A STUDY ON THE VIEWING BEHAVIOUR OF TELEVISION COMMERCIALS AMONG PEOPLE IN COIMBATORE, SOUTH INDIA.

Transcription

1 1 A STUDY ON THE VIEWING BEHAVIOUR OF TELEVISION COMMERCIALS AMONG PEOPLE IN COIMBATORE, SOUTH INDIA. DR. B. ANITHA Associate Professor, Department of Visual Communication, Hindusthan College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. ABSTRACT Television represents one of the most popular and widespread forms of media worldwide with more than billion households having one or more television sets. Every day, one comes across innumerable commercials for various products and services around the world. Advertisements are expressions of our society and they influence on the social, cultural and moral values of its inmates. The enormous growth of advertising in India constitutes a major opportunity in the world economic order. The advertising industry experienced dramatic changes in this century together with the advancements in technology. This excessive amount of television commercials in our day to day lives cannot be side lined. This study is an attempt to observe the viewing behaviour of television commercials among people in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, South India. The survey was conducted with a close-ended questionnaire among people representing various demographics in Coimbatore. Results proved that most of the respondents prefer to watch product advertising and animated advertisements. Television commercials make changes in their purchasing decisions. Public service advertisements help to make changes in their society. Few advertisements are against the cultural behaviour of the consumers, according to the study. Key words: Advertising ethics, Advertising elements, Television commercials (TVCs), Purchase decision.

2 2 I. INTRODUCTION Every aspect of human lifestyle today, whether it is education, commerce, advertising and communications, is taken over by the media. The earliest advertisements appeared in newspapers, in the form of the latest merchandise from England around the early 1700s. Indian advertising has come a long way into the techno savvy world in the 21st century. On the way, it saw the launch of numerous media organizations, advertising agencies and multinational companies contributing to the world of advertising. Television advertising is a form of a sponsored television slot which aims to send promotional messages to viewers and convince potential customers to buy products or services offered by the sponsoring organization. Advertisements vary in duration according to the specific regulation in each country. Television advertising relies heavily on catchy jingles and memorable slogans. Research shows that the combination of sound and motion has a strong effect on potential customers; hence television commercials are believed to be a highly effective form of advertising. Being the most powerful mass-market advertising media, the television advertising market is highly profitable. The change in the television market revolutionized the relationship between advertising specialists, advertisers and broadcasters. Market conditions led to the emergence of a new form of television advertising, which enabled sponsors to buy several minutes of broadcasting time to advertise their products. Hence, different companies managed to advertise their products in the same television program. Subsequent development of the television ad market was marked by the debate in society about the promotion of controversial products, such as cigarettes. The television advertising market experienced another dramatic change with the advent of new media. The advertising industry identified new media as a communication channel of strong potential. Controversial advertising touches upon different sensitive issues such as religion, culture or sex. Commercials of products such as condoms, deodorants and perfumes often seek to provoke the viewers. Regulatory issues relating to television advertising remain the subject of debates in society. Recently, social issues in advertising and the catastrophic consequences of improper advertising have been brought to the forefront. Overview of Advertising in India A commercial advertisement on television (usually abbreviated to television commercial, ad, ad-film, and known in UK as advert, or television Advert) is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization, which conveys a message, typically to market a product or service. The effect upon the viewing public of commercial advertisements in mass media has been the subject of philosophical discourse. India s advertising Industry grew by 15.5 % year on year to Rs.57, 485 crore in 2016, according to the estimates from media buying agency GroupM. Advertisements in television (Rs.27, 074 crore) followed by print media (Rs.17,674 crore) and surprisingly the digital ads ( Rs.7,300 crore). India is the fastest growing ad market among all the major markets of the world. Television will continue to account for a majority share of advertising spends in India, at 47.1%., said CVL Srinivas, CEO, GroupM South Asia. Ogilvy & Mather (O&M), Lowe Lintas and J.Walter Thompson maintain the leading positions among

