UNIVERSITY OF PORT HARCOURT STUDENTS PERCEPTION ON THE USE OF BRAND AMBASSADORS ON TELEVISION COMMERCIALS: STUDY OF GLOBALCOM

UNIVERSITY OF PORT HARCOURT STUDENTS PERCEPTION ON THE USE OF BRAND AMBASSADORS ON TELEVISION COMMERCIALS: STUDY OF GLOBALCOM 

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background to the Study

“Advertising is any form of persuasive communication to promote an organization, person, idea, product or services carried through the media by an identified sponsor.” Ohiagu, (2014:pg.10).

          Advertising generally especially television commercials try to create cue about products in an attempt to influence consumers perception and attitude towards the product or service. 

          Advertising aims at promoting the product  and services of a company .it helps in creation of a brand identity and serves as an effective means to communicate to the world ,the value of the product or service. Through different techniques companies achieve growth and sales by attracting masses toward s them.

          Brand ambassador is a marketing term for a person employed by an organization or company to promote its product or services within activity known as Branding wikipedia (bing.com). The key element of brand ambassadors lies in their ability to use promotion strategies that will strengthen the customer product and service relationship and influence a large audience to buy and consume more.

          The brand ambassador which is a spokes person appointed to boost sales of product and service and create brand awareness. In recent times organizations or companies decide to use brand ambassadors in advertisement because of the following reasons;

          Brand ambassadors humanize the product or service; people like to buy from people, although organizations traditionally brand themselves through logos and symbols .social media offers an opportunity to do more. Ambassadors are emotionally engaged with the company’s brand promise and they espouse the brand value you promise to deliver to your customer. It is in the very fabric fabrics of their personalities to want to share information and solve problems and help others. Humans mimic others expressions and behaviour, if you can positively engage someone with your brand they could be your greatest marketing communication tool and sales person. wikipedia(bing.com)

1.2         Statement of Problem       

              Brand ambassadors promote sales and create awareness of an organization, product, services, and ideas. Therefore are brand ambassadors selected based on their physical appearance or appeal rather than a detailed knowledge of the product concept, product process as well as product utilization.

          Do consumers purchase product or services because of the brand ambassadors personality or appearance?

          Are products purchased because of the information or value or are they purchased because of the product ambassadors?

          Does the ambassadors lack of knowledge of the product or service poses an unappealing situation and is it deceitful to the consumers?

          This research therefore focuses on investigating the issues surrounding these questions in order to provide a detailed amount of the perception of students on the use of brand ambassadors.

1.3     Objectives of Study

The following aims of this study is To;

i.    Ascertain the influence of the use of brand ambassadors in television commercial on consumers.

ii.  Determine the extent of consumers knowledge of brand ambassadors.

iii.Know if the use of brand ambassadors promote sales.

iv. Determine the extent at which consumers identify with the product ambassador.

1.4            Research  Questions 

i.    To what extent does the use of brand ambassadors in television commercial influence the consumer?

ii.  How well do consumers understand the role of brand ambassadors?

iii.To what degree does the use of brand ambassador promote sales?

iv. To what degree do consumers identify with the product ambassadors?

1.5     Significance of Study

The recent form of advertising especially concerning television commercials appear to utilize the medium of brand ambassadors in attempting to persuade media audiences to economically modify their behaviour through decision making in favour of the advertized product, service, idea as well as image.

          Brand ambassadors display peculiar social, economic, political as well as religious qualities that likely influence the perception of audiences who view such representatives as sharing similar experiences; an outcome of employing these ambassadors would likely result in reinforcing or refuting the buying choices of the consumer.

          This work therefore aims at understanding the value of brand ambassadors to television commercials, the degree of compatibility between the product, service, idea or image to the selected ambassador, the influence of an advert on the perception of media consumers in relation to the brand ambassador. Therefore, the researcher anticipates that the findings of this work would benefit communication professionals, advertisers, media experts as well as students of media communications.

1.6     Scope of Study

              This findings of this work analyze the perception of utilizing brand ambassadors in television commercials by students of the University of Port Harcourt

1.7         Limitation of Study 

The researcher envisages that there may be challenges in carrying out the work; part of which may include the constraint of the time involved in relation to the depth of the study as well as adequate access to relevant study materials.

1.8   Operational Definition of Key Terms:

       i.            Advertising: This is any form of persuasive communication to promote an organization, person, idea, product, or service carried through the media by an identified sponsor.

     ii.            Brand Ambassador: This is a marketing term for a person employed by an organization or company to promote its product or service within activity known as Branding.

  iii.            Brand: A name, logo, or other item used to distinguish a product or service.

  iv.            Consumer: One who trades money for goods and who makes use of goods and service.

     v.            Commercial: An advertisement in a common media format usually radio or television.

  vi.            Perception: Conscious understanding of something.

                              REFERENCES

Ohiagu,O.P.(2014).   . Lagos publishing company.

Wikipedia.(bing.com). what is brand ambassador.