CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study.
Advertising has come a long way, expanding its coast in principles and practice. It is gaining more recognition, increasing its application and usage. Since the advent of technology and within the different forms of information communication technology, it has become a toast of in the life of manufacturers, products and services, consumers advertising agencies and the media. In short advertising means a lot to different people. It has given many people something to think about. In one way, it could be what the people do with advertising and in another way, what advertising do with the people and for the people. The people here are the manufacturers or advertisers who, through advertising, are creating awareness for their goods and services. Another set of people are the public, the consumers, who are desperately in need for certain goods and services. The advertising agencies are not left out. They are willing to create the enabling ground for the advertisers for their products and services and the target audience through a medium or media of communication. Advertising helps the advertising agencies to showcase their creativity. The media cannot do without advertising. Apart from the revenue they get from placing such advertisements; it attracts more viewership, readership or fellowship of the channel. And of course the teachers and students of advertising are part of this component. The teachers are busy expanding the scope and application of advertising, adjusting the old form to adapt to the new technologies, the students are left with the issue of coping, understanding and assimilation and later application.
Nevertheless, Bovee and Arens (1992:309), say advertising is a “non-personal communication of information, usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature, about products, services, or ideas by identified sponsors through various media”. Along the line, the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) in Ozoh (1998:1) posits “advertising as a form of communication through media about products, services, or ideas, paid for by an identified sponsor”.
Advertising as a business competitive strategy is aimed at creating awareness of the existence of a product through the communication media. Television advertising has effect on buyers and potential buyers.
Television advertising has earned an excellent, consistent and successful track record of promoting product and services. Television advertising has many advantages for local, regional and national business. In urban area like Enugu, television provides the most spectacular way in which an advertiser can reach the greatest number of people at a time as they posses television sets.
Television advertising is an exciting, dynamic and challenging enterprise. Its often pervasive, fascinating and materialistic nature makes it an object of criticism and misunderstanding. It is a form of communication through the media about product, services, ideas, personalities or organizations paid for by an identified sponsor. If advertisements have no effect, companies would not spend so much money on them. Advertising help us to discover much about what appeals to us as consumers and investigate how advertisers manipulate this to their benefit.
According to Rouse and Rouse, (2002), building a strong image or brand requires high impact advertising that has high visibility. Television has such characteristics. It is a highly prestigious form of advertising.