3 3 India s top advertising agencies, according to The Economic Times, April With the liberalization and globalization of the Indian economy, firms have been aggressively and vigorously promoting their products and services. These practices raise questions about truthfulness and fairness of representation of products and services. In a competitive environment such as that in India, every representation of a product or service is about what others are not. Critics of standardization consistently argued their case for adaptation, citing cultural, economic and political barriers that mandate adaptation of marketing programs and processes for products marketed on a global basis (Sehgal, 2000). Elements of Advertisement: The goal of an advertisement is to motivate action. Nothing motivates action like desire. An ad usually has about seconds to accomplish the goal. During that time, here are 5 things that all good ads have in common: Attention Grabbing, Trust Development, Positive Associations, The Desire Hook and Action Motivator. Advantages and Disadvantages of Television Advertising Before a product is advertised, a thorough market research is conducted in order to know the reactions of various consumers about the product. Advantages: Television advertising allows the product to reach large number of people, both at regional as well as at national level. In addition, a very short span of time is required to reach the product to the public. Television advertisements can target large number of local people with local cable network channels and independent stations. Various segments of people like house wives, young people and children are targeted through different channels like cartoon etc. They provide complete flexibility and selectivity options to the customers so that they can choose the desired product offered by various companies. Television advertisements can attract people and convince them to buy the products. This is extremely advantageous for small business. Disadvantages: Cost is very high. Television advertisements are short, thus they do not express much about the product. AIM AND OBJECTIVES The primary aim of this study is to analyse the viewing behaviour of television commercials among people in Coimbatore. The specific objectives are: To find out the effective elements of advertisement. To find out the types of advertisements influencing people. To find out the impact of television commercials on the society. To study the attitude towards the social and moral values framed by advertisements. NEED AND SCOPE OF THE STUDY It is important to understand how advertising works in a vast, multicultural country such as India. The primary purpose of the current research is to study the influence of television commercials on the social patterns of viewers. The direction, in which television commercials are moving today, has generated enormous social tension to which we have not been able to find appropriate solutions. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

4 4 This study focus on the influence of television commercials on the social and moral turnout of the viewers. Through this study, an attempt has been made to evaluate the social implications of commercials being aired on television in the light of the moral outrage caused by these recent unethical trends. Hence, the statement of research problem is stated as, A study on the viewing behaviour of television commercials among people in Coimbatore, South India. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY Being a quantitative analysis, it is difficult to understand the qualitative aspects of advertisements. Due to time constraints, the study could not be extended at a larger extent. ll. REVIEW OF LITERATURE Numerous studies have been concentrated to identify the influence of television commercials on the social behavioural patterns of viewers. According to Dr. Jaspal Singh(2011), a study on the impact of Television Commercials on the Social and Moral Behaviour of Indian Viewers, it has been found that advertisements are generally criticized for targeting children, stereotypical presentations of women (Schaffter, 2006), negative psychological effects on the viewers and promoting materialism ( Nuta, 2009). A number of other studies have also established a significant and positive relationship between consumerism and advertising (Chan and Cia, 2009). Taking this argument a step ahead, some critics are also of the view that in order to buy the advertised products, people are ready to take loans beyond their repayment capacity or are even ready to commit crimes and resort to corruption (Nuta, 2009). According to Nidhi Kotwal et al (2008), television and advertising together present a lethal combination and has become an integral part of modern society. The main reasons for liking an advertisement was the information it provided regarding the discount, special gifts attached, brands and quality of the product. The non-informative factors like celebrities, Catchy slogans, visual effects funny advertisements, good music and action were also the reasons for liking an advertisement, in order of priority. The adolescent girls were of the opinion that advertisements played a vital role in introducing a new product in the family list and making better choice during shopping. The respondents preferred to buy branded and standardized products which are more advertised on Television. To conclude, it may be of great help to adolescent girls to study the characteristics of the advertisements, their merits and demerits, before going for shopping. In an international market such as India, the process of communicating to a target audience is more complex, since communication takes place across multiple contexts, languages, literacy levels and cultural factors. In high context cultures, such as the collectivist Asian cultures of India, the context in which information is embedded is as important as what is said (Hofstede, 2001). Advertising exerts a formative influence whose character is both persuasive and pervasive. International advertising is designed to promote and introduce new products from one society into another. III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Descriptive research was adopted to assess the viewing behaviour of television commercials among people in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, South India. This quantitative study adopted a survey method with a closed ended questionnaire. Data collection: Considering the major objectives and hypotheses of the present study, the data was collected from the selected categories of respondents belonging to different age group (15-18years, 19-22years, 23-25years and above 25 years) and from different social status (students, employed, business and professional). The period of study was November December 2016.

