THE EFFECTS OF OUT-OF-HOME (OOH) ADVERTISING ON NIGERIAN BUYER/CONSUMERS

Out of home offers and serves as…

1. Support medium: A perfect strategic add-on/extension to other media channels like television and radio in campaign execution.
2. Recency: 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week presence.
3. Low cost per thousand: Cost efficiencies that can be unachievable using other mainstream medium.
4. Flexibility: The ability to reach markets and/or demographic profiles considered difficult or too expensive with other medium of advertising.

• Creates awareness for the Nigerian consumers on the availability of a product or brand in the market
• OOH advertising have a massive impact and lasting imprint on the Nigerian consumers
• It serves as a reminder medium
• It triggers compulsive buying
• It helps in making rapid purchase decision
• It reaches consumers at the point of purchase
• People without purchasing power begin to crave things they don’t necessary need
• To change perception of the consumers
• Billboards can deliver on clean eye-popping exposure 24/7, clutter free messages in a uniquely customized environment and desirable suburban coverage filling gaps left by other media.

FACTORS TO BE CONSIDERED WHEN CHOOSING OOH

• The Campaign Objective
• Target Audience
• The Size of the Board
• Audience Count (Traffic Area)
• Opportunity to See
• Angle of Elevation
• Budget

ADVERTISING FUNCTIONS

1. Information: the role of advertising here is to communicate to consumers, the existence of goods and services. It tells consumers about what goods and services are available and in what locations they can be purchased and sometimes at what price. In playing the informational role, advertisement highlights the special physical and quality attributes of available goods to satisfy consumer needs.
2. Reminding: Advertising is intended to keep a brand’s name in the memory of consumers. When a need arises that is related to the advertised product, past advertising impact makes it possible for the advertiser’s brand to come to the consumer’s mind as a purchase candidate. An advertisement created to do this is referred to as Reminder Advertisement.
3. Persuading: Effective advertising persuades customers to try advertised products or services. Often times, the persuasion may take the form of influencing primary demand i.e. creating demand for an entire product category.
4. Adding value: Given that there are three major ways a company can add value to its offerings, viz: Innovation, quality improvement and alteration of consumer perceptions; advertising adds value to brands by influencing consumers’ perceptions. Effective advertising causes brand to be viewed as more elegant, more stylish, more prestigious and probably superior to competitors’ offerings.
5. Assisting other company efforts: Advertising can be viewed as one member of the marketing communications tools. Terence (2000) puts it this way, “Advertising is at times a scorer that accomplishes goals itself. At other times, advertising’s primary role is as an assister that facilitates other company efforts in the marketing communications process”. While also playing this role, advertising is seen as assisting the effort of sales representative in that it tries to pre-sell the company’s product and provides salespeople with valuable introductions prior to their personal contact with prospective customers.

To complement Terence’s view, Anyacho (2007) adds the following as part of advertising functions:

Education: Advertising creates knowledge about a wide range of products usage and the alternatives available and offers the right of choice.

Economic: Advertising stimulates commerce and industries. By promoting consumption, demand is created and with more demands, the factory produces more, thus; resulting into high domestic product, creation of wealth and employment.

Social: Advertisements that call people’s attention to good environment, cleanliness, good health, disease prevention etc are performing social functions.

PURPOSE OF ADVERTISING

Nwaizugbo (2004) identifies the following as the purposes for which advertising is based:

• It promotes product and organization it stimulates primary and secondary demand for the advertised product
• It is used to offset or counter the competitor’s advertising
• It helps to make the work of sales persons more effective
• It is used to increase the uses of a product
• It helps to remind and reinforce customer’s interest in a product or in an institution or idea It also can be used to reduce fluctuations in product sales.

TYPES OF ADVERTISING

Advertising can be grouped into two large divisions according to Anyacho (2007) which include:

1. a) Print Advertising:- All forms of copy work including non-audio visuals such as newspapers, magazines, posters, calendars etc. This form of advertising can further be grouped into:

• Display Advertisement: This is the larger and dominant type of advertising having illustrations blended with copy to create attract .
• Classified Advertisement: These are small advertisements usually grouped according to their contents. They are mainly personal announcements paid for by individuals. Examples are; change of names, individual-based offers and bids.

1. b) Audio-Visual (Broadcast) Advertising: this refers to the advertising broadcast in radio and television, as well as emerging media like the internet. This form of advertising appeals to the sense of hearing and sight. Examples are; radio jingles and spot announcements.

