The Effect of Television Advertisement of Mobile Telecommunication Companies in Nigeria on Viewers’ Choice Preference

Advertiser’s primary mission is to reachprospective customers and influence theirawareness, attitudes and buying behaviour. Theyspend a lot of money to keep individuals interested in their products. To succeed, theyneed to understand what makes potential customersbehave the way they do. The study examined the effect of television advertisement of mobile telecommunication companies in Nigeria on viewers’ choice preference. One hundred and twenty-seven (127) participants were randomly selected from a University community. There were 67 males and 60 females in the study. The mean age of participants was 28.31 (SD = 5.04). The study adopted the Single factorial design. Two hypotheses were tested in the study and results of hypothesis one revealed that there was no significant effect of television advertisement of mobile telecommunication network on viewers preference, F (1, 125) = 0.625, p = .431 (p > .05); while the result of hypothesis two showed that that there was a significant effect of age on viewers’ preference of televised advertisement of mobile telecommunication networks, F (1, 125) = 5.608, p = 0.019 (p<.05). The study therefore suggested that advertising messages should both be persuasive and reminder-oriented; the messages must be strong and appealing enough to persuade and build brand preferences, encourage switching to the company’s brand by changing the perception of the consumers of rival brands of the product


Introduction
Television is one of the most powerful and influential medium of communication around the world. As a result of its powerful effect, most advertisers rely on television for advertisement of their products and services to attract the viewers as they are their target audience in most of the cases.Advertising both in the media has become a powerful communication tool in passing messages about the products and services to both viewers and potential customers in the society. When there is adequate awareness through advertising, high patronage will be achieved, sales volume, productivity and profit level of the organizations increases. Akanbi and Adeyeye (2011) were of the view that advertising campaign cannot solely be responsible for recorded increases in its sales after campaign, other unrecognizable factors like higher income for potential customers, reduction problems of competitors, improved customer relation of distributors and retails and other unnoticeable factors apart from the campaign may be responsible for the company's improved sales. Modern (1991) believes that advertising gives the knowledge about the product and create the idea in mind about it. Akanbi and Adeyeye(2011) indicated that advertising as a subset of promotion mix has a significant effect on sales turn over. Adekoya, (2011) found that advertising influence consumer buying behaviour which means it helps to increase sales turnover. More so, Sybil and Thelma (2000) saw television advertising as that type of advertising that combines sounds, colour, serves and demonstrates to members of the society through which people are attracted to purchase that product, because the process of demonstrating, people and informed of the product and are directed to where they will get it.
Also according to Marshall (2006) television advertising combines' sights sound along with diverse range of graphics technology, provides advertisers the opportunity to create dramatic and effective messages. Television advertisement is because television advertisement unlike other forms of advertisements such as radio, which comprise of only sound or bill board which has only visual stimuli, combines visual and auditory stimuli along with diverse range of graphics technology.Also according to Wikipedia (2014) television advertisement is considered the most effective mass market advertising format. This is largely due to the fact that television advertisement can get across to a lot of people at the same time.
Various researches have been carried out on media advertising (Boyland, Harrold, Kirkham & Halford, 2008;Page & Brewster, 2009). Oyerinde (1988) examined educative values of television advertisements and its impact on health propaganda especially as they affect and influence college students' market values towards health related products. Equally, the study tested students' knowledge of non-prescription health items as acquired through television advertising. Results revealed thatthat students' knowledge of non-prescription health items was influenced television advertising. However, television advertising did not represent a major influencing factor in creating a cognitive base for Health action among college students. Significant factors identified by the study population as influencing factors in creating a cognitive base for health action were parents, health education, doctors/nurses, and consumer education. Grossman, Tekin and Wada (2012) examined the effects of fast-food restaurant advertising on television on the body composition of adolescents as measured by percentage body fat (PBF) and to assess the sensitivity of these effects to using conventional measures of youth obesity based on body massindex (BMI). Results revealed that Exposure to fastfood restaurant advertising on television causes statistically significant increases in PBF in adolescents. These results are consistent with those obtained by using BMI-based measures of obesity. The responsiveness to fast food advertising is greater for PBF than for BMI. Males are more responsive to advertisingthan females regardless of the measure.
Many television advertisements feature catchy jingles (songs or melodies) or catch-phrases that generate sustained appeal, which may remain in-the minds of television viewers long after the span of the advertising campaign, some of these and jingles or catch-phrases may take on lives of their own, spawning gags or "riffs" that may appear in other forms of media, such as comedy movies or television variety shows, or in written media, such as magazine comics or literature. These long-lasting advertising elements may therefore be said to have been placed in pop culture history of the demographic to which they have appeared. Advertising agencies often use humour as a tool in their creative marketing campaigns. In fact, many psychological studies tried to demonstrate the effect of humour and indicate the way to empower advertising persuasion.
This study examined features that are absent in television advertisement of mobile telecommunication companies that would have made viewers prefer their services or packages and those features that are present in the advertisement that make the viewer's dislike the television advertisement and thereby, dislike the services and packages of the company with the advertisement. The use of telecommunication companies in Nigeria as a case study is justified in the fact that they keep up with modern trend in television advertising.