5 5 A structured questionnaire was designed to obtain the data pertaining to the following aspects: General Demographics, Consumption of products by watching commercials, Purpose of watching commercials and Television viewing habits of the respondents. A pilot study was conducted to check the consistency and a few changes were made in the questionnaire to avoid ambiguity. Convenient sampling method was adopted in the study. The respondents who were heavy viewers of television commercials were selected and survey was made among 60 samples representing various demographic profiles. About 51 completed questionnaires were received and hence, the sample size is 51. The researcher analyzed the collected data using Statistical Package for social science (SPSS). In this study, percentage analysis, T test and Chi square were performed to find the significance between the independent and dependent variables. IV. DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION Data interpretation provided a detailed insight on the impact of commercials among television viewers. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) analytical tool is used for data analysis. 4.1 Frequency Distribution of Respondent s Age 15-18years years years Above 25years Age wise distribution of the sample shows that majority of the respondents 45.1% are at the age group of 19-22years. About 33.3% of the respondents belong to 23-25years, 15.7% of the respondents are above 25 years and 5.9% of them belong to 15-18years. 4.2 Frequency Distribution of Respondent s Gender Male Female Gender wise distribution shows that majority of the respondents 62.7% are male and 37.3% of the respondents are female. 4.3 Frequency distribution of Respondent s working status Student Employed Business Professional A majority (80.4%) of the respondents are students. About 9.8% of the respondents are employed; 5.9% of the respondents belong to business and the least number of respondents 3.9% are professionals. 4.4 Frequency distribution of Respondent Discipline of Study

6 6 Arts Science Management Professional Other About 37.3% the respondents belong to the Arts stream, 19.6% of the respondents are from Science and 3.9% of them are from Management. About 33.3% of the respondents belong to Professional courses and a least number of respondents 5.9% belongs to other courses. 4.5 Frequency Distribution of Respondent s Family Income Less than Rs.20, Rs.20,001- Rs.40, Rs.40,001- Rs.60, Above Rs.60, About 25.5% of the respondents are under the category of Rs.20,001- Rs.40,000; about 19.6% of the respondents belong to the category of Rs.40,001- Rs.60,000 and a least number of respondents 13.7% more than Rs. 60, Frequency distribution of the Respondent s Preference of the Medium. Category / Rank Newspaper Radio P.C / Net cafe Mobile Internet Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % TV According to the results, Television seems to the most preferred medium, followed by Mobile internet and Newspaper as Rank 1. Next preferred medium is Personal computer or internet centres. Radio is the least preferred medium by the respondents. 4.7 Frequency distribution of Respondent s duration to Watch Television Less than 1 hour hours

7 7 3-5hours More than 5hours About 33.3% of the respondents are heavy viewers of television, who view for nearly 3-5 hours; majority of the respondents 41.2% are moderate viewers (1-3 hours) and 13.7% of the respondents watch more than 5 hours. 4.8 Frequency distribution of television commercial types. All Commercials Selective Commercials Not interested A majority of the respondents 54.9% prefer to watch selective commercials and about 39.2% of them like watching all commercials. A least number of respondents 3.9% are not interested in viewing commercials. 4.9 Frequency distribution of Product Commercial Category / Rank Product Non product PSA Animation Informative Educational Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % Total

8 8 Majority of the respondents 37.3% prefer product advertising as Rank 1 followed by animated advertisements. The next preferred advertisements are Non product/service ads and public service advertisements Frequency distribution of preferred elements in TVC s Category /Rank Concept Music/ jingle Visual Ad performers Celebrity Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % Freq % Total Majority of the respondents prefer good ad concept as rank 1 element, followed by music/jingle, visual representation and celebrities, which makes an advertisement reachable Frequency distribution of influence of Television commercials (TVC s) Yes Yes No No s.no Questions Total % Fq % Fq % 1 TVCs make any change in your purchasing style? Do you change buying a product by viewing TVCs? Do you feel any change in your society due to the influence of PSA? 4 Do you feel, TVCs breaks our moral values? Do you feel, TVCs are against our cultural behaviour? Does TVC helps to promote consumption of products? A majority (66.7%) of the respondents feel that Television commercials (TVCs) make changes in their purchasing style, whereas 33.3% of the respondents are against it. About 58.8% of the respondents said that they have changed buying a product by viewing television commercials. A majority 60.8% of the respondents accept that a public service ad helps to make changes in their society. About 62.7% of them feel that television commercials are against our cultural behaviour. Most 76.5% of the respondents accept that television commercials promote the consumption of products.

9 9 H 0 1- There is no significant association between gender of the respondent and their frequency of watching Television. Result of T-test with relationship between Gender and how frequently watch Television. Table No 4.12(a) One-Sample Statistics N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean Gender HFWTV Table No 4.12(b) One-Sample Test Test Value = 0 T Df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Lower Difference Upper Gender HFWTV Since the obtained table value (1.2352) is less than the given table value (2.01), the hypothesis H 0 1 There is no significant association between gender of the respondent and their frequency of watching television is rejected. Hence it is inferred that there is a significant difference among gender of the respondents and their television viewing habit. H 0 2 There is no significant association between age of the respondent and frequency to watch television. Result of Chi Square showing relationship between age and frequency of watching television. Table No 4.13(a) Chi-Square Tests Value Df Asymp. Sig. (2- sided) Pearson Chi-Square a Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association N of Valid Cases 51 Table No 4.13(b) Symmetric Measures Value Asymp. Std. Error a Approx. T b Approx. Sig. Ordinal by Ordinal Kendall's tau-b N of Valid Cases 51

