Abstract
Advertising involves all communication strategies used in the marketing of a company’s product with an effort of reaching new markets than competitors and at the same time retaining the existing market in a particular industry. Firms attempt to capture the large market and therefore they should constantly emphasize the use of the diverse components of advertising activities which comprise intense public relations, word of mouth, point of sale and vigorous advertising campaigns. Advertising is the key ingredient for the success of any company in terms of increase in sales: Through this any organization has to utilize this concept and thus it will gain a larger market share as compared to its rivals.
The advertising strategy adopted should propel the firm to another level with particular regard to the response of its brand’s consumption by the customers. Most organizations have utilized mostly advertising campaigns through the use of media, for example many firms do a lot of constant reminding advertising through television and radio presentations which have enabled the firms to achieve a strong and wide customer base of their brands. Therefore any company ought to utilize the use of advertising strategies that cope with the business environment; for instance; organizations should launch a website where potential customers can get to know the brands that it offers in its attempts to increase its market share.
Introduction
This paper will center on the advertising concept which is a very crucial concept to any modern business that desires to attain its marketing objectives. Research indicates that advertising plays a key role in the attainment of business goals since it affects consumer purchase decisions and consequently it’s a concept that acts as an ingredient to the profitability of a firm because effective advertisement implies that there will be increase in sales volume of a firm.
Company/Products/Industry
MTN Syria is a large telecommunication firm based in Syria and it is a branch of its mother company MTN South Africa. The company offers telecommunication services in form of mobile network operations as well as the provision of business solutions services. With globalization concept gaining deeper roots in the modern world MTN Group has invested in several countries that include South Africa, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Liberia, Sudan, Ghana, Rwanda, Cameroon, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, guinea, Congo, Cyprus among other nations. MTN Group of firms has propelled over the few years and it has in the recent past been listed in the stock Exchange of South Africa. Recent survey indicates that MTN Syria has an estimated four million customers or subscribers which in essence represent approximately fifty percent of Syria’s market share in the telecommunication industry. MTN Syria has done well in the market, for instance in the year 2007 the company had recorded an approximately forty percent rate of change in terms of both prepaid and postpaid customers who are utilizing MTN Syria cellular services. In the same year the company recorded approximately SYR6 billion in net profit which makes it the most profitable and improving firm in the telecommunication industry in Syria. The vision of MTN Syria is to be Syria’s leading cellular firm, through enriching clients’ lives, assisting individuals, companies and the entire public to get in touch with the real world through connection via mobile phones.
Background to the study
For MTN Syria to be competitive in the telecommunication industry, it has indeed invested heavily in the advertising aspect which has propelled the firm to its current level. History reveals that advertising has been in existence for the last five hundred decades; however, the most noteworthy advertising forms took place in the last century. For instance during 1990s, the advertising concept played a major role in many firms opting to go global and therefore it implies that business firms who wish to go international have to utilize efficient advertising techniques that enhance the organizational short-run as well as long-run goals (Lovelock, 2006).
Recent research reveals that time and distance between firms are dwindling swiftly because of the invention of modern technologies which have precipitated faster communication, transporting and financial difficulties thus paving way for advertising concept to gain roots in the modern business world. For instance, because advertising products of MTN Syria is being marketed in different regions because global rivalry has become the modern norm. Further, recent research reveals that both domestic and foreign business organizations such as MTN Syria are diversifying to new domestic as well as international markets because advertising presents the firms with opportunities of reaching a larger market share (Brassington and Pettitt, 2000).
It should be noted that the current consumer is conscious of his desires and needs and they are also very cognizant of their rights particularly with regards to deciding on the products and services to use and therefore firms including MTN Syria are now faced with the assignment of successfully branding its products and services well in order to build client loyalty which is the main foundation to the success of a firm in a competitive environment (Jacoby and Chestnut, 1978).
Research Objectives
The research to be undertaken is to reveal the hidden appeals that make people buy certain products especially phone handsets and use of services from MTN Syria. This paper seeks to define the most efficient access that MTN Syria utilizes in terms of quality, uniqueness or cost of the product. Therefore the main objective of this study is to determine the role of advertising on consumer purchase decisions on the preference for MTN Syria products.
