THE DIFFERENCE IN RESPONSE BETWEEN BOYS AND GIRLS ON ADVERTISEMENTS OF MOBILE PHONES

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THE INFLUENCE OF CONSUMERS’ GENDER ON ADVERTISING RESPONSES

THE DIFFERENCE IN RESPONSE BETWEEN BOYS AND GIRLS ON ADVERTISEMENTS OF MOBILE PHONES

BY

VANESSA GOEDSCHALK (SURINAME)

This paper was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree at the Maastricht School of

Management (MSM), Maastricht, the Netherlands, October 2010

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DEDICATION

This thesis is dedicated to my little sunshine.

Morena Imani was conceived and born during my MBA journey She inspired and supported me all the way.

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ACKNOWELEDGEMENTS

This thesis was made possible with the help and guidance of a number of people to whom I am very grateful. First of all I would like to thank my parents for bringing me into this world and made me the woman I am today.

My gratitude goes out to my supervisor Mr. Dhruba Lahiri who patiently guided me through the writing of this thesis and provided me with very useful feedback. I would also like to give a special thanks to my friend Jennifer Goede who assisted me with the SPSS program and who was always there when I needed a listening ear.

Finishing my thesis would have never been possible without the loving understanding and support of my boyfriend and family members. A respectful thanks goes out to my mother in law who supported me before, during and after my pregnancy.

I would also like to thank Amadeo Nabi from B’Sure Communications who have been willing and understanding in letting me reach my goal.

Furthermore, I would also like to thank my fellow MBA friends for the pleasant time we spent together and the support during study.

Last but not least I thank the FHR Lim A Po Institute, especially Mr. Hans Lim A Po, for giving me the opportunity to finish this MBA and letting me learn in a supportive and friendly

environment.

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ABSTRACT

Surinamese companies become aware of the growing competition and the need for marketing and advertising. Reaching the target group means grouping them together in small homogenous groups with similar characteristics, behavior and attitude. Gender is one of the basic demographic elements which companies use to select their target market. This study investigates the difference between high school students from 16 to 20 years on advertising responses based on their gender. The advertisements used in the study concerned mobile phones. The study is based on the selectivity hypothesis theory from Joan Meyers-Levy and the independent samples t-test is used to measure the difference between the boys and girls. Crosstabs are used to get a detailed look at where the differences are. A written questionnaire has been held among 123 respondents during group sessions from three high schools in Paramaribo. The students first received four different advertisements, varying in complexity of words and graphics, to look at after which they have to answer the questions on the questionnaire based on what they could remember from what they have seen. The hypotheses tested for differences between boys and girls on attitude toward the complexity of the advertisement and attitude toward the model used in the advertisement. Attitude toward the complexity of the advertisements was measured with

(non)aided remembrance of the advertisements or parts of them.

The results reveal that there is no significant difference between the overall responses of the high school boys and girls. The results on attitude towards the advertisement show that a higher percentage of the boys could remember more from the advertisements than the girls irrespective of the complexity of the advertisement. This is in contrast with the selectivity hypothesis theory.

The results for attitude towards the model used in the advertisements show that the majority of the girls prefer a model of the same gender as theirs, while the majority of the boys prefer a female model in advertisements. It can be concluded that advertising agencies and other practitioners of marketing can use the same advertisement layout when their aim is to reach high school students from 16 to 20 years of age as there is no significant difference in the way boys and girls respond to the advertisements.

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CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

1.1 General view

The Surinamese customer is getting more critical in his/her choice of products and services which makes it difficult for companies to satisfy him/her. In the last 5 to 10 years Suriname experiences growing competition, also from foreign products, which makes companies aware of the importance of marketing and the necessity to better know the needs and wants of the target group they want to serve. An important challenge for marketers is to design advertisements that respond to these needs in order to attract the target group. Communicating the right message to the right group is easier when the single heterogeneous market is divided into separate homogeneous segments. This is called the process of segmentation. Market segmentation is dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers with different needs, characteristics or behavior, who might require separate products or marketing mixes (Kotler, Armstrong, Saunders & Wong, 2005).

Demographics are one of the market segmentation variables with subcategories as gender, age, family size, education and income. When designing advertising messages and selecting advertising media, marketers need to make sure that they know the characteristics, behavior and preferences of the target group they want to serve.

The Surinamese market is relatively small and therefore most companies use mass marketing in the promotion of their products or services. It is important for companies to market their products to specific target groups in order to receive the best sales results. One way to reach the target group is through advertisement. From experience in my profession and from semi-structured interviews with colleagues in the advertising field it has become clear that although advertisements are designed for a specific target group, little to no research has been done so far on how an advertisement should be designed or in what tone the message should be brought to attract a specific group. Neither is it clear for advertisers which effect the use of a male or female model in an advertisement has on men and women. Gender is one of the basic differences between men and women and also an often used variable to select target groups.

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Many authors wrote about gender and the difference in response on advertisements between men and women. Joan Meyers-Levy (1989), a much cited author, states with her selectivity hypothesis theory that men and women differ from each other during information processing.

Females tend to read everything inclusive detailed information, while men on the other hand only read what they find personally relevant from information that is quick and easy to process.

They disregard the rest. (Meyers-Levy, J.,1989).

This study builds on Joan Meyers-Levy’s theory and will investigate how Surinamese boys and girls differ, based on their gender, in their response to advertisements. For this study I will use an advertisement of a product which can be used both by men and women and has no specific manly or womanly features. This research will be done on advertisements of mobile phones.

Since the youth is a frequent user of the mobile phone and is always looking for the latest models and features, this study will investigate the response of high school students in the age of 16 – 20 years to advertisements about mobile phones.

