This chapter should be regarded as the foundation of the study and provides a framework that will aid in the analysis of the findings. The chapter delivers an overview of chosen theories relating to the area of advertising and attitudes and a discussion upon why they are deemed suitable for this particular study.
Advertising has from its earliest days, been regarded as a way to provide strictly factual infor-mation, so-called cognitive information. The first formal model of advertising was AIDA, which stands for Attention-Interest-Desire-Action, and is still one of the most commonly used advertis-ing models (Vakratsas & Ambler, 1999). Since then, advertising has developed and is today an important part of an organization’s marketing communication in the means of communicating with current and potential customers.
The objectives of advertising are to create awareness, informing customers and to create a desired perception for the product or brand. The purpose of advertising is also to create a preference for the product or brand and to persuade consumers to purchase the product (Bendixen, 1993). Ad-vertising can also help to influence audiences to differentiate a product from others in the mar-ketplace and by that, reach large audiences through messages that help the consumers to under-stand the product, and make their final decision (Percy & Elliot, 2009; Fill, 2005)
Advertising should provide information or create a positive feeling that goes beyond just catching the consumer’s attention for the ad; it should be designed to provide information in order to cre-ate a positive brand attitude, formed by a favorable impression (Percy & Elliot, 2009). The con-tent and delivery of an advertising message is derived from an understanding of the context of where the ad is to be used (Fill, 2005).
How does advertising work?
The main objectives of advertising are to build awareness, induce engagement and to position brands by changing the customer’s perception or attitude and can create a competitive advantage for the advertiser (Fill, 2005). Creating the perfect advertisement is a complex task; the consumer must have the opportunity to pay attention to the advertisement and then gain an understanding of the presented message and finally take the decision to act upon it (Percy & Elliot, 2009). The complexity of producing the right message lies within the difficulty of understanding how hu-mans have different possibilities in their thinking, feeling and behaving towards products and services. Humans are capable of being logical, illogical, objective, subjective, obvious and subtle at the same time (Vaughn, 1980).
Based on the findings of 25 conclusions of previous research, Vakratsas and Amber (1999) creat-ed a theory suggesting how advertising works. The ad itself should work as an input for consum-ers and trigger an unconscious or conscious response. The ad should also aim for some kind of mental effect, for example awareness, memory or attitude, before it can have an effect on the be-havior of the consumer. Two major intermediate advertising effects of responses are responses
Consumer attitude toward green advertising – 18
that are affective (emotions) and cognitive (thinking). Further, the memory or experience also plays a major role in the consumers’ mind. Consumers often have conscious or unconscious memories of product purchasing or usage, which means that the memories affect the behavior of the consumer.
Individual responses to advertising are also affected by factors such as motivation and the ability to process information, which are factors that can have a big impact on the response. Factors that affect responses, can function as filters between the advertising input, the consumers and their behavior. Dahlén, Lange and Smith (2010) argue that advertising is the link between market-ing communications and consumer behavior and that the latter has changed to a more cognitive orientation. Forming attitudes is an important part of advertising and an effective marketing campaign has the ability to form or change an attitude towards a company or product in the mind of the consumers. Dahlén et al., (2010) suggest several examples of why companies use marketing communications where repositioning of the brand, building credibility, changing performance and attribute beliefs of a product as well as creating new attitudes about the company’s competi-tors’ products, are examples of why a company would create an effective and successful market-ing communications strategy.
Motives and appeals in advertising
As previously mentioned, advertising is constantly used by companies to create awareness, to in-form their customers about new products and can also be used when creating certain preferences for a brand and even as a means of persuading the customer to purchase a product (Bendixen, 1993). Advertising can create different emotions among its viewers, by containing certain appeals, in order to create a certain emotion among the customers. With the purpose of the thesis in mind, to examine consumers’ attitude toward advertising, an understanding of the actual adver-tisement is also needed.
A main goal of advertising is to persuade the consumer to purchase a particular product. There are however different motives behind customers’ purchasing choice and to enable an understand-ing of what attitudes customers may hold towards printed advertising-in-general and printed green advertising, understanding the role of advertising is also of importance to create a holistic view of the studied subject.
Within advertising, there are different appeals that marketers use in order to attract customers and they are often initiated upon what motive is behind the customer’s decision to purchase a product, whether it is a hedonic or utilitarian motive (Percy & Rossiter, 1992). Further, they sug-gest that there is either a positive or negative motive behind buying a particular product. Negative motives relate to when the customer wishes to avoid a certain outcome, or remove a problem, whereas positive motives takes place when the customer wishes to reach social approval, sensory enjoyment or an intellectual stimulation (Percy & Rossiter, 1992).
1.2 Problem discussion
1.4 Research questions
2.1 Deductive and inductive research orientations
2.2 Research approaches
2.3 Quantitative and Qualitative research
2.4 Collection of data
2.5 Data analysis
2.6 Validity of data
2.7 Reliability of data
3 Theoretical Framework
3.2 Green advertising
3.3 Attitudes toward the ad
3.4 The Ducoffe Extended Model (DEM)
3.5 Advertising value
3.6 The role of demographics in attitude
4 Empirical findings
4.2 Mean values of factors
4.3 Normal distribution
4.4 Result of Paired sample tests
4.5 Result of demographics
4.6 Testing of hypotheses
4.8 Important factors in green advertising
4.9 Factor analysis
5 Data Analysis
5.5 Advertising value
5.6 Demographics ..
5.7 Additional findings
6.1 Managerial implications
6.2 Suggestions for further research
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CONSUMERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD PRINTED GREEN ADVERTISING