The research was based on the data collected from surveys, an interview and other sources like documents (newspaper clippings, articles in the mass media and Internet), organizational records including annual reports and archive records together with the literature review.
Several criteria for choosing the topic for the research were suggested by different authors. As Fisher (2007, pp.31-32) states, a topic has to be interesting, for the person who is doing the report and also for an external audience. The topic of this research was focused on one of the aspects of external marketing communication – advertisement. The field of advertisement was narrowed down to Broadcast (Mass-media) advertisement, specifically TV-commercials.
There are various types of research strategies, which are different in the way of collecting and analysing information. Each strategy could be used for different purposes: exploratory, descriptive and explanatory. According to Yin (2003, p.5) there are three conditions that distinguish the research strategies, one of them is the form of research question asked.
Advertising as one of the activities of external marketing “whether it is on an international, national, local or direct basis, is important, as it can influence audiences by informing or reminding them of the existence of the brand, or alternatively by persuading them or helping to differentiate a product or organization from others in the market”. (Fill, 2005, p.508) Advertising, especially TV advertising, plays a very important role in organizations‟ communication with its customers.
India has a diverse and growing newspapers paper industry. Since 1991, the increase of business and financial news reports in English-language and vernacular dailies has paralleled the economic reform program and the movements of the stock markets. Leading business newspapers include Business Standard and Economic Times. Magazines include India Today, Business India, Business Today, and Business World. India has emerged as the most promising and democratic mass market in Asia. The country now has a timely and uninhibited press, a judiciary that often overrules the government, international standards of accounting and a growing research and academic infrastructure.
The Indian economy is booming and as a result, the various advertising and communication media are also flourishing. The population distribution of India shows that of the 1028.7 million people in the country, 65.4 per cent are literate. Around 29.1 per cent live in urban areas and 70.9 per cent in rural areas. Males form 51.8 per cent of the total population and females, 48.2 per cent. In order to understand media impact in advertising it is reasonable to mention reach of different medias and this section of thesis attempts to do this with reference to India.
The earliest of ads that can be seen, appeared in newspapers, from England around the early 1700s. With a beginning like that, Indian advertising has come a long way in todays fast growing tech savvy world in the 21st century. During this journey, it saw the launch of independent advertising agencies, entrance of multinational companies and beginning of India’s only advertising school, MICA (Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad).
Basically advertising effectiveness depends upon user’s response towards an ad and on their attitude towards advertising. Advertising's effectiveness lies in its capability to help stimulate or maintain sales (Eachambadi 1994; Mantrala, Sinha, and Zoltners 1992; Naik, Mantrala, and Sawyer Sethi 1998; Vidale and Wolfe 1957). Thus, advertising is frequently used as an independent variable in explaining changes in sales (Lilien 1994). In the theoretical literature there are two dominant views of the role of advertising, namely the “information” and the “market power” views.
Emergence of Internet has changed the way media is created and consumed. Traditionally media was created by media companies who created the content and were the content owners. The content owners use to ‘broadcast’ this media to the consumers of such content. With internet this equation has undergone a fundamental change, now anyone can create content and share it with others using platforms like Blogging, Social Networks, YouTube etc. There is a term that describes this phenomenon- USG or User Generated Content!
Advertising is the promotion of a company’s products and services though different mediums to increase the sales of the product and services. It works by making the customer aware of the product and by focusing on customer’s need to buy the product. Globally, advertising has become an essential part of the corporate world. Therefore, companies allot a huge part of their revenues to the advertising budget. Advertising also serves to build a brand of the product which goes a long way to make effective sales.