1.2 Background

1.2.1 The Mobile market in Suriname

The Telecommunication Company Suriname (Telesur) had a monopoly until the 16^th of April 2007 when the mobile market was liberalised. From this moment onwards and with the introduction of prepaid telephone the number of users of a mobile phone grew rapidly. By 2007, 76% of the Surinamese population had a mobile phone (Eersteling, F., 2008, IMWO, 2007). The recent developments of the mobile industry in the Surinamese market and the rapid changes and developments of mobile phones worldwide make it necessary for the telecom providers to effectively reach their target groups. Eersteling did research among youngsters from 16 to 18 years on the use of mobile phones. His study shows that, with a few exceptions, there is great similarity in mobile usage by boys and girls.

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1.2.2 Advertising in Suriname

Advertising can be defined as any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services through mass media such as newspapers, magazines, television or radio by an identified sponsor. Advertising is used in order to stimulate a response from the target audience (Kotler, Armstrong, Saunders & Wong, 2005).

There are currently 18 television channels, a minimum of 25 radio stations, 4 daily newspapers and several periodicals and magazines in Suriname. Besides these advertising media, Surinamese companies also use billboards and wall paintings to advertise their products. About 25% of a newspaper consists of advertisements and ten to eighteen minutes per hour are used for

commercial purposes on the radio. This figure is lower for television (der Kinderen, E., 2005).

Print advertising is, in comparison with television and radio, one of the most expensive

advertising media in Suriname.

A research conducted in 2002 by the Institute for Social Scientific Research (IMWO) among 600 respondents living in different areas in Suriname provided insight on the ‘viewing-, reading- and listening habits’ of consumers. Some important findings of the research were that 86% of the respondents were able to recall an advertisement out of the newspaper, 89%

remembered a radio advertisement and 92% of the respondents remembered an advertisement which they saw on television. The respondents say that the advertisements in newspapers were mainly remembered because of rich illustrative lay-out and that the likeability and frequency are

main factors for recalling advertisements on radio and television.

The advertising strategy differs from company to company. Some companies choose to advertise their products by themselves while other companies work with advertising agencies to communicate their advertising message to target groups. Working with advertising agencies may deliver several advantages (Kotler, Armstrong, Saunders & Wong, 2005).:

Advertising can often be performed better by agencies’ specialists than the company’s own staff.

Agencies have years of experience from working with different clients and situations which gives them the opportunity to solve a company’s problem with an outside point of view.

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Agencies have more buying power in media than firms. They are also paid partly from media discount, which would cost the firm less.

Advertising agencies in Suriname should also be able to provide these advantages to companies.

The results of this study might benefit these agencies, because it will give them some information about how boys and girls react on a certain advertisements and why. This knowledge can be used to serve their customers even better.

1.3 Research approach

1.3.1 Problem Statement

As is stated in section 1.2.1, in recent years, research has been done about the use of mobile phones among youngsters from 16 to 18 years in Suriname. Since the mobile market has been growing so fast in the past few years in Suriname and with the coming of two new telephone providers, the amount of telephone advertisements in local media has also increased. Youngsters are frequent users of mobile phones and are constantly looking for telephones with the latest features, which makes the mobile phone more of a fashion item for them. This study will investigate the difference in response of boys and girls of 16 – 20 years of age on advertisements.

Advertising agencies divide the market into target groups when they need to advertise a product, but they often do not know what kind of response the design or message tone of the advertisement will get from the customer. Local advertising agencies work with their ‘gut’

feeling when they have to decide which gender the model in an advertisement should have and what the effect will be. The results of this study should give advertising agencies and other companies who do their own marketing an idea of how to advertise their products when youngsters are their target group to get the best results.

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1.3.2 Research Objectives The aim of this paper is:

1. to create awareness among Surinamese companies, especially advertising agencies for effective advertisement and

2. to make recommendations for effective advertisement based on gender segmentation.

1.3.3 Research Hypothesis

The literature has many examples of the difference in response to advertisements between men and women based on their gender (Meyers-Levy,J., 1991), (Hallahan, K., 1995), (Kempf, D. and Laczniak R., 1998), (Hogg, M. and Garrow, J., 2003). Based on the literature the researcher formulates the following hypothesis:

H0: Surinamese boys differ in their response to advertisements from Surinamese girls H1: Surinamese boys do not differ in their response to advertisements from Surinamese girls

1.3.4 Research Questions

In the extension of the hypothesis the following central question that needs to be answered with this research is:

In what ways are Surinamese boys different in their response to advertisements about mobile phones than Surinamese girls?

Sub questions:

1. How does the complexity of the message in the advertisement affect the viewers’

response to the advertisement?

2. How does the gender of the model used in an advertisement affect the viewers’ response to the advertisement?

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1.4 Scope and Limitations of Research

Since the liberalization of the telecommunication market in Suriname, which happened not too long ago in 2007, customers have a bigger choice in types of mobile phones. The study will be limited to high school boys and girls from 16 to 20 years of age and living in Paramaribo, because more than 50% of this group resides in Paramaribo. There are many factors which may influence the viewers response to an advertisement based on their gender, age, social status, education level and more. This study emphasize on gender among a group of respondents from the same age group and with a similar level of education. The study on differences in advertisement response between boys and girls will be limited to attitude toward the complexity of the advertisement and attitude toward the model used in the advertisement.

1.5 Research Method

Based on the literature study, a theoretical framework will be set up to test the difference in response between boys and girls. The study will be conducted among high school students from 16-20 years from three high schools in Paramaribo with the use of a written questionnaire.

The independent samples t-test is used to compare the results between boys and girls.

1.6 Relevance of Research

The results of this study will be of commercial relevance to telecommunication companies and also to practitioners or professionals in the field of advertising and marketing. This study will also add to the body of literature about Surinamese customers.

1.7 Thesis Outline

This thesis contains five interrelated chapters discussing the topic of gender and information processing. Chapter one gives some background information about advertising and the mobile market related to the Suriname context. This chapter further highlights the research objectives, research questions and hypothesis together with the research method and relevance of the study.