CLASSIFICATION OF ADVERTISING

The following criteria were adopted by Anyacho (2007) in classifying advertising:

1. Classification by Target Audience: the originator of this class of advertising is mainly the producer who produces a product or service for profit. This class of advertising can take the following forms:
2. a) Consumer Advertising: this occurs when the producer tries to reach and influence through the advertising mediums.
3. b) Trade advertising: Producers can direct consumer goods towards retailers and wholesalers. In this form, the producer seeks the attention and patronage of supermarkets, hardware stores, specialty stores and small business people. The intent of this form of advertising is for those outlets to stock and promote the sale of a particular brand. Users are expected to make purchase from these outlets. The product could be promoted under the stores brand name.
4. c) Public Relations Advertising (Institutional advertising): Producers sometimes use advertising to promote their public relations objectives.
5. Classification by media type:

Classification of advertising according to exposure channels may take any of the following forms.

1. a) Print Advertising: these comprise newspapers, magazines, books, pamphlets, leaflets, posters etc.
2. b) Broadcast: include radio, television/satellite/cable and home video
3. c) Out-of-home Advertising: uses signs, billboards, transit (train, buses, sales van), point of sale materials, mobile megaphone messages etc.

Classification by Geographical Area: this encompasses the following:

1. a) International Advertising: this refers to advertising designed to reach several countries and societies. As the concept of world market is becoming interesting to producers, products made in one country find themselves in other countries and advertising is seen to be serving this purpose. Media used here are cable networks, satellite television, international newspapers and magazines, the internet etc.
2. b) National Advertising: this has the aim of reaching out to the audience all over a country. When a product is designed to be marketed throughout the nation, advertising follows. Media used are national television and radio networks, newspapers, magazines, direct mail, billboards etc.
3. c) Regional Advertising: this is advertising intended for specific zones within a country. It is suitable for marketing products confined to specific parts of the country.
4. d) Local Advertising: this form of advertising is intended for the marketing of products or services within a local environment. It is best suitable for supermarkets, retail shops, food stores etc. Local advertising informs the target audience about where to purchase the goods advertised. This is also called retail advertising. Most common media used are directional signs, signboards, billboards, local newspapers, and local radio stations.
5. e) Travel Advertising: this is tourism-related advertising. It enables organizations to reach out to international audience to sell holiday services available. The essence is to make international travelers patronize the resorts centre anytime they visit the country where they are located.

ADVERTISING STRATEGY

This is an action plan that guides the Advertiser towards accomplishing the advertising objectives. An advertising strategy according to Ehikwe (2006) is required to determine the specific marketing tasks that advertising will have to perform in the sale of a product. Advertising strategy is what the advertiser says about the brand being advertised.

Advertising strategy however, involves four major activities as identified by Terence (2000).

1. Objective setting
2. Budgeting
3. Message strategy and
4. Media Strategy
5. Setting the Objective: Advertising objectives are the desired goals expected of advertising efforts. These goals are based on the current or anticipated competitive situation in the product category and the problems that the brand must confront or the opportunities that are available for it to seek. Objectives provide the foundation upon which every advertising decision is channeled. The necessity for setting advertising objectives arises for the following reasons:
6. a) Advertising objectives are an expression of management consensus. In the course of setting objectives, top management personnel agree on the duration for the advertisement, as well as the task it is to be accomplished for a specific brand.
7. b) Objectives setting guide the budgeting, message and media aspects of the brand. This means that how much money to be spent, kinds of advertising message and choice of media are all determined by the set objectives.
8. c) Advertising objectives provide standards against which results can be measured. Good objectives set precise, quantitative yardsticks of what advertising hopes to accomplish. Subsequent results can be compared with these standards to determine whether the advertising accomplished what it was intended to do.

REQUIREMENTS FOR SETTING GOOD ADVERTISING OBJECTIVES

According to Terence (2000), a good advertising objective must satisfy the following:

1. a) Precise statement of who, what and when: this implies that objectives must specify the target audience (who), indicate the specific goal to be accomplished (what) and the relevant time frame in which to achieve the objective (when).
2. b) Quantitative and Measurable: this demands that advert objectives be stated in quantitative terms so as to be measurable.
3. c) The amount of change must be specified: this holds that, in addition to being quantitative and measurable, objectives must specify the amount of change they are intended to accomplish. For example, if company “A” decides to advertise to increase awareness from 40-70%, anything less than this 30% change would be considered unsuitable performance.
4. d) Objectives must be realistic: Unrealistic objectives equal to not having objectives at all. An unrealistic objective is one that cannot be accomplished in the time allotted to the proposed advertising investment.
5. e) Internally consistent: This demands that advertising objectives must be compatible with other objectives set for other components of the marketing communications mix.
6. f) Clear and formal: For objectives to accomplish their purposes of fostering communication and permitting evaluation, they must be stated clearly and in writing so that they can be disseminated among their users and those who will be held responsible for seeing that the objectives are accomplished.