The specific objectives of the study are:
- To find out the role of MTN Syria competitive advertising on consumer purchase decisions on the preference for MTN Syria cellular services
- To find out the role of MTN Syria comparative advertising on consumer purchase decisions on the preference for MTN Syria cellular services
- To find out the role of MTN Syria inoculative advertising on consumer purchase decisions on preference for MTN Syria cellular services
Research Questions
- What is the role of MTN Syria competitive advertising on consumer purchase decisions on the preference for MTN Syria cellular products?
- What is the role of MTN Syria inoculative advertising on consumer purchase decisions on the preference for MTN Syria cellular products?
- What is the role of MTN Syria comparative advertising on consumer purchase decisions on the preference for MTN Syria cellular products?
Importance of the Study
There are different groups that this study will benefit from. The first group is MTN Syria that may need to know how advertising of its products has influenced consumer purchase behavior regarding its cellular products.
The second group is to the researchers who would be interested in further studying the influence of advertising in the telecommunication industry and future references.
The other group that will benefit is that of academicians who may wish to further enhance their stock of knowledge in the growing and ever-changing field of advertising and consumer purchase behavior.
Justification of the study
Globalization has taken center stage in the modern world and many firms are coming to the marketplace with the desire to increase their market share. Therefore this study is justified since it attempts to explore ways in which MTN Syria has utilized and more specifically the concept of advertising in its effort to become a market leader in the telecommunication industry. Due to competition firms, like MTN Syria have had to come up with viable strategies that ensure the survival of the company as well as remaining international in scope by influencing the consumer’s behavior and thus using its own cellular products.
Literature Review
Advertising concept plays a significant role in attaining organizations goals and has influenced decision making and conducting of policies in many successful organizations. Decision-making has become a complicated affair since all the decisions have to adhere to customer expectations as well as to international standards. Therefore such decisions usually encompass advertising concept which is the main pillar in promoting business activities of a firm (Shiffman, and Kanuk, 2002).
According to Bovee, “Advertising is the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media” (Bovee and Arens 1989).
An organization such as MTN Syria should use various ways to promote its brands i.e. products. One of the ways that MTN Syria uses to advertise its brands is through billboards, brochures, magazines, posters, letterheads, folders, displays, internet, videos and CDs among other mediums. Such advertising strategies show the type of brands to be sold, the prices and the places to be found. Any organization that seeks organizational success through marketing communication strategies should utilize the services of a public relations officer to promote the company’s image. For instance MTN Syria can have sales promotions where customers will be given discounts on large quantities purchased. Direct marketing will be done by employing direct marketers. These advertising strategies will lead to increase in sales thus increase in market share (Brassington and Pettitt, 2000).
Strategies used to influence Consumer Behavior
There are different types and strategies of advertisements that make people’s choices shift from one product to another and include the following;
Print Advertisement
For instance, print ads, when clients go to any convenience store to buy cellular products they have already thought about the type of cellular products which they intend to buy, but when they go to that store and see different attractive banners, they would like to try the new brands displayed in a flashier manner. This is one of the ways print advertisements make customers prefer one product to another. The purpose is to encourage purchase.
Internet Advertising
Today Marketers are spending lots of money and attention on internet advertising. Internet advertisement makes it convenient for customers to compare the products features, benefits, pricing, availabilities and a lot more, and then match these offerings with their preferences and obviously go for the products that best meet their ever-growing and changing requirements.
Word of Mouth
Most customers rely on other choices to make buying decisions, like when they get to know that one who has purchased the product and he/she is satisfied with the product and liked it; they think that if this product suits their friends or relatives, then it will also suit them as they are the same. In these cases, consumers generally do not consider their own attitude, but rely on others’ choices. This word-of-mouth publicity pushes people towards specific product that has been chosen by their friends or relatives (Aaker, Myers and Batra, 2002).