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Chapter two provides a brief overview of marketing and advertising in general, emphasizing on the different models and techniques which can be used to measure advertising effectiveness. The area of ‘gender and the processing of information’ is also discussed in this chapter. Chapter three provides the research hypotheses and the methodology which will be used for the research. The results and data analysis will be presented in chapter four and the thesis will be concluded with conclusions and recommendations, given in chapter five, for effective advertising in Suriname and implications for further research.

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CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

The literature review starts with an overview of marketing and advertising in general, followed by theory regarding relevant advertising key concepts. Thereafter the theory described in previous researches will be explored to show the relation between gender and information processing.

2.2 Marketing in general

Every company, profit or non-profit, produces goods or services to satisfy customer needs. The most successful companies nowadays know that customers are an essential part of their business and that it is important to keep them satisfied. Creating customer value and satisfaction is at the very heart of modern marketing thinking and practice¹. Many people think that only big companies use marketing but we know that developing good marketing is critical to the success of every organization. Marketing is not only advertising and selling the product but starts long before the product is even produced. Marketers start their marketing activities by assessing customers’ needs and wants and determine whether there is a profitable opportunity for the company they work for. Marketing can be defined as follows:

Marketing is the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return (Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., Wong, V., Saunders, J., 2008).

Building strong customer relationships means more than just producing the product, price it attractively and present it to the customer. The product needs to be communicated to the customer. Before communicating the product, it is important to identify the target audience, which can be the potential buyer, the user, the decision maker or the influencer. When the company knows its target audience it is easier to make a communication program that can achieve the desired audience response. Marketers need to understand the communication process

1 Principles of Marketing, Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., Wong, V., Saunders, J., 2008

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in order to communicate effectively. Communication involves nine elements as shown in figure 1 (Kotler, P. et al., 2008).

Sender’s field of experience Receiver’s field of experience Figure 1: Elements in the communication process

The major parties in communication are the sender and the receiver, while the message and the media are the major communication tools. Encoding, decoding, response and feedback are the four primary communication functions. Noise – the last element - is the unplanned static or distortion during the communication process, which makes that sender and receiver do not understand each other properly.

The sender’s encoding process and the receiver’s decoding process must correspond with each other for a message to be effective. This means that the best messages should consist of words and other symbols that are familiar to the receiver.

The communication can take place through the different communication tools in the promotion mix which consists of advertising, sales promotion, public relations, personal selling and direct marketing. In this paper the focus will be on advertising.

Sender Encoding Message Decoding Receiver

Noise

Feedback Response

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2.3 Advertising

As is already mentioned earlier in the paper, advertising is a form of communication to the consumer.

When designing the promotion mix strategy, many factors should be considered by companies.

One of these factors is the type of product / market. The importance of different promotional tools varies between consumer and business markets (see figure 2) (Kotler et al, 2008).

Figure 2: Relative importance of promotion tools in business-to-consumer versus business-to-business markets

According to Kotler et al., advertising is relatively more important in consumer markets because there are a larger number of buyers, purchases tend to be routine and emotions play a more important role in the purchase-decision process.

This research is done on mobile phones which can be classified as consumer goods. Therefore advertising plays an important role for companies dealing in mobile phones to create awareness for and knowledge about the products among the target group.

Advertising

Sales promotion

Personal selling

Public

Personal selling

Sales promotion

Advertising

Public

Consumer goods Industrial goods

Relative importance Relative importance

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Kotler et al. (2008) define advertising as any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor.

Isaksson and Nilsson (2004) (as cited in Johansson and Utterström, 2006) say that in most countries, the largest part of the advertising budget goes to print media because print ads allow unlimited message length and processing time. The authors also state that messages in print media are delivered one topic at a time and one thought at a time, whereas TV commercials deliver sound-, motion- and text messages simultaneously. “Because of its structured nature, people seem to trust print media more than broadcast and absorb it more carefully.” Within print media magazines seems to be the most favorable medium because it reaches specific target groups and they are usually highly segmented; they are developed in order to appeal to groups of people who share the same interest. This advantage of magazine make that advertisers are willing to spend whatever it takes on print ads to produce the best image they can for their product (Moriarty, 1991) (as cited by Johansson and Utterström, 2006).

Moriarty (1991) further states that a print ad generally seems to be only words and pictures at first glance. Actually, says Moriarty (1991) an ad is a lot more complex than that, by means of a number of elements carefully arranged in a layout. Behind all successful advertisements is a big idea, a creative concept that implements the advertising strategy to make the advertisement unforgettable and worth attention (Wells et al., 2003; as cited by Johansson and Utterström, 2006).

When designing the message, companies should decide what they want to say in the advertisement. The message should contain an appeal or theme that will produce the desired response.

2.3.1 Advertising Appeal

The choice of an appeal is one of the most basic elements associated with an advertising strategy (Turtley and Kelly, 1997).

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An advertising appeal refers to the approach used to attract the attention of consumers and/or to influence their feelings toward the product, service, or cause. It's something that moves people, speaks to their wants or need, and excites their interest. Often it is the underlying content of the advertisement (Dejesus N., 2007).

Advertisers use different types of advertising appeals to influence the response of the consumer.

Traditionally there are two types of appeal, namely emotional appeal and rational appeal.

According to Davies, 1992 (as cited by Sandin and Äkäslompolo, 2004), rational appeals can be seen as informative and emotional as psychological appeals.

Emotional appeal

Emotional appeals attempt to stir up customers’ emotions which can motivate purchase. By using these different emotions in their message, companies try to make consumers feel connected to the product, be happy or feel proud, but also make people feel guilty or ashamed in order to get them to do the things they should do (eat healthier, go to the dentist) or to make them stop doing things they should not do (smoking, drink and drive) (Kotler P., et al., 2008).

