Examining the Differential Effects of the Influence of Print and Electronic Advertising on Purchasing Decisions of Tertiary Students in the Cape Coast Metropolis

Print and electronic advertising is being used by the various telecom operators in the country as a competitive tool to lure customers of competing brands and also promote their product offerings. The current study examines the differential effects of the influences of the print and electronic advertising media used by the various telecom operators in Ghana on the purchasing decisions of tertiary students in the Cape Coast Metropolis. Primary data were collected from a sample of 754 students of the University of Cape Coast and Cape Coast Polytechnic respectively out of a population of 17,218,through questionnaire administration. Descriptive and inferential statistics such as the mean, standard deviation and multiple regressions were used to analyse the data. The findings of the study showed that compared to print advertising media; electronic advertising media had a greater influence on the purchasing decisions of tertiary students in the Cape Coast Metropolis. It is concluded that electronic advertising media influences the decisions of the tertiary students to purchase telecom products more compared to print advertising media in the Cape Coast Metropolis. It is therefore recommended the budgetary expenditure of the telecom operators in Ghana should concentrate more on utilizing electronic advertising media. Citation: Owusu D (2017) Examining the Differential Effects of the Influence of Print and Electronic Advertising on Purchasing Decisions of Tertiary Students in the Cape Coast Metropolis. J Account Mark 6: 220. doi:10.4172/2168-9601.1000220