Statement of the Problem
Advertisement messages or advertisements on the television last only as long as it is being presented on the screen. If a viewer is not watching or listening at the exact moment the advertisement is presented, the message is gone and wasted as far as the viewer is concerned. In order to be able to influence viewers preference positively towards their services and packages, television advertisers or television advertisement directors need knowledge of the viewers and how they react to certain factors under different situations.
Most modern television advertisements are not directed by the dictates of psychological principles. This is a problem because the viewers are humans and they have their cognitive or mental process, if the television advert is not well designed, it will turn the people off instead of attracting them.Understanding the psychology of the viewersis an aspect that needs to be researched.

Objective of the Study
The main objective of the study is to examine the effectiveness of televised advertisements on the choice preference of viewers. The study however will examine the following specific objectives: The following are the objectives of the study: i.
To find out if television advertisement have any effect on viewers preference. ii.
To determine the role of age on viewers' preference

Hypotheses
The following hypotheses were tested in the study: H1: Television advertisement of mobile telecommunication networkswill have a significant effect on viewer's choice preference. H2: The ageof viewers of television advertisement of mobile telecommunication networkswill have a significant effect on their choice preference

Relevance of the Study
The need for this study was informed by the fact that television viewing is growing by the day, and a lot of people are influenced by what they see on television, the television advertisement that is presented, can either cause a positive or a negative effect on the viewer depending on the way it is designed and resented. This research is, therefore necessary because its findings will help marketing managers and advertisement designers, advert producers and directors to design and present effective adverts 6. Methodology

Participants
Participants in the study were one hundred and twenty-seven (127) individuals that were randomly selected from the University community. There were 67 males and 60 females that participated in the study; the mean age of participants was 28.31 years with a standard deviation of 5.04.

Instruments
The instrument adopted in this study include the Television Advertisement Influence Scale and the Brand Preference scale Television Advertisement Scale: The Television Advertisement Scale (TAS) was developed by Vinod and Sharma (2009) to measure perception of television advertisement. The scale has 14-items scored on 5-point option Liker format, where 1 = very unappealing to 5 very appealing. The reliability of the scale revealed a cronback alpha of .76 (Vinod & Sharma, 2009).
Brand Preference Scale: viewers' preference was measured using Mittal's Purchase-decision Involvement Scale (Mittal, 1989). The Purchase Decision Scale (PDI) is a four-Items measure rated on a 7-point scale ranging from 1= 'I would not care at all as to which one I buy', to 7 = 'I would care a great deal as to which one I buy'. The items scores are summed and then divided by four to form an average score of PDI.

Design
The design for this study is a factorial design. The dependent variable is Television advert of mobile telecommunication companies in Nigeria (appealing vs unappealing). The dependent variable is viewers' preference.