Advertisers say that this appeal works best for brands that do not differ markedly from competing brands (Dejesus N., 2007).

Rational appeal

Rational appeals relate to the audience self-interest and show that the product will produce the desired benefit (Kotler et al, 2008).

Dejesus (2007) states that rational appeals emphasize the features and characteristics of the products or services for consumers.

Informative appeals relate to some objective statements of physical attributes, including product components and varieties, availability, nutritional info, package information and intrinsic new ideas (Davies, 1992).

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2.3.2 Emotional vs. rational appeal

Debates have been going on about whether emotional appeals in advertisements are more effective than informative advertisements. Recent research has shown that both appeal types can be effective, but that there effectiveness varies by context. Chandy et al., 2001 (as cited by Sandin and Äkäslompolo, 2004) define other areas where emotional and rational appeals tend to differ from each other: knowledge, market age and luxury and necessity items.

Knowledge

Although emotional and rational appeals focus on different consumer needs, they may coexist harmoniously and there are certain situations were it may be necessary that several appeals are used in one advertisement. When there is lack of knowledge about a product, consumers tend to be attracted more by informational advertisements than advertisements with an emotional appeal.

Persuasive advertisements need to provide compelling information that need to reduce the purchase risks and differentiate the product from its competitors. Therefore consumers expect the advertisements to provide a credible reason for buying the product. Chandy et al. (2001) state that although emotions may convey warm feelings and stimulate favorable brand attitudes, these attitudes may not lead to choices of products about which the consumers are not well informed.

Even so, when consumers are already aware of a product and have pre-existing attitude toward it, they are less motivated to process information about it. Subsequently they may negatively respond to information-focused advertisement due to satiation, boredom or irritation (Sandin and Äkäslompolo, 2004).

Market age and Gender

According to Stout and Rust, 1993 (as cited by Sandin and Äkäslompolo, 2004) females and older people are more likely to feel empathy for emotional messages in advertisements and as a result view the advertised brand more favorable than the competitor’s brand, advertised with rational appeal. Researchers suggest that informational advertisements would be more effective

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in younger markets since younger people are unfamiliar with the product and its key attributes.

Therefore, they say, youngsters are less efficient at assimilating key advertisement information into their memory. Summarizing, we may suggest that a rational appeal would increase consumer’s attention in the ‘young’ market, contrary to the ‘old’ market were product knowledge is present and therefore emotional advertisements may win consumer’s attention and help retrieve prior product knowledge from memory.

Luxury and Necessity items

Studies on luxury and necessity items have provided information on the relationship between high- and low involvement products, emotional experience and perceived risk (Chaudhuri 1998).

It is suggested that informational advertisements should be used for high-involvement products because high-involvement purchase decisions often involve high perceived risk, sending consumers into a state of increased information search.

Foote, Cone and Belding (n.d) developed a grid based on level of involvement and the purchase decision motive (rational or emotional). The FCB grid gives an overview of the consumer response process together with advertising possibilities. The four quadrants in the grid are explained in figure 3 below.

Thinking Feeling

High Involvement

Informative strategies for products that are

technical in nature and purchased based on rational thinking and motives (cognition, affect, conation).

For example cars, house, computers, etc.

Affective strategies for products that provide psychological benefits (affect, cognition, conation. For example, cosmetics, jewellery, fashion etc.

Low Involvement

Habit formation strategies for products that are bought repeatedly after researching first purchase decision - routine purchases (conation, cognition, affect). For example tomato sauce, soap etc.

Self-satisfaction strategies for products seen as "life's little pleasures" (conation, affect, cognition). For example, lollies, biscuits, magazines, impulse items, etc.

Figure 3: FCB Grid (Source:http://www.usq.edu.au/course/material/mkt2001/foote,_cone,_belding_grid.htm)

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The model accommodates different versions of the learn-feel-do sequence and suggests different advertising strategies for each of the four quadrants (Glowa, T. 2002). Glowa placed some of the products researched by Vaughn (creator of the FCB grid) in the grid based on their level of high- and low involvement and the ‘thinking’ or ‘feeling’ character of the products.

Thinking Feeling

Life Insurance

High Mobile phones Sports Car Involvement Auto Insurance

35mm camera Perfume Complexion soap

Motor oil Greeting card

Low Household cleaner Imported beer Involvement Insect repellant Regular beer Clothes pin Popsicle

Figure 4: Mobile phones placed on the FCB Grid

Looking at the explanation of the four quadrants in the FCB Grid, I would like to place mobile phones between the first and second quadrant (highlighted in red on the grid above), because they are pretty expensive and consumers first seek for information about the features and benefits of the phones, but also compare them with competitors. Besides the necessary information about the product, consumers also create an attitude towards the product where the importance of the product is connected to their self-esteem (feeling).

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2.4 Advertising effectiveness

Some attention will be given to advertising effectiveness because one of the problems that advertisers and advertising agencies face is measuring the effectiveness of the advertising they create and run (Hall, B., 2005). Besides providing a definition for advertising effectiveness, this part of the chapter will also give an overview of advertising response models and techniques for measuring advertising effectiveness.

2.4.1 Definition of advertising effectiveness

Advertising effectiveness has been studied by several authors and they sometimes use the terms advertising effectiveness and advertising effects interchangeably.

The following definition of advertising effectiveness is given by Beerli and Santana (1999):

“Advertising effectiveness refers to the measurement of the results of an advertising campaign or of a particular advertisement, which must in turn be defined in terms of the achievement of the advertising objectives which the advertiser set for the campaign / advertisement”.