10 10 Table No 4.13(a) Chi-Square Tests Value Df Asymp. Sig. (2- sided) Pearson Chi-Square a Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association As the inferred result (0.947) is not significant at 0.05%, the null hypothesis H 0 2 There is no significant association between age of the respondent and frequency of watching television is accepted. Hence, there existed no significant relationship between age of the respondent and frequency of watching television. H 0 3 There is no significant association between working status of the respondent and time preferred to watch television. Result of Chi Square showing relationship between working status and time preferred to watch the television by the respondents. Table No 4.14(a) Chi-Square Tests Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Pearson Chi-Square a Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association N of Valid Cases 51 Table No 4.14(b) Symmetric Measures Value Asymp. Std. Error a Approx. T b Approx. Sig. Ordinal by Ordinal Kendall's tau-b N of Valid Cases 51 As the inferred result (0.037) is significant at 0.05%, the null hypothesis H 0 3 There is no significant association between working status and time preferred to watch the television by the respondents is rejected. Hence it is concluded that there is a significant relationship between working status of the respondents and time preferred to watch the television. V. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION The survey conducted on viewing behaviour of television commercials resulted in the following findings: A majority of respondents belongs to the age group of years. It may be due to their interest of watching television. There is a major difference between the proportion of male and female respondents who watch television.

11 11 Television is the most preferred medium, followed by Mobile internet and Newspaper. Radio is the least preferred medium by the respondents. About 33.3% of the respondents are heavy viewers of television, who view for nearly 3-5 hours. A majority of the respondents prefer to watch selective commercials and many of them like watching all commercials. A least number of respondents are not interested in viewing commercials. Most of the respondents prefer product advertising, followed by animated advertisements. The next preferred advertisements are Non product/service ads and public service advertisements. Considering various elements in television commercials, respondents prefer Concept and attractive visual. It is followed by Music/ jingle and the Celebrity. A majority of the respondents felt that Television commercials (TVCs) make changes in their purchasing style. Respondents accepted that television commercials promote the consumption of products and they have changed buying a product by viewing television commercials. Most of the respondents agreed that a public service ad helps to make changes in their society. They strongly felt that television commercials are against our cultural behavior. Result of Hypotheses: T-test findings proved that there existed a significant difference among male and female respondents and their television viewing habit. Results of Chi-square analysis concluded that there is no significant relationship between age of the respondents and frequency of watching television. It also inferred that there existed a significant relationship between working status of the respondents and time preferred to watch television programs. VI. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS Television commercials are believed to be a highly effective form of advertising. But nowadays, people watch television commercial as they are attracted by its presentation style, concept, visual beauty, celebrity endorsement and music. Advertisements encourage the promotion of the products and give many choices to the customers. However, the call of the hour is to ensure that advertising and corporate houses should build moral and ethical considerations into their public communication. They must make sure to balance their advertising strategies and welfare of public at large. Research shows that the combination of sound and motion has a strong effect on potential customers; hence Research on the following topics can give a wide exposure on the field of advertising: Research on conceptual commercials to a particular brand. Effects of Television Commercials on children. Importance of Branding in business. Ethics in advertising. BIBLIOGRAPHY Arrington, R. (2004). Advertising and Behaviour Control. Ethical Theory and Business (eds.) Beauchamp Thomas and Norman Bowie, Prentice Hall, Browne, B. A. (1998). Gender stereotypes in advertising on children s television in the 1990s: a crossnational analysis. Journal of Advertising, 27 (4), Chan, K. And Cia, X.(2009).Influence of television advertising on adolescents in China: an urban-rural comparison. Young consumers, 10(2), Hofsted, G. (2001): Culture s consequences: Comparing values, behaviours, institutions and organizations across nations, 2 nd edition, Sage publications. Jaspal Singh (2011). Building Ethical Considerations into Advertising Practices- An Indian study. International journal of social science, Vol.2 No.18 Lavine, H.; Sweeny, D. and Wagner, S. H.(1999). Depicting women as sex objects in television advertising: effects on body dissatisfaction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25 (8),

12 12 Nidhi Kotwal (2008).Impact if TV advertisements on buying patterns of adolescent girls: Journal of social science, 16(1):51-55 Nuta,C.(2009).Does advertising promote excessive consumerism? Indian Advertising and market report and forecast