IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISNG ON

YOUTH
Introduction:
From time immoral, advertisers have always seek for any media that will help them deliver their

advertising message to their target prospects. As society and media use evolved, advertisers have

always embraced changes in media landscape. From town criers to books, pamphlets, posters,

radio, television, billboards and now social media, advertisers have always been at the forefront

of experimenting with any media that can deliver their advertising messages. Social media was

created to facilitate the exchange of information via email, chat rooms, blogs, discussion forums,

digital audio, images and movies among its users. It includes websites like face book, twitter,

blogs and MySpace whose major users are youths and young adults who use it for diverse

purposes. Many of these youths no longer depend on traditional media for their information and

entertainment needs; rather, they are hook to the social media for all these. As more and more

youth depend on social media for their needs, advertisers see it as an avenue to carry their

advertising messages and to reach this important market segment. Manufacturers who produce

goods and offer services that appeal to youths usually place their adverts on social media. Infect,

social media sites are now overloaded with advertisements. With the increasing move to social

media as advertising hub, the issue is, does the youth respond to advertising messages on social

media, if they do, do these advertising messages have any influence on them? These and other

issues are address in this research.

Background
The development of new technological innovations, such as the internet, has brought on changes

for the market. The internet offers a world wide network, which connects millions of individuals

and businesses and creates a global market place with huge business opportunities. Social media

sites such as Face book, YouTube, twitter, and many others are popular internet sites where

people especially youth interact freely, sharing and discussing information about each other and

their lives, products or services, using multimedia mix of personal words, pictures, videos and

audio. Advertisers have always been fascinated by media and the youth because of their primacy

to business. Social media are the latest platform that advertisers are spending huge part of their

advertising budget on, yet there is little or no research on the influence these media have on the

youth.

The research is being conducted that social media may contribute to brand awareness, create

interest in the prospect and may in conjunctions with other factors move prospect to take desired

decision. However, social media should not be seen as the ultimate media to reach the elusive

youth market

Several advertising formulas are in existence today but one of the most commonly used is the

acronym AIDA — Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. This refers to specific techniques

necessary to implement when creating an ad. Correctly combine these four components in an ad

campaign, and you can accomplish your advertising and marketing objectives

Looking at the traditional AIDA model inverted is all about thinking more about what you want

customers to do and how to be more involved with your brand and use all channels in an

innovative way to drive action, which will lead to awareness.

advertising, which helps marketing managers develop effective communication strategies and

communicate with customers in a way that better responds to their needs and desires. AIDA

describes a common list of events that occur when a consumer views an advertisement. Each

letter in the acronym stands for the following:

Attention

The attention portion of the marketing message occurs at the beginning and is designed to give

the prospects a reason to take notice. Presenting a shocking fact or statistic that identifies a

problem which can be solved by the product or service is one common method of gaining

attention. Other methods can include asking a thought-provoking question or using the element

of surprise. The purpose is to give the prospects a reason for wanting to learn more.

Interest

Once you've gained the prospects' attention, the next step is to maintain interest in your product

or service to keep the recipients engaged. Explain to the recipients how the problem you've

identified in the attention step is adversely affecting their lives. A demonstration or illustration

can help the recipients to further identify with the problem and want to actively seek possible

solutions. By personalizing the problem, you're making it hit closer to home.

Desire

In the desire stage, your objective is to show the prospects how your product or service can solve

their problem. Explain the features of the product or service and the related benefits and

demonstrate how the benefits fulfill the need. A common advertising process is the "before and
after" technique, such as when a cleaning product makes a soiled item look brand new. If done

effectively, the prospects should now have the desire to make a purchase.

Action

Now that you've created the desire to make a purchase, the final step is to persuade the prospects

to take immediate action. In a one-on-one sales process, this is the time to ask for the sale. In the

advertising world, techniques involve creating sense of urgency by extending an offer for a

limited time or including a bonus of special gift to those who act within a specific time frame.

Without a specific call to action, the prospect may simply forget about your offer and move on.

