De La Salle University-Manila

Final Paper of the Course Requirements for

Englres

Social Media and Television Advertisements Effect on an Individuals Decision Making

2nd Term, AY 2016-2017

Submitted by:

Peswani, Neel

Villavicencio, Alejandro Rafael

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 Introduction.

The role of marketing to social media and television marketing in a business is momentous

such that it gives broader methodologies by which it can help persuading people to avail of what

they want and need. Eyeing on the generic meaning of marketing, it is the social process by

which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging

products and value with others (Kotler, 2010). There are a series of ways that catches the

attentions of what the people yearn for through marketing and the most prevalent and customary

way is by the use of television and social media in lieu of cultural diversities.

Marketing comprehensively is the process by which companies or businesses attract people

as customers to purchase products and services. It is the approach by which business

organizations study their people by adapting and creating a relationship with their customers and

target markets for them to be able to compendiously understand what the wants and necessities

the people need in order for them to render what they have to offer to generate sales. According

to Ward (2016), the key word in this marketing definition is "process"; marketing involves

researching, promoting, selling, and distributing the businesss products or services. Marketing

deals with the course of communication through advertising, broadcasting, and publicizing

commercial branding that would give interest to the society with what they have to offer to

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satisfy customers for companies to be prominent to their target market and have more than an

adequate and recognizable label in the society to earn profit on the process.

Television marketing and advertising has frequently been the main source of avenue by

which people get information for various of reasons. One of the reasons why people get involved

with social media is because of the easy access to marketing and advertising. Inquiries by

business brands through promotions usually show up in social networking sites such as

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and many more. Additionally, one of the most

acquirable place to look for a reliable source for what the people are interested in is on television

by means of commercials. The history of social media started in 1997 with the network Six

Degrees and midway, came upon Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook in 2004. Since then, it

gradually worked up to Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Snapchat by 2017 (Milner, 2015). These

social networking sites and applications draw countless of viewers from around the world which

in the process make it facile for businesses to divulge what they have to propose and proffer. In

the other hand, the most generic avenue for people to discover different advertisements is by

watching television. Research made by Braith (2014) said that the first broadcast of a television

advertisement in 1941 was during a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and

Philadelphia Phillies by a businessman named Bulova as he paid nine dollars for his product to

be advertised on WNBT. From then on, as time and generations passed by, in 2000s, the rise of

on-demand television ascended to even greater heights as the development of the world of

Advertising Revenue was introduced and branding and promotion was merely epidemic. From

then on, society had an easy doorway to television marketing and is efficiently doing an

magnanimous job for industries and companies in a marketing perspective.

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 The relationship of marketing to social media and television advertisements will invariably

be present at all times. The association of marketing with social media and television will

interconnect with technology as it plays its role as the middle-man among the social interaction

of people, advertising companies and the people themselves. Companies use these social

networking sites and television commercials as a tool for them to broadcast to the public what

they have in store. To further simplify the meaning of marketing in a much narrow standpoint

and how it associates to television, marketing expert Lake (2016) said that Social media gives

marketers a voice and a way to communicate with peers, customers, and potential consumers. It

personalizes the "brand" and helps you to spread your message in a relaxed and conversational

way.. Social media and television has transformed the world of marketing in an unmitigated

innovative approach as it opened the doors from a one-way engagement system with the viewers

to a more spread and multi-focused methodology. As the advancement of technology rapidly

increases, the easier for companies to spread awareness about their products to the public

because the society will and always will have an easy and broad access to information through

the websites, applications, and television. For a more concrete way to understand what the

society wants in terms marketing advertising, research on social media and television marketing

influence on an individuals buying decisions through psychological means, pioneering ways to

understand peoples wants and needs regardless of cultural diversities will be expounded.

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 Body.

In a search to understand what drives consumers decisions in terms of the effect of social

media and television advertisement to an individuals decisions making, marketers have turned

to psychology to understand what could make an impact). The immense majority of

marketers are not psychologists but many marketers who have been successful in their career

regularly make use of psychology in appealing to consumers. According to Rosenthal

(2014), marketers who are smart, honest and extremely skilled make use of psychology

legally, ethically, and respectfully to attract and engage consumers, and compel them to buy.

One of the psychological methodologies which is used by social media marketers is the

Maslows Hierarchy of Needs. Maslows Hierarchy of Needs was developed by Abraham

Maslow who specializes in human behavioral psychology. The Maslows Hierarchy of Needs

consists of five levels of psychological needs. The first four needs, according to Abraham

Maslow, is labeled as deficiency needs which means that if these first four needs are not met

then an individual is likely to face anxiety or tension to some extent (Lee, 2015). The five levels

of Maslows Hierarchy of Needs are physiological needs, safety needs, love/belonging needs,

esteem needs, and self-actualization needs.

