Int. J. Mgmt Res. & Bus. Strat.

2013

Naveen Rai, 2013

ISSN 2319-345X www.ijmrbs.com
Vol. 2, No. 2, April 2013
2013 IJMRBS. All Rights Reserved

IMPACT OF ADVERTISING ON CONSUMER

BEHAVIOUR AND ATTITUDE WITH REFERENCE
TO CONSUMER DURABLES
Naveen Rai1*

*Corresponding Author: Naveen Rai, rai.naveen@gmail.com

In the current era of information explosion and the world of media, advertisements play a major
role in changing the behavior and attitude of consumers towards the products shown in the
advertisements. The advertisements not only change the way of product is consumed by user
but alter the attitude with which they look at the product. All over the world, advertisements have
been used since ages for a wide variety of brands. For over the last two decades, a sharp
increase in advertisements per brand can be witnessed. Advertisements have great influence in
purchasing decision of customers for particular brands. It is a ubiquitously accepted fact that
advertisements can bestow special attributes upon a product or service that it may have lacked
otherwise. The present study focuses on identifying the influence of advertisements on the
consumer behavior and attitude with special reference to consumer durables.
Keywords: Advertisements, Consumers, Behavior, Attitude, Product

INTRODUCTION

act as a credible means of spending money. This

could be for the reason of their social standing.
People want to wear the right clothes, drink the
right beverages and use the right fragrances
and buy right durables. Studying the attitude of
consumers, it can be stated that if a consumer
observes messages for two different firms
products, one products message containing a
better advertisement and the other not, believes
the better advertisements product will definitely
have more features and so be of higher value.

An Advertisement is one of the topical strategies

of many brands for the promotion of their product.
The purpose of mass advertisements is to gain
attention for the product, ensuring prolonged
association with consumers, or for the purpose
of recall of their product in customers mind. This
study purports to consider the application of the
AIDA theory. For the purpose, it proceeds to
analyze the impact of advertisements in
influencing the consumers attitude to purchase
the durable products like Television and
Refrigerator, etc. Today, most of the advertisements come with celebrity endorsements which
1

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The present research work is designed to achieve

MBA Department, HIET, Kaithal.

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stand this system fully, it is required to study a

persons entire lifetime experiences on the consumption of economic goods. It involves study of
almost every activity towards consumables in
which humans are involved. From this point of
view, consumer behavior appears to be subsets
of human behavior for the factors, which affect
individuals in their daily lives, also influence their
purchasing activities. Besides, internal influences, such as social class, society, family, reference group, opinion leaders and culture also affects
us in our roles as consumer (Loudon and Bitta,
1994; Foxall and Goldsmith, 1994; Ralphs, 1993).
Wilkie (1994) defined consumer behavior as the
mental, emotional, and physical activities that
people engage in when selecting, purchasing,
using, and disposing of products and services
so as to satisfy needs and desires (Wilkie, 1994).

the following specific objectives with reference

to durable products:
(i) To examine the influence of advertising on
consumer buying behaviors.
(ii) To determine the influence of advertising on
attitude formation of consumers.
The six fundamental principles, on which
advertising campaign run, have been unanimously
agreed upon by researchers. These include
(Shahid, 1999):

To score attention;

To arose interest;

To develop and sustain that interest;

To create desire;

To incite action; and

To create good will.

The latest study by Source Dynamic Logic

through a survey conducted in 2009 on the consumer behavior to different types of advertisements
for products including Television, Online and
Magazines, revealed that advertisements have
modified the consumer behavior in such a way
so that they only go for brand favorability despite
of ad awareness in every type of media. Surveys
show that magazine advertisements provide great
impact on purchasing behavior of consumers.
Mostly people go for purchasing according to the
product value shown in advertisements despite
of cost of the product as they spend a lot more
than the actual value only due to the influence of
advertisements. The graph in Figure 1 indicates
the results of survey for better understanding
(Globalisation, 2003).

After choosing an appropriate strategy and

deciding upon the advertising objectives, media
selection is the next important consideration.
Media is the vehicle that is used for the delivery
of the message. Some important tools of
advertisement are newspapers, magazines,
radio, television, direct mail and mail order,
outdoor display and transportation (Wells et al.,
2000).
All the efforts to make an advertisement are
centered on the sole aim of making it so effective
and persuasive in a natural way so as to serve
the motto of meeting the consumer psyche in a
positive manner. Every human community
develops a system by which it provides and
distributes goods and services. In todays advanced societies as the development goes on, this
system is becoming very complex due to wide
range of available goods in all fields. To under-

GLOBAL CONSUMER MARKET

Global communications are assumed to create
a global, homogeneous consumer culture. Views