Marketers are increasingly involved in engaging with both their potential and existing customers

by improving their social media existence, and they are very eager to learn about, organize, and

facilitate brand communities (e.g., McAlexander, Schouten, & Koening, 2002; Schau, Muniz, &

Arnould, 2009; Zhou et al., in press),

People spend more than one third of their walking day consuming social media (Lang, 2010).

Facebook alone, the hallmark of social media, has over 800 million active users. The unique

aspects of social media and its immense popularity have revolutionized marketing practices such

as advertising and promotion (Hanna, Rohm, & Crittenden, 2011). Social media has also

influenced consumer behavior from information acquisition to post purchase behavior such as

dissatisfaction statements or behaviors (Mangold & Faulds, 2009) and patterns of Internet usage

(Ross et al., 2009). These differences and importance are such that researchers are urged to treat

social media as a distinct research area (Hu & Kettinger, 2008).

Statement of Problem
In today’s highly competitive business environment, keeping consumers happy and maintaining

a long-term relationship with them has long been an important business strategy. According to

the relationship marketing literature, brand loyalty is one of the key relationship marketing

outcomes. This concept can be conceptualized into behavioral loyalty and attitudinal loyalty

(Jacoby and Kyner 1973). Behavioral loyalty means that consumers will continue to purchase

products or services from the same supplier. Attitudinal loyalty refers to consumers’

commitment or preferences when considering unique values associated with a brand (Chaudhuri

and Holbrook 2001).

Social media advertisements are prime examples of results stemming from the use of the AIDA

model to narrow the target market . Marketers know their advertisements must grab the attention

of consumers, so they use colors, backgrounds, and themes that would appeal to them. Next,

automotive marketers pique interest by showing the advantages of owning the car. In the case of

the Mini-Cooper, for instance, marketers imply that a small car can get the consumer to open

spaces and to fun.

For the marketers that have realized the social media advertisement, there has been a shift from

the why to the how? How can marketers better integrate social media advertisement as

indispensible to their marketing mix? Some are even one step further and are focused on how

they effectively integrate the social media advertisement to achieve their marketing objectives

across the purchasing funnel.

During the 20th century, marketers employed mass-market media channels – TV, radio, print,

outdoor and collateral. The result was that brands created marketing messages that, out of

necessity, had to appeal to a broad spectrum of consumers. For the most part, marketers were

pleased with the results, even though they could never directly measure the effectiveness of their
 campaigns. As John Wannamaker famously pointed out, they knew that 50% of their advertising

was working, just not which 50%.

Times have changed and consumer expectation and media consumption behavior have shifted

dramatically. Consumers are moving away from traditional media and the path from awareness

to interest to desire to action (AIDA) now has a great deal to do with their adoption of multiple

screens, especially the smart phone and the tablet. In fact, the new nomenclature replacing AIDA

is Path to Purchase.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMWORK

Based on the reviewed literature, a conceptual model was developed. The research framework is

as shown below.

Social media advertisement Youth

AWERENESS

INTEREST

DESIRE

ACTION
Research Aims and Objectives

The main aim of this research is to explore how the influence interest and purchase intention of

youth by social media advertisement. To study how brand interest and purchase intention are

affected by customer-centric relationships

Research Methodology

In this study, both primary and secondary data research methods will be used. Before conducting

survey, secondary data is collected through reviewing academic journals and books to provide

in-depth background understanding of the research topic. Quantitative approach will be adopted

with primary data being collected through opinion survey.

Two typically opposing research approaches are adopted in existing literature, specifically,

deduction and induction. The deductive approach suggests that theory and hypotheses are to be

developed before being tested (Bell & Bryman, 2003). Contrary to deduction, the inductive

approach proposes that theory to be developed according to the collected data (Saunder, Lewis &

Thornhill, 2009). In this research, the deductive approach is adopted (see Figure 1-1 below). A

conceptual framework with comprehensive theoretical base has been developed by reviewing

relevant existing literature. Quantitative method was then chosen to gather data about the views

of youth. The population of study is students of university and collages of Karachi. A sample of

300 respondents was randomly selected and test instrument administered on them.