The authors further say that the objective of the advertisement is not necessarily an increase in the sales figures but rather, communication is an attempt to express the impact which the advertiser wishes to achieve with the message. Wright-Isaak, Faber and Horner (as cited by Fishman 1999) make a distinction between advertising effectiveness and advertising effect. They claim that advertising effectiveness is research over longer time spans than advertising effects and is cumulated over time. The research is done in a natural field setting and the assessment of effectiveness involves multiple exposures to ads and multiple executions within campaigns.

Advertising effectiveness focuses on the behavior, attitude and feelings, while advertising effect involves responses to individual ads. Measuring the effects of individual ads involves limited numbers of execution and exposure and is likely to be evaluated in an experimental setting.

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2.4.2 Advertising Response Models

Advertising Response Models help advertisers to measure the effect of an individual advertisement or an advertising campaign. In order to measure the effects of an advertising campaign in terms of established objectives, it is necessary to examine individual responses to the advertisements. Although several models have been presented by different authors, Beerli and Santana (1999) came to the conclusion that there is no single universally acceptable model, but rather a number of different models which look at the same process from different angles and which take into account the influence of a great number of variables in the process. They found that all the models show a clear sequence of stages which a consumer goes through when making a purchase decision. The three attitudinal components: learning, feeling and doing are related to the three principle functions of advertising: to inform, to create attitudes and to induce action.

After reviewing the various response models, Beerli and Santana grouped them into four categories:

• Global Advertising Response Model – this model develops and attempts to explain the process to which individuals are subjected from the moment they are exposed to an advertisement to the moment that they take action.

• Cognitive Response Model – this model analysis how individuals process information.

• Attitude Response Model – explores the attitude component. This model is based on an analysis of the process of attitude formation and change, and of factors which influence such attitudes.

• Behavior Response Model – attempt to analyze how individuals act.

In the world of advertising, the attitude and the global models stand out in terms of relevance and application. Since this research is about the difference between boys and girls in their processing of information, the cognitive response model will be used to answer the research question.

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2.4.3 Techniques for Measuring Advertising Effectiveness

In addition to the different Advertisement Response Models, many authors have come with different techniques for measuring advertising effectiveness. Beerli and Santana (1999) grouped them together and named them cognitive, affective and conative techniques. These techniques will be described hereafter.

Cognitive techniques

Cognitive techniques are used when the aim is to make the customer aware of the existence of a product or brand and of the benefits which it provides. Therefore cognitive techniques attempt to measure an advertisement’s ability to attract the customer’s attention, be remembered and communicate the desired message. The level of knowledge and understanding which an individual possesses about the advertisement is also measured by this technique. Many cognitive techniques exist, but awareness measurement and memory tests are the most widely used.

Awareness measurement assesses an individual’s awareness of the existence of a product, brand or company. Awareness is fundamental for the advertising response process to be initiated.

Memory tests measure the intensity of the impact of a message through the capacity of the individual to recall and / or recognize it. Memory tests are used in advertising, where recall tests are mainly used in audio-visual media and are based on a belief that the effectiveness of an advertisement increases in direct proportion to how memorable it is.

Verbal and visual recognition tests are widely used in printed media and determine the ability of an advertisement to attract attention.

Affective techniques

The generation of attitude toward an advertisement, change of attitude or the reinforcement of an already existing attitude are the factors which are being measured by the affective techniques.

Attitude towards the advertisement can be defined as a predisposition to respond in a favorable

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or unfavorable manner to a particular advertising stimulus during a particular exposure, MacKenzie and Lutz 1989 (as cited by der Kinderen, E. 2005).

The individuals who are tested with this technique are already aware of the product or brand. A positive attitude created by advertising is no more than a predisposition which increases the probability of the advertised object being purchased. Purchasing decisions can be influenced by a number of other factors beside a positive or negative attitude towards the product (Beerli and Santana, 1999). The most commonly used affective tests are liking, attitude towards the advertisement, attitude towards the brand and persuasion.

The importance of liking when it comes to effective advertisement is that the advertisement should be pleasing to the individual, because according to Bassat, 1993 (as cited in Beerli and Santana) the most pleasing advertisements can result in stimulating the purchase.

Attitude towards an advertisement aims to detect the immediate spontaneous reaction of the individual towards an advertisement. The authors Shimp (1981), Gelb and Pickett (1983), Edell and Burke (1987), Madden, Allen and Twible (1988), MacInnis and Jaworski (1989), Aaker, Batra and Myers (1992), Singh and Cole (1993) and Stout and Rust (1993) all agree with each other that the attitude of the individual towards an advertisement is a dichotomous variable made up of two completely separate components: the affective or emotional component, reflecting the feelings which individuals experience when exposed to an advertisement and the cognitive or evaluative component which expresses the individual’s opinion about the quality of the advertisement, the amount of information which it provides and its usefulness.

Attitude towards the brand measures an individual’s opinion about a brand in comparison with a competitor’s brand and does not consider the individual’s buying intentions in the near future.

Persuasion tests determine the ability of an advertisement to provoke a change in the individual’s attitude towards the advertised brand Nylen, 1986 (as cited by Beerli and Santana, 1999). Wells, Burnett and Moriarty (1992) demonstrated that this test tends to be valid only when something new or interesting is being advertised.

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Conative techniques

With conative techniques the response behavior of the individual is measured in terms of purchase and repurchase and predisposition to act in the desired manner. The most important techniques in this group include intention to purchase, inquiry tests and sales variations.

Purchase intent quantifies the probability that an individual will try out or buy the advertised brand in the near future as a result of exposure to the advertisement.

Inquiry tests evaluate how well the objectives of campaigns aiming to influence individual behavior achieve their established objectives (not necessarily purchase of the product).

Sales variations can not be measured directly because there is a small amount of real situations in which there is variation.

The cognitive techniques will be used in this research in order to measure the impact of one’s gender on his / her response towards advertisements.