Physiological needs are the needs known as our best psychological motivation because if

people are not able to meet their physiological needs, their bodies will suffer and they will

eventually die. Common examples of physiological needs are food, water, and air, which are the

most important along with shelter and clothing to help protect people from different kinds of

dangers in the environment. Relating this level of Maslows Hierarchy of Needs to Marketing,

its quite basic. By engaging with customers basic needs, marketers motivate them to fulfill their

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primal psychological motivation. When a restaurant advertisements advertise how satisfying

their product is, or when a commercial for living in Hawaii or some other well developed

country is produced that portrays its naturally purified water system, these kinds of marketing

strategies attempt to appeal to a persons psychological needs to physically satisfy the needs of

their survival. Safety Needs is the second level of need in the Maslows hierarchy of needs.

Examples of these needs would include good health and well-being, personal or financial

security, and also needing other safety devices or materials against illnesses, accidents, or

breaches in security. This need arises. This need arises in people after their physiological needs

have been satisfied, and explains people who mostly get motivated by things like insurance, job

security and acquiring wealth. An example of relating this to marketing would be an insurance

television advertisement which shows a scenario where a customer has an accident or health

companies publicly recommending immunizations, where they are targeting a persons safety

motivations. Having the fear of not being able to cure an illness or solve an economic problem is

a very common marketing communications strategy to ensure the individual that the marketing

company will protect them from such threats. Love Belonging Needs refer to our interpersonal

relationships and how healthy those relationships are. Individuals are social beings, and they

have the need to have a sense of being belonged among social groups. The need to be loved

someone and to be loved by someone appears as the main motivation after the first two needs

which are the physiological and safety needs have been mastered. This need of Maslows

Hierarchy of Need of humans deal with family, friendships and intimacy and the strength of

these relationships. Relating this to marketing, people see the need to belong the most in social

media. Social media, in a essential way, is interpersonal in its very use. This is because as

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marketers, their job is to seek to develop brand communities that allow their customers to feel

the sense of belongingness.

The fourth is the Esteem Needs which is defined as a need for status, strength,

recognition, attention and excelling at something (Lee, 2015). In order for an individual to

succeed at this psychological need, he or she has to accept who they are from the inside. Having

an improved self-esteem and self-respect is what this need applies to. Because people in the

society have the need to feel respected by others, marketers can often approach this higher level

of motivation as a strategy to convince customers. An example would be by offering a luxury

product or an experience where people will eventually position themselves as individuals of

higher class which will increase their self-esteem. Also, when marketers offer their target market

the opportunity to master something through online platforms like Khan Academy or Coursera,

to gain excellence in a broad variety of skills and subjects. This also boosts peoples self-esteem

since they feel capable of something. The last but not the least is the need to Self- Actualization

which is a top psychological need that deals with the realization and fulfillment of humankinds

potential. Example of this need would be to be the best that they can be in their respective fields

or jobs. This need is the toughest need to appeal for marketers because as marketers, theres a

high probability that the products or services which they sell do not make up a whole persons

identity. An example of a brand which targets an individuals self- actualization need is Nike.

Nike has this slogan that says Just Do It which is a motivational statement to help their

customers go and grow through the physical pain of working out which is required to achieve a

great physique.

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 According to DeMers (2014), the reason why marketers are more inclined to use social

media and television advertisements as way of influencing the customers is due to its advantages

which more or less outweigh the disadvantages. Marketers spend as little as 6 hours in a week in

order to expand the business with little or no cost. Around 90% of marketers claimed that social

media platforms have created great exposure for their business (Stelzner, 2016). Social media

platforms have become a common and a substantial step of almost every marketing strategy, and

the advantages of using this platform is so great that anyone who does not make use of this cost-

effective resource is leaving behind a great opportunity to grow. One of the advantages of using

social media platform as a marketing strategy is to increase brand awareness. Nowadays

everyone is on social media. For many people, it has been an addiction because of how it has

made things easier, and the entertainment applications which it has. Since social media platform

is being used all over the world, implementing a social media strategy will greatly increase the

brand awareness of the product since a marketer gets to engage with a broad audience of

consumers. Also, each post that will be shared by someone will be introduced to a new network

of people, which can lead them to be the potential customers of a product. By having an

increased brand awareness, the business will also have an advantage of more inbound traffic,

improved search engine rankings, and higher conversion rates. Aside from these things, social

media marketing or advertising also leads to a better customer satisfaction. Dan Gingiss, who is a

