South Asian Journal of Management Sciences

Vol. 5, No. 2, (Fall 2011) 60 - 64

Factors Affecting Consumer Attention in Billboards Advertising

Javed Hussain and Rizwan Khan Nizamani * 0F

ABSTRACT

This study is concerned to the billboards advertising and their impact over the
consumer attention. The main aim of this study is to understand the consumer
attention towards billboards, whether the target audience gives importance to
the billboards or not. Final results indicate number of factors in the billboards
advertising, which attracts the customer. A customer gives proper attention to
billboards advertising due to billboards advertising Size, Color, Location,
Celebrity and Images. All these variables have positive impact on the
customer attention.

Keywords: Customer, Advertising, Billboards, Consumer attention

JEL Classification: M31, M37

Introduction
Tellis (1997) stated about trademark awareness, communication innovation in relevance to
advertising about brands. It has been found that promotion is effective in growing
consciousness and to some extent sales, as the media is widespread and more easily
accessible by various people around the world. Restricted to billboard form of advertising,
which is the basis of this research study, it is seen that the numbers of posters and the period
of the campaign, the site of a billboard they all have an effect on the possibility and incidence
of contact. This is an important study to understand the dynamic trends of outdoor advertising
and latest new ups and downs in the billboard industry.
Outdoor advertising is a form of medium of advertising. This form of advertising
requires various measures to communicate and reach to its target audience. The
advertisements are seen from then and now, there has been a lot of changes because the
environment is changing and the people are changing their interests and preferences.
Advertising has also molded itself accordingly to fulfill its purpose of attracting
customers/consumers to purchase their product/brand and generate revenues. The outdoor
advertising is known as ATL (Above the Line) and indoor advertising is BTL (Below the
line). Advertising trend is like fashion which dynamically changes its origin. Express the
message to the targeted audience through any form of the medium, non-personal and paid
activity, which comes under the umbrella of advertising.
Billboards/Hoardings are one of the competitive edge in the advertising medium.
There has been development in this industry extensively as now billboards have shifted to
electronic boards and every now and then new technology is emerging, which is also being

* Corresponding author’s email: [email protected]

* The material presented by the author does not necessarily portray the view point of the editors and the
management of the Iqra University Research Center, Iqra University, Karachi.
SAJMS 2011, Published by Iqra University Research Center, Iqra University
Defence View, Shaheed-e-Millat Road (Ext.), Karachi, Pakistan.
Factors Affecting Consumer Attention in Billboards Advertising

incorporated in advertising. Cut-out billboards are seemingly a new trend in billboards these
days. The billboard lobby spends millions of dollars each year to influence central state and
local billboards controls. Hence, it is taken as cheaper, widely accessible, convenient and
attractive. Research related to billboard advertising was on billboards usage, government
regulation authorities and the outcome of these advertising. This particular study examines
the impact of billboards advertising on customer attention, and also examines the key features
in billboards like color, size, location, graphics and simplicity of billboard that really attract
the people in billboards advertising. Findings of this research will be applicable to the
advertising industry and it will definitely help to organizations to achieve the targeted results.

Literature Review
Several studies show that people, which do not like billboards high-tech, products and any
other feature, which are displayed on billboards frequently bear the force of citizen hatred
and anger.
Similarly, there are hitches in using billboard advertising in relevance to the audience
watching it. Billboards with shifting messages only add to the distraction. In high stress
situation, such as heavy traffic volumes along major roads, this tendency is pronounced even
more. First, the changing of the message is itself a gently compelling distraction. Second, a
driver can read a normal billboard quickly and return his or her attention to the highway; with
numerous messages, a billboard is most probable to grab and preserve the driver's interest.
Finally, the drivers passing a shifting billboard might crane their necks to recognize the next
advertisement rather than focus on the upcoming traffic obstacle (Vespe, 1997).
Majority of the companies opt for outdoor advertising that impacts on the geographic
location and sales response is more effective (Schlossberg, 1990). According to Meurs and
Aristoff (2009) billboard advertisements determines the creative appeal in the favor of
brand/product credit. It develops more understandable branding and an addition of new-
product in order to improve product recognition. Through large text, pictures of celebrity
representing product/brand, small headlines do portray the brand’s outlook and other relevant
information such as price (Blasko, 1985). Many users consider that advertisement dish up
varied functions based on symbolism and other advertisement tools are a substitute in
comparison to billboards. A research by Mustafa, Sukran, and Olgun (2007) suggested that
out-of-doors promotions generate various ideas; successful updating, influencing customers
that are responsive to the situation. Outdoor commercials are attractive, outstanding and their
visibility is increasing. Outdoor advertising is in the midst of a technological revolution that
benefits advertisers, travelers and communities as their target market. As the information
grows by quantum leaps, the world of outdoor communications is also benefiting to generate
business revenues, the number and range of users and brilliance in creativity. At the forefront
of new technological advances within the outdoor industry, competitive message billboards
are now being placed at ideal sign locations nationwide. Changeable message trend allows a
win-win solution for stakeholders.
The society gets high profile marketing technology without increasing the number or
size of billboards. In an advertising industry, location is considered almost “everything" to
satisfy advertisers and viewers. Advertisers receive exceptional creative opportunities to
marketplace their messages because billboards, particularly changeable copy messages, are
well organized (Laible, 1997). Advertising can be used by an organization to provide
consumers with information and related benefits about its products. To the extent that
advertising minimize searching costs through the stipulation of low cost information, it is
collectively beneficial. However, few journalists discussed that marketing is repeatedly worn
in habits that are injurious to civilization; advertising effects have been considered
extensively in fact empirically (Netter, 1982). For instance, parents and community