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Figure 1: Report by Source Dynamic Logic, 2009

on this homogenization process, however, are

stronger in the United States than in other parts
of the world (Alden et al., 1999), who analyzed
the representation of global consumer culture in
advertising, view global consumer culture as
shared sets of consumption-related symbols
(product categories, brands, and consumption
activities) that are meaningful to segment
members. Mass media programming, flowing
primarily from the United States, has played a
major role in the creation, learning, and sharing
of such consumption symbols. As a result, the
symbols of global consumer culture are basically
American symbols that in the United States are
viewed as local. In the sample of advertisements
that was analyzed, only 5.5% were viewed as
including global culture symbols compared with
25.6% in the other countries. The spread of global
symbols, however, does not necessarily include
homogeneity of peoples habits or values
(Featherstone, 1991). In practice, notwithstanding
the worldwide reach of television and the Internet,

in many areas of peoples lives, in consumption

or entertainment habits, be it music or sports,
the people of different nations continue to have
different habits, tastes, and loyalties. Instead of
causing homogenization, globalization is the
reason for the revival of local cultural identities in
different parts of the world (Giddens, 2000).

INDIAN CONSUMER MARKET

As particularly talking about Indian Market
advertisements also have huge impact as current
market is focused on advertisements to increase
their productivity. As the Second Largest populated country in the world, India plays a huge role
in global economical market. Many companies
have realized through extensive research on Indian economy that Indian consumers are hugely
influenced by different methods of advertisements. Indian consumers mostly use to purchase
the home durables like Television, Refrigerator,
Air conditioners, etc., with only ads in mind.

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Consumer attitude and behavior hugely

influenced by advertisements, as example Life
Good (LG) and Samsung are the brands that are
most popular in Indian market due to the advertisements, on the other hand Onida the old brand
which use to provide huge sales in early 1990s
lacked in sales due to less advertisements, as
per there manufacturing of products with wide
range and less on price, but still not are taste for
consumers. This reflect the behavior change and
attitude formation of consumer as Onida is still
providing wide range of products but consumers
only use to go for other new brands due to their
better advertisement strategies involving Sports
and Bollywood celebrities who act as idols in
minds of Indian people. Not only durables but food
products and beverages, etc., also get influenced
by advertisements. In Asia, McDonalds follows
cultural habits and uses celebrities. As a case
study, Figure 2 (http://www.cnnasiapacific.com/
factsheets//) below shows pictures from a
Japanese commercial that is hardly understandable to outsiders. We see a young woman
putting on all sorts of different hats and in the end
eating a ham burger. What is special is that her
name is Yuri Ebihara. McDonalds Japan annually
has a special filet-o-fish with shrimp inside, which

is called ebi filet-o. Ebi means shrimp in Japanese. Since Ebihara is such a famous model,
and her name is actually a bit strange, including
the word ebi, anybody in Japan can easily relate
Ebihara to ebi filet-o, even without saying anything
about the ham burger. Consumers easily got influenced by this ad and productivity for McDonald
went high as compared to other brands with even
less or similar price. It reflects the behavioral change in consumers due to advertisements.
According to Readers Digest surveys, European Trusted Brands, (www.rdtrusted brands.
com) conducted annually since 2000 and asking
respondents which brands they trusted most for
several product categories. There are several
national brands that have remained strong in the
face of the power of the large multinationals.
These are national brands that are either old or
include important national values in their
advertising, or both. In France, the French car
brand Renault is most trusted; in Germany and
Austria it is the German brand Volkswagen; and
in the Czech Republic, it is Skoda, an originally
Czech car brand. The most trusted car brand in
India is the Indian brand Maruti. This show the
influence of advertisements as local ads changes

Figure 2: McDonald's Advertising in Japan, 2009

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Figure 3: Shipments of Products on the Basis of Advertisements Only

the decision and behaviour to adopt the particular

brand shown in advertisements. The graph in Figure
3 is indicative of the product demand on the basis
of advertisements in various countries for a span of
6 years (Source Dynamic Logic, 2009).

(1999), Brand positioning through

advertising in Asia, North America, and
Europe: The role of global consumer
culture, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 63, pp.
75-87.

CONCLUSION
The findings of the present study are that
advertisement worldwide influence the behaviour
and attitude formation of consumers not only in
India but also worldwide. The consumers of
durables products have their motivational sources
which are advertisements and study revealed that
advertisement motivates them to materialize the
purchase of durables. The consumers are induced significantly by advertisements when the
target is on quality and price. Purchase attitude
and behavior is influenced by variety of advertisements which cover product evaluation and brand
recognition.

2.

European trusted brands, London: Readers

Digest, Retrieved from http//: www.rdtrusted
brands.com.

3.

Featherstone M (1991), Consumer culture

and postmodernism, Sage, . London.

4.

Giddens A (2000), Runaway world, Routledge,

New York.

5.

Globalisation (2003), Flash Eurobarometer

report 151b (Oct.- Nov.).

6.

Loudon L D and Bitta D J A (1994),

Consumer Behavior, 4th Edition, McGraw
Hill, Inc., New York.

7.

Retrieved Nov.6, (2009), http://www.

cnnasiapacific.com/factsheets//.

8.

Shahid M I (1999), Mass Communication,

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