy of Effects: A Partial Evaluation", Journal of

Marketing Research, Vol. 3 No. 1, 1966. 3. Bauer, R., and Greyser, S., Advertising in America: The Consumer View, Harvard University,

Graduate School of Business Administration, 1968. 4. Bell, M., Marketing Concepts and Strategy, Houghton Mifflin, 1966. 5. Reeves, R., Reality in Advertising, MacGibbon and Gee, 1961. 6. Stein, M. I., "Creativity as in Intra and Inter-Personal Process" in A Source Book for Creative

Thinking, Parnes, S. J., and Harding, H. F., eds., Scribner. 7. Steiner, G. A., (ed.), The Creative Organisation, Chicago U.P., 1965. 8. Kotler, P., Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning and Control, Prentice Hall, 1967, 2nd ed.

1972. 9. Mauser, F., Modern Marketing Management: An Integrated Approach, McGraw Hill, 1961.

10. Cowan, D., and Jones, R., Advertising in the Twenty First Century, Hutchinson, 1968.

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Television advertising: a consumer viewpoint