Promotional Activities
To capture the attention of customers, sometimes companies like MTN Syria initiate different deals like “buy one get one free or buy certain amount of airtime and get a fifty percent bonus” or small complimentary gifts with basic ones, these are basically promotional activities which are used to increase the sales of the business. Such promotions are vastly highlighted through TV advertisements, billboards, and broachers among other mediums to switch the customers from other products towards such advertised products
Endorsement
One of the advertising strategies is to make use of celebrities that supports the brand, which means that the celebrity is using this brand and suggesting the audience to use it. Many consumers rely on endorsements to make buying decisions because they feel that the celebrity is of same nature as audience is and if he/she prefers this product, they will also like it. Another cause is image, power, and fame of celebrity that attracts the audience to buy the advertised product (Cinchona and Ronkainen, 2005). For instance MTN Syria can hire a popular Syrian music star or popular soccer star like Wayne Rooney of Manchester United Football Club to market its products by being involved in certain adverts that appeal to the public.
Use of Company’s Brand image
Companies such as MTN Syria design their products’ advertisements often based on their reputation and the trusted brand name, and if advertisings are really eye-catching and attractive, the target customers choose its brand over others. Most of the time, the customer’s preferences of one brand over others is because of the company’s reputation; if the company has good brand name and brand image like that of MTN Group it will successfully convince audience by just a simple advertisement. In essence, the advertisements of MTN Syria reflect the personality of audiences thus they associate it with themselves and they prefer MTNN Syria products over other products and business solutions (Aaker, Myers and Batra, 2002).
Design of advertisement
Efficiently designed advertisements seem interested to audiences since the advertiser attract the audiences by displaying some creativity in their adverts, for instance in printed adverts they use different unique colors schemes and pictures which are very attractive. For TV advertisements they use different backgrounds and music; sometimes they display something new or creative. On the other hand, advertisements through radio have a melodious sounds system which attracts customers. Thus the advertisement that is designed after a careful research and hard work is always appreciated by way of purchasing the products. Basically audiences compare the adverts and products and the adverts that interest them will translate to purchasing the products advertised by the companies such as MTN Syria (Baker, 2000).
Comparative Advertising
When a firm compares its products with other company’s products in the advertisement, that is called comparative advertising, it is permitted all over the world, but with the rule that the product of a similar kind must be compared. Obviously when a product will be compared with other products, customers would see the difference and will go for the product that best suits them.
Product Differentiation
To compete in a market, companies like MTN Syria design competitive marketing strategies to create product differences that differentiate the company’s products from all others in the eyes of consumers. They then effectively design their advertisements focusing on that differentiated features of product to be preferred over other products (Tranchberg, 1986).
Research Methodology
This section of the research proposal outlines the research methodology that will be used in the study. It covers the research design to be used, data collection methods and instruments to be employed, the sampling design and the data analysis techniques that will be used in the study.
Research Design
The research design method to be utilized is that of descriptive research design. Descriptive studies serve a variety of research objectives such as the description of phenomena or characteristics associated with a subject population, estimates of the proportions of a population that have those characteristics and discovery of associations among other different variables (Cooper and Shindler, 2003).
This method is chosen for the study so as to show characteristics of the study population and how the variable of advertisements will have influence on their choice of MTN Syria products.
Population
The population of interest in this study consisted of all MTN Syria customers in Syria. This population is chosen since it provides a readily available data source for the information needed to carry out analysis for the research. This population is frequently exposed to advertisements through various mediums such as the internet, billboards, newspapers and magazines, radios and televisions aired by MTN Syria. Time and cost are limited to the researcher thus only Syrian capital city is chosen to be the target population of the study since the researcher will easily get the required data without spending a lot of resources as well as within a short time.
Sampling
For this study, a sample of 2000 MTN Syria’s customers from Syrian Capital will be selected from the whole population. The researcher will use the MTN Syria database to identify the respondents from different areas in the city. Therefore, systematic sampling procedure will be utilized in selecting the fifty respondents from the whole sample. Under systematic sampling technique, the items or individuals of the population are arranged in some manner. A random starting point will therefore be identified and then every 40th client of the population will be selected for the sample. Therefore fifty MTN Syria’s clients will be administered with the questionnaires and they will be expected to fill and return them in a span of not more than two weeks.
