Impacts of Advertising on Consumer Behaviour

In this article, we will discus the impacts of advertising on consumer behaviour. Does advertising encourages buying decision? Let’s find out in this post.

What is Advertising ?

Advertising means marketing a business, an idea, good or service through a visual or audio form. It is a means of communicating with users and potential users of a product in a bid to convince and influence their perception towards the product.

Impacts of Advertising on Consumer Behaviour

Advertising is presently done on every facet of the media: social media, internet, magazines and newspaper publications, television, radio press, hoarding, direct selling, posters, flyers, endorsements and many others.

The advertising sector consists of companies that create advertisement, carries the adverts, visualizers, editors, researchers, brand managers, creative designers, content creators who go an extra mile to ensure that products and services are given utmost coverage or publicity to boost them.

Read Also: The Impacts of Advertising in Business

What is Consumer Behaviour ?

Consumer behaviour is an analysis that seeks to explain why consumers act in a certain way towards a service or product under certain circumstances; to find out what influences the consumer’s behaviour. It is a study of how consumers select and purchase goods and services to satisfy their needs and wants. It also refers to the underlying reasons behind the purchasing behaviour of people in a market place.

All marketing decisions are built on assumption and findings of consumer behaviour. It studies the process consumers use to choose and dispose products and how this process impacts the world. Consumer behaviour is a key to a successful brand; everyday humans have to deal with making product choices, from food, shelter, clothing and basically every human need.

Every business whether big or small needs to advertise because advertisement influence consumers in astonishing ways. It must be noted however, that consumer behaviour changes from person to person. Marketers study consumer behaviour because the consumer plays a vital role in the market, without which products and services may be rendered useless.

The behavioural pattern of a consumer is affected by different factors such as personal factors which include health, age, preferences, income level, culture, level of exposure or awareness and sometimes religious beliefs; psychological factors such as the motives behind the purchase of a product, attitude and perception towards a product; situational factors such as time and surrounding at the time of product purchase and other factors unknown to me.

Read Also: 15 Ways to Do Online Advertising in Nigeria

Relationship Between Advertising and Consumer’s Behaviour

Advertising aims at impacting consumer behaviour by influencing their awareness and buying behaviour and attitude in either a positive or negative way; this explains why every well-known brand must invest in promotional activities to keep the interest of their products in the minds of the consumers because the perception of the quality, awareness of a product and consumer opinion is the driving force behind the buying decisions.

Adverts are a basic source of creating awareness and shaping the perceptions of the customer and these are the main driving forces behind buying decisions, consumer behaviour and coating customer awareness.

Impacts of Advertising on Consumer Behaviour

It is important to gain an in-depth knowledge on the vital impact advertising has on consumer behaviour. There are different methods of persuasion used to achieve this purpose which are the rational and emotional methods.

1.Advertising uses rational techniques in providing detailed, factual and relevant information about a product or service that influences buying decisions of the consumer. Information provided may reflect mainly the benefits of a product and will be focused on the features of a product and its benefit, comparison with other competitive products, products performance and other relevant facts that help consumers arrive at logical conclusions.

2. Advertising also focuses on user experience that promises to be fun, exciting, captivating and fulfilling. This leaves the consumer with the perception that products are unique and specially designed to improve quality of life. This is an irrational technique and is very effective in growing small businesses who cannot afford the cost of hiring advertising agencies.

With the use of the internet and social media, small businesses can generate informative content to capture the attention of an audience of reasonable size. Example of a business that is effectively promoting itself by use of highly informative content on social media is UTAZI Nigeria, a fast rising restaurant situated at Etim Iyang Crescent, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Irrational techniques are commonly used to play on the emotions of the consumer, the aim to arouse the feelings not the reasoning of consumer. After watching ads, consumers’ emotional feelings such joy, happiness or sadness may be evoked towards the brand or product.

This kind of advertising builds trust between customers and brands. The pattern here is to build the trust and loyalty of your customers and target audience. An advertisement that appeals on the emotions of a customer will meet the customer’s psychological, emotional and social needs.

See: 6 Tips to grow your business using social media

3. Sometimes advertisements do not only influence the needs and perception of a consumer but totally changes and creates the needs among people by availing them with sufficient information that will influence their buying decisions.

Advertisements make use of factors that influence human lifestyle to captivate the consumer; some of these factors include custom and religion. Adverts shape the behaviours of consumers by influencing their perception towards the information communicated to them through their senses, attention, memory, reasoning, language and possibly their understanding.

4. Advertisements influences consumer behaviour by increasing their awareness on new products and services by providing them with facts and relevant data needed and this arouses the curiosity of customers, information provided also aids customers in making intellectual and emotional responses that may tend to improve some aspects of their lives.

Conclusion

Continuous advertising influences consumer behaviour because it serves as reminders. For instance, the repeated advertising of minimie chin chin (a well packaged snack) on nigerian television stations instilled a desire in me to purchase it; even though I initially lacked interest.

It must be noted however that consumer behaviour is in two ways, acceptance or rejection. We can agree that some ads have rubbed us off the wrong way and have completely alienated us from the product no matter how widely accepted it seems.

In the same vein some ads have appealed instantly to us and kept us glued, addicted and loyal to certain products and services.

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