2.5 Gender

It have become clear within marketing that men and women act differently as consumers, watch different TV programs and react differently to advertisements. Therefore marketers consider gender as one of the most basic segmentations. This means that the same advertisement, which is not particularly meant for men or women, can be interpreted differently based on gender.

The above information implicates that marketers should take the basis of demographics of the target audience, likely to view the advertisement, into consideration. Gender is a significant factor when designing advertisements which are meant to influence the male or female target.

“Gender is the division of people into two categories, “men” and “women.” According to Wells et al. (as cited by Johansson and Utterström, 2006) gender differences are divided into primary and secondary differences. Primary gender differences are physical traits that are natural in males and females, for example a woman’s ability to bear children. Secondary gender attributes tend to

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be related with one sex more than the other. For example shaving legs is a secondary trait connected with women. Through interaction with caretakers, socialization in childhood, peer pressure in adolescence, and gendered work and family roles, women and men are socially constructed to be different in behavior, attitudes, and emotions. The gendered social order is based on and maintains these differences (Borgatta, E.F. and Montgomery, R.J.V, 2000, p.

1057), (Sloan Work and Family Research Network, wfnetwork.bc.edu).

It is this difference in behavior, attitudes and emotions that influence the attitude toward the advertisement and makes it difficult for advertisers to attract the attention of both, men and women, with one single advertisement.

Therefore the purpose of this paper is to find out how men and women differ in their processing of information, in this case on advertisements of mobile phones.

2.6 Gender and information processing

Much theory has been published about gender and the processing of information. Joan Meyers- Levy (1991), a much cited author in regard to gender studies, says that there is a fundamental difference in how males and females process information. Her selectivity hypothesis theory states that men eliminate and women integrate when processing information. According to Joan Meyers-Levy, women tend to process information more comprehensively than men, picking up on relevant as well as irrelevant and detailed information. She also said that the difference in response to advertisements between men and women is very important for advertisers because the success of their ad campaigns depends on the knowledge and judgment consumers assimilate from the ad campaign.

Prakash (1992) agrees with the selectivity hypothesis theory by saying that men tend to be selective information processors and that therefore advertisements meant to target men should only present a few salient attributes of the product. On the other hand, advertising targeting

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women should contain more detailed and complete information because women tend to be more comprehensively.

Hallahan, Kirk (1995) made an examination of the selectivity hypothesis theory of Joan Meyers- Levy by doing a study of gender-based differences in processing of promotional messages. The results of his study provides support for the selectivity hypothesis theory which suggest that women exposed to promotional messages process information more thoroughly, based on cognitive responses generated; responded more favorably than men to mediated promotional messages, based on a series of attitudinal and believability measures; and expressed more favorable dispositions toward mediated communications in general.

In their article “The effects of gender on perceptions of product trial: an extension of the selectivity hypothesis”, Kempf and Laczniak (1998) show results from a study they did among seventy five subjects who where randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups receiving an ad exposure and trial of either a computer virus scanner (low trial diagnosticity product dominated by nonexperiential attributes) or a computer grammar checker (high trial diagnosticity product dominated by nonexperiential attributes). They divided the two experimental groups into two sub-groups based on gender to test the gender-related hypotheses. The results of this study are supportive of the selectivity hypothesis, confirming that females – being comprehensive information processors – seemed to look for more information during the trial while males on the other hand seemed to focus on what information was available, rather than on the full set of attribute information relevant to the product.

According to Sanjay Putrevu, who wrote an article about male and female responses to print advertisement, there are only very few studies that examined sex differences in ad/information processing and that all of them report mixed findings. Some of the findings which he mentioned and that are in line with the findings from abovementioned authors are: women have less problems reading complex messages (Chamblee et al, 1993), women have a higher

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discrimination ability than men (Meyers-Levy and Maheswaran, 1991), they read ads more detailed when they are low/moderate involved (Meyers-Levy and Sternthal, 1991), and use both subjective and objective information (Darley and Smith, 1995). Contrary to this, he said, others report opposing findings such as: Some found that ads in male magazine are more complex in comparison to ads in female magazines (Whissell and McCall, 1997), no sex differences have been found in motivation to engage in cognitive elaboration (Peracchio and Tybout, 1996), men prefer lexical complex ads (Putrevu, Tan and Lord, 2004), recall/recognition of the ad sponsor (McDaniel and Kinney, 1998), recall of words/pictures (Ionescu, 2000, 2002).

Putrevu, who said that these mixed findings are troubling because it makes it difficult to formulate an advertising strategy, gave some potential reasons for these contradictory findings like: product/task involvement, response context, dependable variables, methodologies and units of analysis.

Hogg and Garrow (2003) said that since women have a more comprehensive way to process information, they produce differentiated, narrow category structures, which can be of direct influence on memory and information retrieval.

2.7 Summary

Within marketing there are several ways to communicate with the customer but advertising is said to be the most effective communication tool in business to consumer markets. Emotional or rational appeal can be used in advertisements to attract customers’ attention or to create a certain feeling about the product or brand. Emotional appeals are psychological while rational appeals are informative. There is no single acceptable advertisement response model but several models which look at one principle from single points of view. Customers go through several stages when making a purchase decision. The three attitudinal components: learning, feeling and doing are related to the three principle functions of advertising: to inform, to create attitudes and to induce action. The conative, affective and cognitive techniques are commonly used to measure the advertising effectiveness.

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Gender is a commonly used variable by advertising agencies to divide their target market into smaller homogeneous groups. Selecting the right target group makes it easier for advertising agencies and other practitioners of marketing to receive best results with their advertisements.

Gender differences are divided into primary and secondary differences. Attitude toward advertisements is mainly influenced by the socially constructed differences in behavior, attitude and emotions between men and women.

Various authors studied the different ways men and women process information. One of the most common findings is that men are selective processors of information while women tend to process information more comprehensively.

