Impact Of Testimonial Use On Advertising Effectiveness

INTRODUCTION
Advertising is a powerful and persuasive machine. It is an exciting, dynamic and fully challenging enterprise. It is a subject that cannot be ignored in our day to day life; infact “a world without advertisement is a bleak world” Awake 1988 Pg 1-6. Advertising is always ahead of us to greet us, Infact it has almost become a thorn in the flesh that the average individual cannot do without. He or she is exposed to several kinds of advertising messages right from the moment he wakes up in the morning until he goes back to bed.

Advertising is a form of mass communication that puts businesses in touch with consumers though paid, controlled, identifiable massages that try to persuade the receiver to make a specific decision towards buying a product.

Advertising has proved to be the cheapest and most successful means of making known goods and services in order to sell them effectively. It is capable of influencing human behaviour towards the purchase of a particular product.

One of the main purpose of advertisement is the imparting and extracting the materialistic virtues of consumption by exploiting achievement derived and emulative anxieties, employing tactics of hidden manipulation, playing on information, etc.

The primary concern with the content of advertising is the question of the degree to which the advertisement is able to convey the selling message; bearing in mind that people buy a particular product to satisfy the needs and wants of the consumers. The advertiser achieves this though a will designed, produced and properly placed advert cope.

The aim of the advertiser in most cases is to induce and create awareness of the values of the advertised products. It also helps to make consumers have the urge to want to possess the product. In essence the advertisers finds out what crates the urge to want to possess a particular product. The aim of every advertisement is to create awareness and sell product and services; it is also used to attract consumers where such product and services could be got.

Owing to this reason, Bernstein (1974: Pg 2) saw advertising as “the originator and communication of ideas about products in order to motivate consumers towards purchase”.

Advertising can also be said to be controversial, it has been praised and yet lambasted. Advocates see advertising as a boost to the economy. “For there to be more jobs in the society, there must be an increase in demand for goods and services, advertising contributes to the accomplishment of this goal. (wright et al,1982 Pg. 6) Advertising can generate and stimulate an economy and create a market where non exist.

The detectors of advertising on the other hand feel, it is a wasteful enterprise. According to them, advertising consist of exploiting human weakness though the use of punchy, persuasive high pressure and aggressive words known as the “hard sell” concept coin by the British advertising association Advertising according to them force people to buy product they had had no intention of buying or something not in their best interest.

Advertisers on the other hand, should always bear in mind that whatever they put in an advertisement affects the consumer’s buying habit as they should be careful about the advert message.

The peak advertisement for example shows that any consumer of the product will have energy for active way of life and also look healthy. This message inspires the consumer’s buying behaviour, this in effect means the consumer’s buying behaviour is greatly influenced by the message he sees or hears. Whatever the case may be advertisers should be able to know what the consumers real needs and wants are, and as such they should be able to make effort to satisfy them.

The bottom line of the consumer’s level of satisfaction to a large extent depend on his behaviour and what really motivates him. Since consumers satisfaction is the goal of every advertiser, pre knowledge of consumer’s buying behaviour will help to facilitate effectiveness and efficiency in advertising.

In most advertisements, advertisers try to match product with the consumers but for this method to be effective, the reason that make people react to certain product should first be considered. The advertiser should also be able to know what appeal to his consumers to enable him know which means would be most appropriate for him to use as his medium to get the consumer to buy his product. The consumers are the main targets of the advertisers, they use different means and weapons at their disposal to induce people into buying products and services, and one of such weapons is through testimonial use. This has become the in thing, in advertisement both at the national and international levels. Testimonial use is the use of stars or well-known public figures in endorsing products or services.

The origin of testimonial use is not documented, but Radolph in (1947) cited it in one of his study. However; among the six types of advertising copy compared, testimonial advertising was found to show the highest readership scores.

The testimonial is usually a well-known member of the public. He can be an actor, actress, sportsman/woman, etc. He is usually known for his achievement in his area of specialization, outside the area he is been used to endorse. The advertiser uses testimonials in endorsement of product to reduce the psychological risk of the consumer by portraying to the prospective consumer that the testimonials are typical users of the product to be advertised.

In Nigeria, the use of testimonials in advertisement is thing that has come to stay. Examples are Kano Nwankwo in peak, Jaja Okocha in Pepsi, Genevive Nnaji in Always Pad’ etc. Advertisers believe using testimonials in advertising helps to boost the testimonial of the product and induce the consumers to buy it, especially when the endorser is the consumer’s model. This can influence the consumer’s buying habit.