Trust In Ad Media

Advertising today has already become an integral part of human life as a building block of the consumer community. A component of the value chain of the media, advertising sector is struggling increasingly harder to find new methods to reach consumers. The tendency towards experimental marketing practices is increasing day by day, especially to divert consumers from the idea “They are selling something to me.” It is therefore considered a good idea to investigate the trust in ad media of consumers, who are today exposed to a great bulk of information from advertising sector. In this study, the current value of ad media for the young consumer will be investigated. Data on various ad media reliability will be comparatively analyzed and young consumers will be traced by including university students in the study. In this research, which will be performed on students studying at the Selçuk University (Turkey) by random sampling method, data will be obtained by survey technique and evaluated by a statistical analysis. Keywords—Trust in advertising, ad medium, media. I. LITERATURE REVIEW HE principal target of advertising is with no doubt to persuade the consumer into the consequence intended by the advertiser. A great many factors on the side of the consumer are present, influencing the formation of the emotion, thought or behavior desired as a result of ad communication. As well as such mental processes as perception, learning, recall, establishing an attitude and being persuaded, certain personal factors such as liking the ad or finding it trustworthy have a great part to play on the consumers. The main focus of this study is the trust in the ad among the factors with respect to consumers. As part of the typical behavior of consumers, the consumers attempt to obtain information in several ways to make the most accurate decision regarding the services and goods they will make use of. Among the factors that affect this process are several aspects such as skepticism, belief and trust. It is of great importance for these aspects to be in the favorable direction in order to make the most accurate decision as regards the purchasing [1] Trust is a complicated and multi-faceted structure. In terms of advertising literature, such diverse concepts as credibility, trustworthiness, truthfulness, and believability are regarded as the constituents of the feeling trust. It is an evaluation mostly directed to the whole ad. There are various points of view regarding the concepts of credibility and trust in the literature of advertising and the interrelationship between them. Credibility is only related to a section of trust in advertising. D. Aydın is with the Selçuk University, Faculty of Communication, Department of Advertising, Konya, 42151. Turkey (phone: +90-332-2233694; fax: +90-332-241-0187; e-mail: [email protected]). Credibility on its own isn’t found sufficient to show the quality and extent of trust in advertising [2], [3]. Credibility in advertising is measured and conceptualized in four ways. These are source credibility, i.e. trustworthiness and expertise, advertising credibility in the general sense, ad content credibility, i.e. perceptions that ad-claims are truthful and believable, and media credibility [2]. Maloney marks that ad believability is the obvious expression of the ad effect on the mind of the viewer. Credibility is realized through the interactive process in which the attitudes that viewers have collected from their previous experiences and the memory intertwine. Individuals display differing trustworthiness reactions to differing ads since they have developed differing grounding and differing feelings towards the brands and goods being advertised. It follows that while an ad may be thoroughly believable for one individual, it may simply not be believable for another [4]. Obermiller and Spangler contributed to the credibility of ads with the concept of “ad skepticism”. They defined this concept as the tendency not to believe the informative propositions of the ad [5]. Ad skepticism directs the inclination of not believing the ad. Because a high level of ad skepticism creates the feeling of not trusting the ad, consumers gain grounds for refusing the ad and being informed about the goods [6]. In the study conducted by Obermiller, Spangenberg, and MacLachlan to examine the relation between skepticism towards the ad and the reaction to the ad, it was established that skeptics were in general less favorable towards their reactions to the ad. However, it was concluded that skeptics avoid the ad when they made a connection between the ad and the purchase [6]. Several other studies were conducted regarding the attitudes towards the ad and the advertiser (within the context of belief) apart from the previous ones [7]-[10]. In these studies too, it was concluded that, in general, the reactions to the ad increased adversely as the attitude towards or belief in the ad or advertiser weakened. In another study carried out by Prendergast, Liu and Poon, conclusion were drawn regarding the ads of which products or services consumers didn’t find credible and to which medium of advertising this applied more. According to this study, the ads of the products that make you lose weight were found less credible. The radio and television were identified to be the most credible, while direct mail and the internet were the least trusted media [11]. In still another study conducted by Soh, Reid and King, the aim was to reveal the characteristic and extent of trust in advertising. The relationship of trust in advertising with such similar patterns as advertising credibility was questioned, and a scale called ADTRUST was developed (Table I) [2], [3]. Duygu Aydin Trust In Ad Media T World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Social, Behavioral, Educational, Economic, Business and Industrial Engineering Vol:7, No:5, 2013 1206 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 7(5) 2013 scholar.waset.org/1999.10/12433 In te rn at io na l S ci en ce I nd ex , E co no m ic s an d M an ag em en t E ng in ee ri ng V ol :7 , N o: 5, 2 01 3 w as et .o rg /P ub lic at io n/ 12 43 3 TABLE I THE ADTRUST SCALE Components Information conveyed in TV advertising is....... Reliability 1.Honest 2.Truthful 3.Credible 4.Reliable 5.Dependable 6.Accurate 7.Factual 8.Complete 9.Clear Usefulness 10.Valuable 11.Good 12.Useful 13.Helps people make the best decisions Affect 14.Likeable 15.Enjoyable 16.Positive Willingness to Rely On 17. I am willing to rely on ad-conveyed information when making purchase-related decisions. 18. I am willing to make important purchase-related decisions based on ad-conveyed information. 19. I am willing to consider the ad-conveyed information when making purchase-related decisions. 20. I am willing to recommend the product or service that I have seen in ads to my friends or family. Soh, Reid and King expressed the findings they obtained in the study out of which they developed the ADTRUST scale as follows [2]: “The study found that (1) the ADTRUST Scale exhibited sufficient reliability and concurrent, convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity; (2) trust in advertising is a multidimensional construct (i.e., cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions) with four distinct factors (reliability, usefulness, affect, and willingness to rely on), which reflect a combination of (a) consumer perception of reliability and usefulness of advertising, (b) consumer affect toward advertising, and (c) consumer willingness to rely on advertising for decisions making, (3) trust in advertising and advertising credibility are separate and independent constructs; and (4) trust should be operationalized and measured as an independent, three-factor structure (i.e., reliability and usefulness=cognitive dimension; affect=emotional dimension; and willingness to rely on=behavioral dimension) in advertising research. The last two findings are especially important to this investigation.” According to the results of the study conducted by Soh, Reid, and King, consumers don’t feel strong trust in the ad media. Based on the findings regarding the level of trust towards the ad media, it is seen that the trust in the ads on the internet are far lower compared with those in other medium. Consumers find the medium of the net less reliable than the other conventional ad media [2]. The ADTRUST scale, developed by Soh, Reid, and King (2007), was used in a study conducted on university students at the Selçuk University in Turkey. It was aimed through the study to measure the trust level of the students towards the ad media in Turkey. Attempts will be made to reveal the answers to the following questions; 1. The level of trust in general towards the ad 2. The levels of trust with respect to the media 3. The comparison of the trust level towards the ad and the trust towards the ad media 4. The levels of trust with respect to the sex and the income level