Vol. 5, No. 2, (Fall 2011) 61

 Javed Hussain and Rizwan Khan Nizamani

organizers were worried about the effect on their kids of daily publicity to scores of
billboards cheering them to smoke and drink. At the same time, a protester priest was busy in
a high profile movement to deface billboards in his mostly poor African- American rural
community as a way to call media notice to the problem. Subsequently a member of the
Chicago City Council responded to community apprehension by holding hearings on future
legislation to ban all outdoor advertising of tobacco products in Chicago. The tobacco
manufacturing spends more or less four billion dollars for each year tout their unsafe
products. Tobacco and alcohol firms grade among the peak five promotional organization in
magazines and newspaper. The top four billboard advertisers are all tobacco companies in
western zone and cigarette is the most heavily advertised product in the outdoor media.
Recently trends in cigarette advertising put forward on promotional behavior such as
consumer sampling, trade promotions and sponsorship for sporty, civic or cultural events
(Diana, Hackbarth, Silvestri, Cosper, & William, 1995).
Daniel, Smith, Park, and Whan (1992) found that brand extensions imprison larger
market share in addition to appreciate better advertising efficiency than individual variety. In
relevance to sales comeback Bhargava and Donthu (1994), promotion is immediate excluding
arbitrated by the advertising plan. Tellis (1997) hypothesized that functions may rely on kind
awareness, message, known to the concise experience of the outdoors medium (Whitehill &
Tinkham, 1989).

Hypotheses
H1: Message in Billboards has a positive impact on Customer Attention.
H2: Size of Billboards has a positive impact on Customer Attention.
H3: Color Scheme of Billboards has a positive impact on Customer Attention.
H4: Location of Billboards has a positive impact on Customer Attention.
H5: Celebrity of Billboards has a positive impact on Customer Attention.
H6: Simplicity and Creativity of Billboards has a positive impact on Customer Attention.
H7: Well Organized Billboards has a positive impact on Customer Attention.
H8: Text Style of Billboards has a positive impact on Customer Attention.
H9: Images in Billboards has a positive impact on Customer Attention.
H10: Cut-out Billboards has a positive impact on Customer Attention.

Research Methods

Method of Data Collection

Primary data was used for the analysis which was collected from different age groups of
people, with their different life style as well, this data was collected from Iqra University
Karachi, and the surrounding areas of university, students of university were taken as
respondents in the data.

Sampling Technique, Sample Size and Statistical Test

The restricted non probability sampling technique was used, while the respondents of 21-28
age groups were included in the sample of 300 observations. To evaluate the hypotheses of
this paper one sample T-Test has been deployed.

Instrument of Data Collection

Data was collected through a simple questionnaire; instrument was contained on twenty one
questions including multi-chotomous and likert scale questions. Very few questions consist of
common question like: respondent name, respondent age and date. The constructs which

62 South Asian Journal of Management Sciences

Factors Affecting Consumer Attention in Billboards Advertising

were taken to test the customer perceptions include the size of billboard, color of billboard,
location of billboards, images in billboards, celebrity in the billboards, creativity and
simplicity of billboards, text style in billboards, well organized billboards, and cut-out
billboards.

Findings and Results

Table 1:

One Sample T Test

Test Value= 4 (Agreement)
Mean Value Standard
Hypotheses
of Variables Deviation
H1: Message in Billboards has a positive
3.74 .978
impact on Customer Attention.
H2: Size of Billboards has a positive impact on
4.01 1.031
Customer Attention.
H3: Color Scheme of Billboards has a positive
4.09 .998
impact on Customer Attention.
H4: Location of Billboards has a positive
4.00 1.075
impact on Customer Attention.
H5: Celebrity of Billboards has a positive
3.88 1.137
impact on Customer Attention.
H6: Simplicity and Creativity of Billboards
3.88 1.070
has a positive impact on Customer Attention.
H7: Well Organized Billboards has a positive
3.86 .945
impact on Customer Attention.
H8: Text Style of Billboards has a positive
3.79 1.011
impact on Customer Attention.
H9: Images in Billboards has a positive impact
4.03 .880
on Customer Attention.
H10: Cut-out Billboards has a positive impact
3.86 1.077
on Customer Attention.

The findings of this paper as shown in table 1 reveal that the size, color, location of
billboards and the images in billboards matters for winning the attentions of the audience/
customers. While, the rest of outlined constructs they really don’t matter for audience
attentions.

Discussion and Conclusion

Advertising is moving towards modernization with rapid growth. Sizes of Billboards,
Location of Billboards, Images in Billboards and Color Scheme of Billboards have positive
impact on customer attention in billboards advertising.
It’s evident that billboard advertising is one of the most attractive appeals to the target
audience and being a core competency, it is cheaper, convenient and easily accessible to
masses. Thus, the results favor the stated notion and the objective of the research that
billboards through its various constructs matters for the winning the attention.

Vol. 5, No. 2, (Fall 2011) 63

 Javed Hussain and Rizwan Khan Nizamani

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64 South Asian Journal of Management Sciences