Influence of advertising on consumer purchase decision of sport betting: a case study of students in Nakuru town universities, Kenya

Abstract

Advertising, as part of communication strategies for marketing, is the key for building, creating and sustaining brands, as it also plays a major role in persuading, informing and reminding both potential and existing customers towards making a purchase decision. Consumer purchase decisions vary greatly and are influenced by several factors. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of advertising on university campuses students decision to purchase sport bet, in Nakuru Town and it was guided by the following specific objectives: to determine the influence of television advertising on consumer purchase decision of sport betting,: to determine the influence of internet advertising on consumer purchase decision,: to determine the influence of print (newspaper) advertising on consumer purchase decision: to determine the influence of outdoor (billboard) advertising on consumer purchase decision and lastly to determine the influence of radio advertising on consumer purchase decision. The independent variables of the study were advertising operationalzed: TV advertising which was measured using informative messages and serves as a reminder, Internet advertising proxied by mass media and internet messages Print advertising measured by detailed information and appealing messages Billboard advertising proxied frequency of exposure and creative execution and Radio advertising proxied by promotion awareness and entertainment messages and the dependent variable was consumer purchase decision measured using Awareness, Comprehension, Conviction and Action while Government regulations as moderating variable. The study was guided by Cognitive theory and Cognitive dissonance theory. The study used descriptive research design and data was collected using questionnaires. The unit of analysis was university campuses in Nakuru Town. The study employed Krejcie and Morgan sample size determination table to determine the sample size of the 367. Probability Proportional to Size (PPS) sampling design was used to select the sample of students from each of the university campus in Nakuru Town. Simple Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses one to four and multiple regressions was used for combined effect. The research findings showed that there is positive but weak correlation between all independent variables and the dependent variable. The study revealed that there is a significant and positive relationship between internet, TV, print, billboard and radio advertising and consumer purchase decision of sport betting. The study concluded that advertising is a significant factor in influencing consumer purchase decision of sport betting among university campuses student in Nakuru town. Marketers in the betting services industry need to effectively utilize advertising, more specially internet, TV, print, billboard and radio advertising with the aim of creating awareness and influencing consumers to purchase their brands. The study recommends that Advertiser should invest well enough in internet advertising by placing more of the adverts in the internet platforms for more consumers to access the information. Advertisers should use TV adverts well by making sure that they have an advertisement on a daily basis and more so frequently. Advertisers should consider creativity when designing print advertising. The study recommends that the message format in billboard advertising should be clear and understandable and have more of the billboards across the country. Radio stations should come up with ways in which they can entice customers by ensuring that they have ways to reward those customers which they continuously engage in betting. The independent variables that were studied, explain only 16.6 % on the consumer purchase decision of sport betting as represented by the coefficient