Data Collection Methods
Data will be collected using a questionnaire technique, which will have:
(a) Closed-ended and
(b) Open-ended
Further the questionnaires will be divided into four sections as follows; the first section will be that of general questions, which will guide the respondents to grasp the whole idea of the research that will be carried out. The second part will be that of competitive advertising, which will contain questions regarding the competitive advantage, that MTN Syria had in the market and how it carried out its advertisements in order to remain competitive in the telecommunication industry by influencing more the consumer behavior more than its competitors. The third section will be that of inoculative advertising which will contain questions regarding the respondent’s perceptions on why they have stuck to MTN Syria products. The fourth section will be that of comparative questions and it will contain questions relating to effectiveness of MTN Syria advertisements when compared to advertisements of other mobile operators in the telecommunication industry.
Data Analysis Techniques
Once the data will be collected the researcher will utilize the applications of Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) in order to group the data into meaningful subsets by way of descriptive statistics, which will give clear and conclusive deductions. Thus data to be collected will be analyzed using percentages and means and presentation that will be in the form of tables and pie charts to show the effect that variable advertising has on MTN Syria products selection process by the clients. Such techniques to be utilized will be self-explanatory and will represent the response rates as well as the variables that the study will be considering.
Conclusion
At the end of this research we can conclude that the advertising concept as a marketing communication strategy is a very important tool in MTN Syria business setup. It is even more important in the modern business world since it affects the consumer purchase decision. For a MTN Syria to be successful and attain its marketing objectives the marketing managers has to use very effective marketing communication strategies such as attractive adverts which will eventually capture the attention of its target customers. This is in relation to products or brands that the organization trade within the marketplace (Dick and Basu, 1994).
This study will prove that, the current modern business environment keeps on changing and therefore calls for a high level of effectiveness in the marketing communication strategies in order to remain competitive in the market. When marketing communication such as advertising concept is rightly used in an organization such as MTN Syria, it can motivate the employees as well as attract many customers thus increasing output. However when it is wrongly used it will always demoralize the workers and at the same time fail to attract potential clients (Arens, 1986).
Reference
Aaker, A., Myers, G. and Batra, R. (2002): Advertising Management. New Delhi, Prentice Hall, pp. 23-56
Arens, A.E (1986): The Maxi-Mini principle of product differentiation. Journal of Regional Science 38: pp. 207-230
Baker, M. (2000): Marketing Management and Strategy: 3rd Edition: London: Macmillan, pp. 34-98
Bovee, L. and Arens F.W (1989): Contemporary Advertising. Illinois: Irwin Publishers, pp. 78-98
Brassington, F. and Pettitt, S. (2000): Principles of Marketing: 2nd Edition: New York, Prentice Hall: Pp. 56-98
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Cooper, R. and Schindler, S. (2003): Business Research Methods. 8th Edition, New York- McGraw Hill/Irwin: pp. 54-88
Dick, A. and Basu, K. (1994): Customer Loyalty: Toward an Integrated Conceptual Framework. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Sciences.22 (2), pp101
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Lee, K and Carter, S., (2005): Global Marketing: Changes, New Challenges and Strategies. 1st Edition- London, Oxford Press: pp 120-130
Lovelock, J. (2006): Services Marketing, People, Technology, and Strategy. New York, Prentice Hall: pp. 78-100
Tranchberg, M.K (1986): A Dozen Ways to Develop Advertising Ideas. Advertising Age: 2nd Edition: New York- McGraw, p. 76
Shiffman, L.G and Kanuk L.L (2002): Consumer Behavior: Low Price Edition. New Delhi: Prentice Hall; pp. 45-78
Appendices
Questionnaires
Part a general questions
Part b competitive questions
Part c innoculative questionnaires
Part d comparative questionnaires
Thank you for your co-operation
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