Method of Data Collection
A self-report questionnaire comprising of the scales measuring the study variables were administered to the selected participants to fill at their leisure time within duration of two days. In the questionnaire, the students were expected to circle strongly-agreed, Agreed, Undecided, Disagreed and strongly disagreed as attached to each item to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with the item.In section C, the participants are expected to tick the network they use from the networks listed in the questionnaire.The name of the item was not indicated to avoid faking; this was to access for how television adverts of mobile telecommunication companies in Nigeria affect preference of the participants

Results
The 0.05 significance level was adopted for hypothesis testing in the study. The descriptive and inferential results are presented below:  Table 1 shows that 58.3% of the participants were between the age group of 18-29 years, and 41.7% were 30 years and above. There were 67 males and 60 females that took part in the study; 44.1% were single and 55.9% of the participants were married. Furthermore, 38.6% of the participants had secondary education, while the majority (61.4%) had tertiary education. Based on scores, 67.7% of the participants viewed the television adverts as unappealing while 32.3% viewed it as appealing.

Hypotheses Testing
The hypotheses stated in the study and were tested with the analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results are presented below: Hypothesis One: Television advertisement of mobile telecommunication networks will have a significant effect on viewer's choice preference.  Results showed that there was no significant effect of television advertisement of mobile telecommunication network viewers' preference, F (1, 125) = 0.625, p = .431 (p > .05) (see table 2), with viewers preference mean scores of 20.57 and 21.68 for participants with unappealing and appealing perception of television adverts respectively (see table 3). The hypothesis was not supported.

Hypothesis Two:
The age of viewers of television advertisement of mobile telecommunication networkswill have a significant effect on their choice preference.  Results showed that there was a significant effect of age on consumer preference of viewers of television advertisement of mobile telecommunication networks, F (1, 125) = 5.608, p = 0.019 (p<.05); with consumer preference mean scores of 19.64 and 22.74 for younger and older participants respectively. The hypothesis was supported. This implies that television advertisement of mobile telecommunication has effect on consumer preference of older participants than younger participants. Table 5 shows the mean summary.

Discussion
The result of hypothesis one showed that there was no significant effect of television advertisement of mobile telecommunication networks on viewer's choice preference. This contrasts the study of Dubey and Patel, (2004) which showed that television advertisement significantly predicted preference for cosmetics brands. In another study, Vinod and Sharma (2009) found that television advertisements significantly impacted on viewer'sbehaviour.
However, the results of hypothesis two indicated that there was a significant effect of age on viewer choice preference of television advertisement of mobile telecommunication networks. This is in agreement with the findings of Thompson and Austin (2003) which showed that watching television advertisements significantly influence younger age groups than adults' preferences for the products or services. More so, Borzekowski and Robinson (2001) showed that the food preferences of children depend on television advertisement.
Younger people try to follow new fashion, culture and style presented in different programs and advertisements on television. They have strong urge and inclination to adopt something new and extra ordinary different from their surroundings as such television as a medium of advertising has more impact on the younger respondents when compared with the older age group.

Conclusion
The study suggests that that television advertisement of mobile telecommunication networks had no significant effect on viewers' preference. However, there was a significant effect of age on viewers' choice preference of television advertisement of mobile telecommunication networks. Television advertising has enhanced involvement in productselection of older age group. It can also be concluded that there is a considerable variation in the perception ofboth younger and older people on the issue of viewer preference of mobile telecommunication networks asinfluenced by television advertisement advertisements. Television advertising does establish basic awareness of the product or service in the mind of the viewer and build up knowledge about it.

Limitations of the Study
This study involved several limitations. First, results werebased on self-reports; the use of self-report questionnaires may create a source of bias in that participants may exaggerate, underreport, misunderstand a question and respond inaccurately, or answer questions in ways that they feel are socially desirable. In addition, findings may have beeninfluenced by different levels of questionnaire reliabilityand validity as used in the current environment as questionnaires used were originally developed for a population in the West; therefore differential bias cannot be dismissed as a potentialconfounder for the results observed

Recommendation
The following recommendations are made based on the findings of the study: i. Advertising messages should both be persuasive and reminder-oriented. The messages must be strong and appealing enough to persuade and build brand preferences, encourage switching to the company's brand by changing the perceptionof the consumers of rival brands of the product. ii. There is a need to conduct research regardingpersonality characteristics of consumers and find their impact on the consumer buying behaviour. iii. The need for mobile telecommunication networks in Nigeria to research more in the market segmentation as regards age distribution in rural and urban areas. iv. More research should be carried out in areas of television viewing time across different age groups