Although many authors claim that there is a difference in the way men and women process advertisement information, there are also authors who found opposing results. The way men and women differ in their response to advertisements seems to be dependent of different factors like the type of product, the age of the targeted individual and the attitude toward the brand / product.

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CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY

The problem statement as described in chapter one addresses the issue how Surinamese boys are different in the way they respond to advertisements in comparison to Surinamese girls. In order to address this problem statement and the developed research questions, a questionnaire has been created which will be used in the quantitative research among high school students from16 to 20 years of age. This study will measure how Surinamese boys and girls differ in their response to advertisements of mobile phones in terms of complexity of the advertisement and their attitude towards the gender of the model in the advertisement. This chapter will further elaborate on the subjects, research hypotheses, design of the research, stimuli material, data collection and measurements.

3.2 Subjects

As is mentioned in earlier sections, youngsters are frequent users of the mobile phone and for them the mobile phone is often more a fashion item than a practical tool to communicate. This research will be conducted under youngsters from 16-20 years of age, selected from high schools in Paramaribo. Three of the 17 high schools in Paramaribo are selected to participate in the research based on the fact that the students from these high schools are a mix of the different ethnic groups and come from different social classes, and therefore are a relative good representation of all the high school students.

3.3 Research Hypotheses

In this chapter several hypotheses have been developed based on the research questions in chapter one and the literature discussed in chapter two.

According to Joan Meyers-Levy’s selectivity hypothesis there is a difference in the way men and women process information in the sense that men eliminate and women integrate when

processing information. Other authors refute this by saying that depending on factors like

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product type, response context and methodologies, there is no difference in the way men and women process information.

In addition to the formulated central question in chapter one – In what ways are Surinamese boys different in their response to advertisements about mobile phones than Surinamese girls? – and based on literature the following hypotheses have been formulated.

H1 : Surinamese boys and girls show no difference in their response to advertising messages.

H1a: Surinamese boys differ from Surinamese girls in their response to advertising messages.

Based on the sub questions: How does the complexity of the message in the advertisement affect the viewers’ response to the advertisement? and How does the gender of the model used in an advertisement affect the viewers’ response to the advertisement?, but also based on the discussion from literature, the following hypotheses have been developed.

H2 : Surinamese boys and girls respond more positively towards simple advertisements than complex advertisements.

H2a: Surinamese girls have an equal response towards complex and simple advertisements.

H3: Surinamese boys and girls can recall more items from simple advertisements than from complex advertisements.

H3a: Surinamese girls can recall equal items from simple and complex advertisements.

H4: Surinamese boys and girls respond more favorable towards advertisements with a model of the same gender as theirs.

H4a: Surinamese girls respond more favorable towards advertisements with a male model.

H4b: Surinamese boys respond more favorable towards advertisements with a female model.

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3.4 Design

The questionnaire (see Appendix A) is built up of four sections. The first set of questions ask demographic data from the students and their general media habits, the questions in the second and third section are meant to measure the student’s attitude towards the advertisements

followed by the student’s recall of the advertisements or parts of them. The last set of questions should show the respondents’ response to the appearance of a model in the advertisements. The data obtained from the participants has been quantified and analyzed with the use of the

statistical program SPSS version 13.0. The subjects on response toward the advertisement, response toward the model and recall of the advertisement or parts of it in relation to gender have been analyzed using the independent samples t-test. The t-test is used to compare the values of the means from two samples and test whether it is likely that the samples are from populations having different mean values.

3.5 Stimuli Material

Four professionally designed full color print advertisements were used as stimuli material during the research. Advertisement one and two were taken from a foreign newspaper, while

advertisement three and four are fake advertisements, designed with foreign advertisements as example. The advertisements vary in complexity (see chapter 3.7) of words and pictures and in the gender of the model in the advertisement. Two of the advertisements were complex from which one only had a picture of a mobile phone with much text and several messages and one had a picture of a mobile phone with a male model and text. Similarly, from the two simple advertisements there was also one with little text and a picture of a mobile phone and one with a picture of the product together with a female model. The researcher chose to use foreign and fake advertisements to minimize bias in the respondents’ answers to the questionnaire.

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3.6 Data Collection

The research was conducted at three high schools in Paramaribo. Taking the feasibility and time frame into consideration only three of the 17 high schools in Paramaribo were selected from which it is generally known that the students are a relative good representation of all the students. One of the schools (SPI) has a 92% girl population, the second school (NATIN) has a 28% girl population, while 56% of the third school (AMS) are girls. The total population of all three schools in the year 2008/2009 is 3896. A stratified random sampling procedure is used to calculate the sample size with a 95% confidence level and a margin of error of 5% while 10% of the total population will be covered. The following calculation has been used:

N = t²xp(1-p) m²

n = required sample size; t = confidence level at 95% (standard value of 1.96); p = estimated proportion of household to be covered = 10%) m = margin of error at 5% (standard value of 0.05)

N = (1.96)²x0.10(1-0.10) = 3.8416 x 0.09 = 138 0.05² 0.0025

A total of 123 students in the age group 16 to 20 were willing to participate in the research. Due to a lack of time and exam period at the schools, the researcher was not able to get 15 more participants. Before conducting the research, permission has been asked to the deans of the schools to have all the participating students seated in one or two classrooms were the

questionnaires could be administered. The respondents first got the four advertisements to look at for 10 minutes. At the end of the ten minutes the advertisements were taken away from the students after which the questionnaire was handed to them. The questionnaire was built up of four sections as described earlier. The questionnaires have been administered on July 27 and 28, 2010. The schools that were selected to participate in the research are De Algemene Middelbare school (AMS), het Natuur Technisch Instituut (NATIN) and Surinaamse Pedagogisch Instituut (SPI).