Marketing and Customer Experience Executive of Humana Health Insurance Company, once

stated that When you interact with customers on a one-to-one basis on social media, it makes

them more loyal. Loyal customers spend more with you, stay with you longer and tell their

friends about you. This simply means that being able to acknowledge each comment regarding

suggestions, feedbacks or whatever, shows that a marketer is attentive to his customers needs

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and focuses on providing the best experience to the customer. Every interaction with a customer

on a businesss social media account is an opportunity for the business to publicly demonstrate

the compassion its employees have for the customers. Social media advertising is also a very

cost-effective marketing strategy since creating an account on almost every social media

platform is free of cost. The paid promotions are also in relatively low cost. What makes this

advantage really great is the Return of investment which a marketer gets after doing a free

registration of an account and investing in an online promotion which has a relatively low cost.

Social media also gives marketers the opportunity to gain marketplace insights and thought

leadership. Gaining marketplace is one of the most valuable benefits of social media marketing.

Social media marketing is a really effective way of knowing the thoughts and needs of their

customers by directly talking to them.ad by monitoring the activities on their profile where they

can see the customers interests and opinions regarding a particular subject which marketers

may not be able to be aware of without having a social media presence. When it comes to

thought leadership, a marketer posting thoughtful and well-written content on social media is an

effective way for the marketer to become an expert and a leader in his respective field through

the online networking tools that supports the work of the marketer.

According to (Richards, 2010), advertising or marketing on Television platforms also

offer numerous advantages for the business by its special features such as incorporating sound,

images and movement which make the whole package look interesting to the customers by

capturing their attention. Such kind of advertisements which capture the attention of the audience

can also begin consumer talking by effectively reaffirming the advertising message. In addition,

television marketing also allows a business to target particular geographic locations at lower cost

than social media advertising. The three major advantages which television gives to the marketer
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is the reach, growing ability to differentiate and multi-sensory appeal (Richards 2010).

Television advertising has the ability to communicate with a large audience, therefore have the

advantage of its reach. Television advertisements work well to attract attention, awareness and

establishing preference for their brands. Growing ability to differentiate is when the marketers

can effectively target their specific market segments not just by placing their advertisements in

particular programs but also by choosing specific zip-code locations for broadcasting their

advertisements. Lastly, television advertisements have the advantage of a multiple-sensory

appeal. Television has always been successful in appealing to multiple senses through its

combination of texts, sound, images and motion. It is the multi-sensory appeal of the television,

that allows television advertising to remain an achievable option for many marketer, as well as

advertisers.

It is important to know how the effect of social media and television advertisements in a

form of marketing in different diversities. The reason behind this is to further understand how

different cultures and nationalities react in terms of how it takes effect in their decision making

when they are proposed with advertisements in social media applications and sites or television

commercials. A survey was conducted and was tested on two different nationalities, locals from

the Philippines and people from India via google forms.

The survey was answered by 45 Filipinos and 45 Indians from ages 15 to 64 years of age

evenly, and was asked a series of questions regarding the effects of social media and television

advertisements in a form of marketing and its impact to them individually psychologically.

It will determine the distinctiveness of both cultures and how it effect in regards of their

diversity. Five queries were given, and the first one was How often do you watch television?

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and Often, Moderate, Rare, and Not at all were the choices. Filipinos answered a constant and

even flow of moderate and rare mostly and statistically answered 7% often, 44% moderate, 44%

rare, and 5%

not at all. In the other hand, Indians gave quite similar responses of 4% often, 44% moderate,

49% rare, and 3% not at all. The second question was How often do you spend time in social

media?. In this question, it was a dominant of often and moderate. Both parties answers were

almost parallel to each other such that 76% of Filipinos answered often and 21% answered

moderate and the remaining 3% went rare. As for the Indians, 72% answered often, 23%

responded moderate, 4% rare and only 1% not at all. Interconnected with the second question,

the third query asks on which social media application are used the most. Majority of the

respondents, both Filipinos and Indians, responded Facebook as the primary source of usage

which means that most of the information they get is from Facebook not including other

applications such as Instagram, Twitter, MySpace, and other more. The relationship of the

answers from questions one and two to the influence of social media and television

advertisements on different diversities simply signifies that people are will always be exposed to

advertisements especially by the use of social media because it statistically showed that most of

the respondents that answered the survey questions predominantly gave a feedback of often

which already speaks for itself. The results tells that people are constantly being vulnerable and

exposed to advertisements because advertisements use these as tools to make public and promote

their products and services. Because of this, social media and television advertisements have the

advantage when it comes to the marketing strategy and how they impose and use their various

methodologies to entice and persuade the consumers.

