E/M/68. To what extent does Advertising affect Consumer Behaviour

The focus of this project is to look at the issue of advertising and consumer behaviour, with particular emphasis on how consumers react to advertising. This should give some insight into how advertising is approached in order to affect consumer behaviour. Advertising obviously works, but what makes a successful advertising campaign? This project will examine the area of advertising that contains a message, rather than advertising that aims to persuade the consumer to buy a product or service. Many examples of this type of advertisement are controversial in approach and aim to shock the viewer. The drink driving campaigns are one such example. Over the years these advertisements have become more and more explicit in their message of what can happen if someone drinks and then drives. The aim is to use shock tactics to try to influence and thus alter consumer behaviour. The images and message contained in such adverts are very powerful and a study of this area should prove interesting as advertising impacts on all areas of our lives. In relation to the above, the questionnaire will follow the lines of research of general questions. We will ask the subjects to give their reactions to a number of statements to identify their pre-existing attitudes and then look at a series of adverts and give their reactions to these. The adverts will comprise of 2 drink-driving adverts. The aim is to attempt to discover how people react to these types of adverts in addition to what attitudes they take.