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3.7 Measurements

As is mentioned earlier, the aim of this study is to measure how Surinamese boys and girls are different in their response to advertisements of mobile phones and how they react to a male or female model. The variables which are measured during this study are: response towards the advertisement and the model used in the advertisement, advertisement complexity and recall of the advertisement or parts of it. The following sections will provide a description of these measurements.

3.7.1 Response toward the Advertisement

Response, as defined by businessdictionary.com (7/23/2010), is any behavior that results from a stimulus. As literature has shown, men and women respond differently towards advertisements.

The response towards the advertisement was measured by using a 5 point scale for the following variables: like/dislike, clear/not clear, pleasant/unpleasant, effective/not effective, interesting/not interesting, informative/not informative, persuasive/not persuasive, convincing/not convincing, simple/complex. An average in terms of percentage of the respondent’s score for each of these items was used to measure the response toward the advertisement.

3.7.2 Response toward the model

In the same way as response toward the advertisement, the participant’s response toward the model was measured by using a 5 point scale for the following items: likeable/not likeable, believable/not believable, attractive/not attractive, relevant/not relevant, friendly/not friendly.

The scores of these scales were averaged in terms of percentages into a single measure of the response toward the model.

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3.7.3 Complexity of the advertisement

According to Morrison and Dainoff (1972) complexity can be defined in the first place in

geometrical characteristics of the picture or can be estimated by subjective rating procedures. For this research the four advertisements where divided into two complex advertisements

(advertisement 1 and 3) and two simple advertisements (advertisement 2 and 4) based on the quantity and difficulty of the text. Advertisement 1 and 3 were defined as complex

advertisements because they had a lot of text and several messages. Some of the features of the telephone were not mentioned in the text but should be generated from the total picture.

Advertisement 2 and 4 were defined as simple because they had only one message which was easy to generate from the text.

The complexity of the advertisement is not the only factor which can influence the looking time and therefore the participant is asked for his/her reason why he/she looked ad a certain

advertisement longer than the others. The participant can choose one of the given options like the ad is: informative (have a lot of information), creative, interesting, complex, funny, pleasant.

3.7.4 Recall of the advertisement or parts of it

Recall and recognition have been used extensively in the literature where authors discussed whether these two constructs measure one or two facets of memory, but authors agree that both are measures of explicit memory (Baack, D.W., 2005). Recall of an advertisement or parts of it will be used in this study as a factor to measure advertisement complexity. The fewer items a participant can recall from an advertisement, the more complex the advertisement is for this person. Recall can be tested on an aided and unaided basis and for this study the complexity of the advertisement will be measured by asking the participants to answer questions on an aided basis. The participants will receive a separate sheet of questions for each advertisement with the subject of the advertisement in the heading. Some of the questions asked are:

What is the main message of the advertisement?

Can you list 4 features of the mobile phone that is advertised here?

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What is the brand of the mobile phone in this advertisement?

The answers of the participants will be coded depending on how much they can recall from the advertisement. If for example a participant answers the first question correctly, the answer will be coded with the number 1 (one), otherwise it will be coded with the number 0 (zero).

Depending on how many features a participant can recall from the ad, the answer will be coded from 0 (cannot recall any feature) to 5 (can recall 4 features). A student can score 100% if he/she answers all three questions right. Each of the questions has a maximum of 33.33%. For question two where the students need to recall a maximum of 4 features advertised, the 33.33% is divided by 4 which gives each answer a score of 8,33%. This means that when a student can recall only one feature he will get only 8.33% for that question; if he can recall two features he will get 16.67% for that question and so on. In the case of advertisement two where there are no features advertised, the students receive 0% if they sum up some features (which are not advertised) and receive 33.33% when they are able to say that there were no features advertised. If a participant can recall more than 60% of the advertisement than this advertisement is considered to be simple for this student.

3.8 Summary

This study investigates the influence of gender on advertisement response with an emphasis on the difference in response between boys and girls. The research is conducted on three

Surinamese high schools where the participants were administered with four different

advertisements of mobile phones and a written questionnaire. The answers of the participants should give answer to the question in what way Surinamese boys are different in their response to advertisements than Surinamese girls in terms of: response towards the advertisement and model used in the advertisement, advertisement complexity and recall of the advertisement or parts of it.

The only independent variable within this study is gender, consisting of two levels, namely boys and girls. The three dependent variables are response of advertisement and model, recall of the advertisement or parts of it and The collected data from the respondents was quantified and analyzed in SPSS, using the independent samples t-test.

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CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS

This chapter will give an overview of the results from the field research conducted under high school students in Paramaribo. First the results of the general information and media habits of the students are presented followed by an analysis of their reaction to the sample advertisements.

4.2 Student’s media habit

A total of 49 male and 74 female students participated in this research which was conducted to measure the difference in response to advertisements between these two groups. Only one student from the total group did not have a mobile phone. On the question about which medium they use the most, the students were allowed to give more than one answer and these were: 91%

for television, 37,4% for radio, 35,8% for newspapers and 3,2% for magazines. 69% of the students said that they sometimes read advertisements in newspapers and 27,6% of them said that they always read the advertisements in newspapers. Only 7.3% of the students (that is 9 out of 123) said that they read advertisements for mobile phones which advertise the brand the student uses. 74,8% of the students said that they read only the mobile phone advertisements which interest them.

4.3 Response toward the advertisement

The next two sections present an analysis and discussion of the results of the different responses of the students to the advertisements. In order to see if there is a significant difference in

response to the advertisements between male and female students, an independent sample t-test was conducted. Crosstabs were used to get a more detailed look at the difference in the responses between the boys and the girls. All results are available in appendices D-Z

THE DIFFERENCE IN RESPONSE BETWEEN BOYS AND GIRLS ON ADVERTISEMENTS OF MOBILE PHONES

THE INFLUENCE OF CONSUMERS’ GENDER ON ADVERTISING RESPONSES