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 Knowing that social media and television advertisements is prevalent to the society based

on the survey questions one, two and three, it does not necessarily mean that it takes a positive

effect biased to the companies trying to advertise what they have to offer in a marketing

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perspective because people have different psychological mentalities solely based from what

diversity and culture they belong to. In survey questions four and five, the queries main

objective is to show what the influence of advertisements to Filipinos and Indians is. Question

number four is Do you think social media and television advertisements play a big role in your

decision making? Yes or no?. Almost all respondents for both 45 Filipinos and Indians

answered a concrete yes with Filipinos responding to a statistical data of 89% to 11% and

Indians of 91% to 9%. On the other side of the coin, question number five asks Do you easily

get enticed by advertisements? Yes or no?. The answers were relatively one-sided as most

respondents both for groups. Filipinos and Indians gave a feedback of 27% to 73% and 26% to

74% respectively.

Conclusion.

The Maslows Hierarchy of Needs plays a big role especially in the form of a marketing

perspective. Social media and television advertisements influence to a consumers decision

making has something to do with the Hierarchy of Needs in a way that the marketing strategy of

companies and businesses use these Hierarchy of Needs to understand and determine what their

target market wants. By using the methodologies for understanding how people think, companies

have an easier time to broadcast advertisements to entice and attract the people to avail of their

products and services. Another important factor is brand awareness. Whether the business is a

large multinational company or just a small start-up, building brand awareness is really important

for any marketing campaign whether its television or social media. Brand awareness is

something which can assist in turning visitors who rarely know a product into customers who are

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not only just aware about the product, but now also see the brand as something important in

their lives. Television and social media provides marketers with a broad platform that can

reach thousands to millions of consumers worldwide. Digital display such as social media

and videos in the form of television advertisements help augment these marketing strategies

and build brand awareness among targeted audience with specific messages and taglines that

are designed to increase knowledge and familiarity with the brand. However, these two

approaches are effective in tandem, since just one strategy alone will not work well in

todays world.

Television and social media marketing work really well together. While television is

a great platform to run broad marketing campaigns, social media advertisements can be

delivered to reach specific demographics and locations, making them more efficient for

small and midsize business budgets. For example, a marketer is marketing a local gym, he

can advertise it on Local Television to reach the general audience and then attract the local

users of famous fitness websites or find local social media users who have been following

these kind of pages on Instagram or Facebook with digital ads. This is a really good strategy

to make a persons marketing dollars work harder for him or her while spreading friendly

awareness of his or her brand. Even if people do not view the persons ad or follow that

person on social media, they will at least be aware of the name and logo, which could

help in making conversions later, especially during New Year when many consumers look

forward to join a new gym as way of starting a new routine. Although this kind of marketing

or advertising is not necessarily designed to produce conversions in a short period of time,

but building brand awareness about the businesss products and services can make a

difference in the long run when consumers are considering making a purchase or are faced

with options from other businesses with the same products or services, (Hansen 2015).

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 Based on the conclusion, social media and television advertisements do have a huge

impact and effect on the decision making of people but it does not easily persuade the

consumers to avail of what they are being offered in advertisements coming from social

media sites or applications and commercials because based on the response comments, most

of them still do research after watching advertisements. Another reason is because the people

are aware of the biases and strategies that companies try to execute by means of

manipulation. What companies can do to get the attention of their consumers and target

market is to extract inputs from the methodologies of how people think psychologically

mainly the Maslows Hierarchy of Needs and use it as a marketing utility in not only social

media but also television commercials to create a decent brand awareness for the people to

be persuaded. To conclude, people in reliance to the survey results, are not naive when it

comes to being enticed to avail of what is being offered to them. Because of this, companies

should find more effective ways to indirectly capture the peoples eyes by not making it

seem that they are desperate to sell or make profit but simply just know and understand what

the people want.

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Appendix A: Survey Questions

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Appendix B.- Answers 5.) Do you easily get enticed by social

1. How often do you watch television?

2.) How long do you spend time on social media?

3.) For the question, where we asked which social media app do you use the most? Both Indians

and Filipinos had answered Facebook.

4.) Do you think that social media and television advertisements play a big role in your decision

making?

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Appendix B.- Answers 5.) Do you easily get enticed by social

1. How often do you watch television?

media advertisements?

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Appendix C. 2 Indian Individual Responses and 2 Filipino Individual Responses from all the 90

Responses (Filipinos+Indians) we got.

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