Marketing

An advertisement is a form of persuasive communication with the public. The communication is usually sided, in one direction from the advertiser and to the public. The member of the public are free to respond to it in their own way, the responses is at an individual or family level. There is little or no dialogue with the public, advertising forces itself upon the public. At the same time, especially in a democracy with a market economy, such communication is required so that intelligent choices are made. Advertising is the promotion of a product or service and is extremely pervasive in contemporary society. To maximize sales, companies will pay a premium for wide exposure through the mass media. Advertising space is common, but not restricted to these realms; billboards, public transportation, movies (product placement), schools, clothing, even bathroom stalls carry ads and the industry is constantly finding new ways to advertise.

Children are reported to be taking on more influential roles in the decisions of household purchases. Some of the reasons cited for this are changes in family structures like smaller families and single headed households. Other reasons like enhanced technology and the influx of mass media has also been noted. The aim of this study was to examine the extent of the influence that children, in the pre-adolescent age group, have on purchases. The study further looked at the influence of peers, the influence of television programmes and televised advertisements and the types of techniques used by children to influence a purchase decisions. A survey questionnaire was administered to a sample of thirty households with children within the target age group of eight to twelve years. The sample was randomly selected from the Berea West Senior Primary School in Berea West, Durban. These families fell into the middle income group. The results confirmed the existence of children’s influence on purchase decisions. The results also revealed that peer influence does play a significant role on children’s choices. However the influence of television featured less prominently. Influence tactics and techniques used by children was also analysed to see which were more frequently used.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the storytelling technique on advertising effectiveness in the South African media landscape. The researcher adopted a qualitative research approach to establish whether the storytelling technique helps make advertising more effective in the South African media landscape. The methodology used in this research study was a case study approach which incorporated perspectives from the various marketing, advertising and media industries of South Africa, in the Gauteng region. A total of 12 in depth interviews were conducted. Respondents were recruited using the purposive sampling strategy. Two of the 12 respondents participated in the pilot study while the remaining ten participated in the actual research study. The research study found that storytelling advertising is indeed more effective than other forms of advertising due to it being more emotionally engaging therefore resulting in it being more enjoyable and memorable than functional advertising. The research study revealed that stories that are based on a universal human truth and are told in a simple and honest manner tend to resonate better with consumers. The study further revealed that advertising that is built around talking stories, which stir people’s emotions and pull their heartstrings, is more effective. It was also found that stories which are supported by a consistent use of distinctive brand assets such as characters, music and jingles, tend to be more memorable and therefore more effective. The results of the study led to the development of criteria marketers should employ when designing story telling advertisements.

Pen is a product, which has used by each and every person. There are various brands of pen in the market of different types of price, colour, design, grip, attractive ink, attractive body, etc. So the pen market is full of competition where the consumer possesses vast variety of choice to select his/her brand which depends on their perception. It is very difficult to find the consumer perception about pen, even though the present study tried to find how the consumer purchase and prefer the brand, what factors influence the purchase of preferred brand of pen? The technique of data collection is through questionnaire. The sampling technique used for this project is convenience sampling. A closed ended with suitable scaling, open ended questions and discussion with the respondents was used to collect the required primary data. In this survey primary data were collected through interview schedule and mall intercept. Statistical tool used for analysing the data are cross- tabulation, Chi-Square- Goodness of Fit, Friedman Test.

Over the years, horticulture emerged as a crucial and emerging part of agriculture, offering a wide range of choices to the farmers for crop diversification. It also provides sufficient opportunities for sustaining large number of agro industries which generate substantial employment opportunities. In India, there are a number of major fruits like banana, mango, citrus, papaya, apple, litchi, pineapple and many others. If we talk about the area covered under fruits we have found out that there is almost 100% increase in the area and 121% increase in production. Specifically speaking Apple is by far the most important fruit. Today, India ranks second in the world in terms of area under apple cultivation. With 2.5 million hectares under cultivation, India produces more than 1.4 million tonnes of apples every year (FAO). Among the fruit grown in India, apple has the third largest area under cultivation, after banana and mango. Being somewhat hard, the potential post-harvest losses in transportation are relatively low and shelf life compared to other tropical fruit grown in India is comparatively large.

Nowadays in many countries, demand for counterfeit branded products increased and this event makes the study of determinants of consumers counterfeit branded products purchase behavior more worthwhile than ever before. The purpose of this paper was examining the impact of perceived brand image on consumer purchase intention of counterfeits such as clothes and shoes in the context of non-deceptive counterfeiting. The explanatory construct in this study include a brand image (Brand Personality, Perceived product attributes, Perceived benefits). This study conducted in Tehran, Iran. The sample size was 188 consumers in Tehran. The results indicated two of three dimensions of the brand image constructs appear to be significantly influential to consumers purchase intention of counterfeit branded products. The reliability of all adopted scales and validity of questions measured and discussed by conducted Cronbach Alpha coefficient and content validity.

Mobile Internet has become a convenient tool for information exchange, the new 4C business rules in the mobile commerce are co-creation, commodity, community and connecting. In today's mobile commerce, enterprises should pursue the following competitive strategies, which are strategic planning period is shortened?adjusting to changing circumstances is crucial, organizational structure will be more flat, flexible, and adapted to the environment, enterprises become customer operators, remove intermediaries, reduce distribution channels or service networks etc.

This paper investigated the hedonic analysis of consumers’ preference on the cowpea in the Ibadan metropolis. 100 cowpea sellers were selected by a purposive random sampling technique in five major markets in Ibadan.79% of the respondents were female while the rest 21% of them were male. 89% of the respondents sell a combination of varieties i.e. Peu/Drum, Sokoto, Mala, Olo and Oloyin for their nutritive value, popularity and availability which may be used for boiled whole grain cooking, fried cowpea balls (akara), and steamed cowpea cake (moin-moin). 75% of the respondents do not use any chemical to store cowpea grains.Also, analysis of Covariance model which was used capture price-quality relationship of the type of cowpea purchased by consumers revealed that there is a significant relationship between the number of holes in each of the cowpea varieties and their respective prices in the various markets sampled in the study area. Hence, the numbers of holes appear to be the major determining factors affecting the prices of various cowpea types in the study area.

Despite the increase in interest in fashion in Malaysia, there has not been any in-depth research conducted on the motives behind this concept. Hence, this study aims to fill this gap by searching for patterns, ideas, or issues to answer specifically “what is Malaysian youth understanding of fashion ?”Twelve respondents were selected through Facebook by virtue of their fashionpictures. An in-depth interview was conducted on one to one basis. The outcome indicated that these youth concur with the concept of fashion. This information will assist and be valuable to marketers in designing fashion.

Private Label brands had seen a striking expansion in recent days. Though, initially private label brands had a low-priced strategy, retailers have taken serious efforts quality improvements in recent years. The paper examines how retailers can influence the customers for private label brands by providing additional features in their product. Furthermore, the familiarity of the products may influence the purchase decision. The research method used in this study is descriptive research. Under this study a survey is conducted with the customers in and around the Coimbatore city for their preference towards private label brands. The major limitation in this study is that a few customers led some problems in the customer service area. The study was limited only to 200 customers. The time taken for the survey was between February 2012 and June 2012. The data collected is analysed with the tools like chi-square, weighted average rank and simple percentage method .The present study shows the customer preference for private label brands only in organized retail stores. Personal bias by the respondents may have script in while answering the questions.