Joseph
DeSio
Prof.
Paudel
Rhetoric
5
November 2015
Effective Advertising for Young College
Students
Abstract
For years large and small businesses have
tried to answer the question; what is the most successful way to advertise to
the Millennial market? There have been
many studies taken many different ways to answer this question. Few studies,
however, have been done to research which advertisements work best on a group
of newly independent Millennials with disposable incomes, college freshman. This study examines the purchase habits of
twenty college freshman attending the University of Iowa, a school that
recently welcomed the largest freshman class in its history. The results
indicate that even though they belong to the most technological generation freshman
still buy many products from advertisements they see on TV or in the store, and
even though online marketing is considered a primary way to advertise to young
people it has several limitations.
Introduction
Companies will stop at nothing to advertise
to young adults. From internet radio ads
geared towards buying online textbooks to companies now buying ad space on
virtual bill boards in video games (Yang, Roskos-Ewoldsen, Dinu, Apran, 2006.)
A large percentage of college students that now have newly found spending independence
with little parental influence over the products they buy. An important question for marketing companies
is; what the best way to advertise to the highly influential college freshmen
market? The benefits of this study would be for companies local, nationwide,
and online to gain the business of young adults through advertising therefore
increasing the chance that they will have return business with them in the
future. Only dealing with physical products or online services this study aims
to find which form of advertising is most successful in marketing towards
freshmen, where freshmen purchase from, and how those two correlate to the
price that freshman are willing to pay for products.
Methods
Participants:
Twenty college freshman at the University of Iowa. All living in the dorms away from parents,
guardians, and home life.
Procedure:
Data was collected anonymously from surveymonkey.com. The first question asked, “What was the last
product (excluding food or drink) that you bought directly because of an
advertisement you saw?” The second question, “Did you have knowledge of the
product before the ad?” The third, “On what media did you see the ad (social
media, internet radio, in store advertisement, flyer, or website)?” The third
question “Was the price of the product low (below 20), middle (between 20 and
100), or high (over 100 dollars)?” And finally, “where was the product
purchased (physically in the store or purchased online)?”
Results:
Figure 1
Figure 1 shows where the ad was seen that
motivated the participant in the survey to buy the product. One aspect of figure one that was surprising
was that the most common type of media was Television; despite the fact that
Americans age 18-24 are now watching TV less than ever (MarketingCharts 2015.) The second most popular ad medium the
motivated the freshman was in store advertisement. In store advertisement being second most
popular suggests that perhaps college freshman aren’t motivated to make a trip
to their dorm rooms to the store, but if they already happen to be in the store
will purchase a product they see being prominently displayed. The next three
most popular are all online mediums suggesting that seeing products online
often does not motivate freshmen to buy goods. Figure one points to online
advertisements being unsuccessful in marketing to freshmen in figure two the
study will look for a correlation between ads scene online and where the
product was bought.
Figure 2:
Figure 2 shows the relationship between where
the participants see the ad and where the participants purchase the
product. The most common route is ads
seen offline (Television, in-store advertisement) and purchased off line as
well a physical product bought either at a local or national store. Figure two
shows that half of the products purchased were purchased online. Of the products purchased online a majority
of them were seen advertised online. Non
of the participants claimed to buying a physical product in stores that they
saw advertised online. Figure two seems to point that non-online advertisements
are affective for buying goods physically and online while online
advertisements are not as affective in motivating freshmen consumers in buying
physical goods in-store.
Discussion:
This
study aimed to find what form of advertising is most successful when
advertising to young college students.
Throughout my survey despite popular belief that younger generation is
adopting new technology to purchase goods the more traditional advertisements were
the most popular for this group of participants. A possible issue in conducting
the survey was that it only asked participants the last item that they bought
because of an advertisement. It could be
that a participant in the survey is a frequent online shopper but just happened
to be motivated a week before to drive to target to buy a t-shirt that he/she
saw advertised on TV.
The implications of this survey are
good news for local or small business with little to no online presence in
college towns. If a local business is
able to gain ad space on TV or simply use effective store front or in store
advertisements, they may be successful in gaining the business of college
freshmen. This survey also points to
companies should not advertise online if they do not offer goods that can be
purchased online they will not likely be able to motivate younger college
students to come to their store. A more
in depth and advanced survey would be more effective in finding the most
successful ways to advertise to college freshmen, perhaps, if the experiment
was done over along period of time or even two semesters tracking freshmen
purchasing habits.
Works Citied
Are Young People Watching Less TV?
(Updated Q2 2015 Data). MarketingCharts. (2015,
September 29). Retrieved November 4,
2015.
Yang, M., Roskos-Ewoldsen, D., Dinu,
L., & Arpan, L. (2006). The Effectiveness of "in-Game" Advertising: Comparing College
Students' Explicit and Implicit Memory for Brand Names. Journal of Advertising, 35(4), 143-152
Abstract
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Seen off Bought off
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Seen off Bought on
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Seen on Bought on
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Seen on Bought off
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10
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4
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0
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Facebook
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Internet radio
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In store advertisement
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TV
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Website
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The appendix should be before the reference page, but other than that this paper is organized and follows IMRaD format. It presents proper headings and follows APA formatting in regards to font, text size, margins, and overall organization. He uses quotes to back up his statements and properly sites them throughout his essay. I thought that the paper was very well written but there were some grammatical errors. He needs to include a title page. I liked that he used two different types of graphs to display his information because the reader might prefer one graph over the other, so this is helpful.
ReplyDeleteThings I liked: The headings were good and the paper flowed very smoothly. Also the discussion section did a good job of telling how the experiment might not be as accurate as it could be.
ReplyDeleteWays to Improve: One thing you could do to improve your paper is do a better job of stating a gap in the research in the introduction. You have the gap stated in the abstract but in the introduction it would help transition toward your research. Another thing you could do is add the two sections in the methods section (data sources, data analysis) The data sources section is in your paper but needs to be moved to its own section. Then adding your data analysis would help make your paper formatting and content.
Graphs/charts: Your pie chart was good and helped explain the data but it was confusing for a couple reasons. First change I would suggest would be to add a part explaining what "on" and "off" are. Second thing I would do it eliminate the part that accounts for nothing in the pie chart. Maybe put that on the bottom and explain that it wasn't a factor.
Things I liked: The headings were good and the paper flowed very smoothly. Also the discussion section did a good job of telling how the experiment might not be as accurate as it could be.
ReplyDeleteWays to Improve: One thing you could do to improve your paper is do a better job of stating a gap in the research in the introduction. You have the gap stated in the abstract but in the introduction it would help transition toward your research. Another thing you could do is add the two sections in the methods section (data sources, data analysis) The data sources section is in your paper but needs to be moved to its own section. Then adding your data analysis would help make your paper formatting and content.
Graphs/charts: Your pie chart was good and helped explain the data but it was confusing for a couple reasons. First change I would suggest would be to add a part explaining what "on" and "off" are. Second thing I would do it eliminate the part that accounts for nothing in the pie chart. Maybe put that on the bottom and explain that it wasn't a factor.