1.1 Introduction
Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services through mass media such as newspapers, magazines, television or radio by an identified sponsor. Advertising promote social messages and life style through illustrating the position of ideal consumer and stimulate social action toward purchase of that product. In such situation of emerging new standards of business under global effects creating an effective marketing communication strategy has become more complex and witty job. The potential intervention of internet across all communication processes has made this job even more challenging.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Advertisement plays a significant role in terms of product or service characteristics clarification to the customer. It is the paid form of communication to influence the behavior of the people in an efficient manner. It has become one of the most important commercial activities in the modern competitive environment (Mehta et al., 2010). Companies spend a large part of their budget to produce and run advertisements for promotions in order to communicate the information regarding their products.
There have been different forms of definition for advertisement but most of them were describing this term as a form of communication for producers and marketers to attract the attention of audiences and make them to take action with respect to the product (Fennis and Das, 2011). Marketers can convey their message to customers through different types of channels such as newspaper, radio, television, billboard, mail, magazines, websites etc. The aim of each kind of advertisement is to increase the consumption of the product by pursuing customers to purchase. Regardless of the advertisement’s types, a customer by the exposure of ads will go through specific steps of awareness. Knowledge, liking, preference, conviction and purchase in the time of making decision for acquiring the product.
Traditional ways of advertising includes newspaper and magazine ads, radio ads, TV ads and billboards while modern types of advertising are dependent on new technology such as mobile advertising website and banner advertising.
Fast foods also known as quick service restaurants, refer to those food service providers, either restaurants or even precooked or preheated packages in the store, with the lower price. Fast foods become more popular due to its inexpensiveness and quick services. Regarding to the fact that in the modern world propel are much more engaged with the life challenges and it’s pretty tough to fine the proper time to make daily or weekly grocery shopping and cook. Therefore, fast foods are quite good alternatives for the people in order to save up more time.
The concept of advertising began simply as a means of generating awareness of products and getting the company’s name into the public eye. Before and during the World War II era, food products were marketed to women; specifically, the mothers and/or wives of the household. Advertisements were kept simple, and the only real methods of advertising in the early times were through newspaper publications and over the radio. Today, a lot of individuals have numerous ways for advertisers to spread awareness of their products and promote sales to their consumers, such as – but not limited to - magazine ads, television commercials, movie ads, billboards, newspapers, radio, etc.
Advertisements in the past few decades have become much cleverer in luring people into buying products, and are designed to target specific demographics that would be most likely to buy the product in question. The problem with many of the advertisements in recent years is that they are almost too clever, and it is almost as if they contain subliminal messages telling people that they “need” to buy these products. The food industry and their marketing counterparts are capitalizing on their ability to pinpoint exactly what people of certain ethnic groups, socioeconomic groups, genders; ages, religions, etc. look for in products to create advertisements accordingly.
Consequently, advertising may not be automatically discernible as advertising because it is integrated seamlessly into an individual’s lived experience. Such covert advertising is also known as natural or native advertising, but other masked forms of advertising can include sponsorships, influencer marketing, content marketing, stealth marketing, and product placement. This is of concern, as individuals are often unaware that they are being persuaded to purchase EDNP food products and are not able to discern the influence these advertisements are having on their food choices. This is particularly apparent with children, and therefore governments have attempted to mitigate the effect of unhealthy advertisements by introducing regulations.
All these forms of advertising are designed to create a positive attitude towards a brand and persuade people to buy the brand’s products without necessarily being aware that they are being persuaded. When individuals are involved in or interested in the product, direct (overt) forms of advertising are applicable because they fulfill an information need that leads to people being able to make considered choices about their purchase behavior. However, covert forms of advertising are applicable when the target audience is not interested in the product or motivated enough about it to pay attention to more complex messages in advertising or they are unwilling to make considered rational choices.
Therefore, in Delta State where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Impact of Advertising on the Services of Fast Food Industry.
1.3 Statement of Problems
Investigation revealed that in a bid to house a competitive edge, over another in the fast food industry, competitors applying different marketing strategies to win the marketing battle. Some develop their strategy by reducing the prices to have a greater share of the market while others develop their strategies on product quality and this has resulted into great problem facing the sector.
In the same vein, different government lines, federal, state and local government of the industry has significantly affected their operations and the burden of high taxes/levies on the operators falls back on the consumer who pay higher prices for the fast food consumers.
Furthermore, the rising cost of condiments in the preparation of fast food has a negative impact on the consumer who has to pay high prices in order to consume fast food.
In addition, rising cost of acquiring accommodation to start a fast food business has significantly affected the operators of this industry as increasing cost of accommodation are been paid for indirectly by the consumer of fast food. Finally, the huge financial resources expand on promotional activity of fast food has contributed to increase their cost of operation.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to measure the extent to which advertising has influenced in the consumption of fast food. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To examine the level of people’s consumption of fast food.
- To identify the roles of advertising.
- To examine the principles of advertising fast food.
- To recommend ways to increase fast food sale through advertisement.
- To examine the negative impression some customers have about fast food advertising.
1.5 Research Questions
The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:
- Do customers have negative impression about fast food advertising?
- What is the level of people’s consumption of fast food?
- What are the roles of advertising?
- What are the principles of advertising?
- What are the ways to increase fast food sale through advertisement?
1.6 Research Hypothesis
In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.
Hypothesis One
- H0: Customers have no negative impression about fast food advertisement
- H1: Customers has negative impression about fast food advertisement
Hypothesis Two
- H0: The level of customer’s consumption of fast food is significantly low.
- H1: The level of customer’s consumption of fast food is significantly high.
1.7 Significance of Study
The findings of the study would provide direction as to the effect of advertising costs or expenditures on the services, sales revenue and profit of Aj Fast Food in Warri, Delta State. Thus, the study is expected to contribute as well to other organizations as it reveals the importance and effects of adverting to their products and services.
This study will also be of immense benefit to individuals, advertising agencies and researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.8 Scope of Study
The scope of the research is focused on the Impact of Advertising on the Services of Fast Food Industry using AJ fast food in Delta State as a case study.
1.9 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this establishment to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
1.10 Definition of Terms
Advertising: advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services through mass media such as newspapers, magazines, television or radio by an identified sponsor.