Introduction
Competition in the telecom sector in recent times has led to use of various competitive tools by the industry players. One of such competitive tool being employed by the telecom operators to persuade, convince and lure customers to purchase from their network as well as promote their brand is the use of print and electronic advertising [1]. The major aim of using these advertising media is to influence the purchasing decisions of consumers. The decision of the customer towards the advertised brand determines how effective the communication was. The decision of the customer to purchase the advertised brand is of utmost importance to the marketer. Without a response from the customer, all the activities of the marketer remain fruitless. According to Fill [2], one instrument which is available to the marketer and which helps to influence the purchase decisions of consumers is the marketing communication tool. The question is how does print and electronic adverts as a marketing communication tool able to influence or affect the purchasing decision of consumers?
The stimulus response model of consumer behaviour explains the processes that the consumer goes through before making a purchase decision. According to Jissana [3], the consumer goes through a process before making a purchase decision. What is advertised all enter the consumers' black box which refers to the thinking of the consumer before making a decision. The result of such thinking is to produce certain choice or purchase response. To enter the consumers' black box, the marketer needs to get the attention of the consumer. Through communication the marketer is able to get the attention of the consumer which is later turned into a set of observable buyer responses, product choice, brand choice, dealer choice, purchase timing and purchase amount. This explains the critical role that advertising plays in influencing the purchasing decisions of consumers. This view of the important role that advertising play in motivating, building perception, educating and help build a lasting memory of a product on the mind of the consumer was echoed in the studies of Abideen and Saleem [4] when the authors highlighted the role of advertising as reaching out to the prospective customer and influencing their awareness, attitude and buying behaviour.
The telecommunication industry is one of the industries of the world that is considered to be one of the world's dynamic sectors and faces relentless technological innovation and competition [5]. Further, with the increasing number of subscribers to the telecom products, competition in the sector has heightened. The telecom operators need to constantly get in touch with their customers to keep them updated on their new offerings. Various marketing communication tools are therefore employed by these operators to stay in touch with their customers. According to Schiffman and Kanuk cited in Marfo-Yiadom and Ansong [6] they posited that the youth admire technologically driven products. Considering the nature of the products offered by these telecom products which are technologically driven, the youth therefore becomes major stakeholders in the activities of the telecom operators. Since the youth are said to admire technologically driven products and the telecom sector is also said to face relentless innovation and competition, the use of print and electronic advertising as marketing communication tools becomes imperative.
Ghana is one of the first Sub-Saharan African countries to deregulate as well as liberalize its communication industry In Ghana, the telecommunication industry saw the private sector came into active participation in the year 1992. The industry has experienced radical transformation. For example the number of mobile phone subscribers has increased drastically from 774000 in 2003 to 27,551,503 as at September, 2013. MTN enjoys the largest subscriber base of about 12,764,832 (46.33%) as at September 2013. Vodafone mobile has the second largest subscriber base of about 5,822,830(21.13%) followed by Milicom Ghana Ltd. operating under the brand name Tigo with a subscriber base of 3,828,139 (13.86%). Airtel comes after Tigo with a subscriber base of 3,363,911 (12.21%). Glo the latest entrant has subscriber base of 1,618,009 (5.87%). Expresso has the smallest subscriber base of 153,782 (0.56%). The telecommunication industry of Ghana has in recent times experience technological innovation and competition and this has attracted a number of youth who according to Schiffman and Kanukcited in Marfo-Yiadom and Ansong [6] are said to be technologically driven. This has resulted in lots of creative promotional activities going on with advertising and Sales promotion apparently topping these campaigns Ankrah reiterated that the industry players have resorted to the use of special advertising and promotions as a marketing tool to beat the competition using both print and electronic media. Dabanka, Osei-Afriyie, Yamoah-Ghansah, Agyei and Agyemang reported that the highest advertising spenders are the Mobile Telecommunication Companies. Buttressing this point they stated that in 2009, mobile telecommunication advertising expenditure recorded 43.5 billion Ghana Cedis out of a total of 184.9 billion Ghana Cedis. That is about 23.5% or close to a quarter of the entire national advertising budget.
Television, radio, internet, magazines and newspapers are frequently used to communicate to the target audience of these telecom operators who are mostly youth and are largely found on the various campuses of the tertiary institutions in the country. Currently there are six telecom operators in the Cape Coast Metropolis namely; Airtel, Tigo, Vodafone, Expresso, Mtn and Glo. All these telecom operators have established offices in the Metropolis mainly selling mobile chips, scratch cards and dealing with customer complaints and related issues. In order to influence the choice of their network these telecommunication companies engage in aggressive adverting. It is evident that almost all the radio stations in the Cape Coast Metropolis air the adverts of these telecom operators repeatedly. Also, these telecom operators are very visible in the various campuses whenever there is an event such as graduation, matriculation etc. During such events, these telecom operators openly advertise their products using various forms of advertising medium such as free souvenirs, price cut on customised phones as well as advertising in the programme catalogue of the event. Even some of the telecom companies sponsor the hall week celebrations of most the halls in the University of Cape Coast.
An analysis of various streams of research in the area of advertising and consumer behaviour revealed the following: Similar research works on advertising and its influence on consumer behaviour has been done both outside and within Ghana. For example Kotwal et al. [7] Abideen and Saleem [4] Haque et al. [8] Dabanka et al. [9] all did studies to show the influence that advertising had on consumers purchasing decisions. Though these studies mentioned were able to establish that print and electronic advert influence consumer behaviour, however these studies did not compare these media to determine which has a greater influence on the consumer in making a purchase decision. The study therefore makes the following assumptions that print advertising influence consumer purchasing decisions; electronic advertising influences the purchasing decisions of consumers and that print advertising has a greater influence on the purchasing decisions of consumers. The next section presents the theoretical and empirical discussion on advertising and purchasing decisions.

Theoretical and empirical discussion on advertising and purchasing decisions
The stimulus response model of consumer behavior forms the theoretical framework for this study. The stimulus response model posits that the task of the marketer is to figure out what information that the consumer can allow into their black box and how such information can be used to influence the thinking of the consumer to respond to the product offerings of the marketer. The marketer uses the four Ps which are product, price, place, and promotion to provide information to the consumer which goes into the consumers' black box. Other stimuli which also go into the black box also include major forces and events in the buyer's environment such as economic, technological, political, and cultural. All these inputs enter the buyer's black box, through communication where they are turned into a set of observable buyer responses.
As indicated in the communication process model developed by Shannon and Weaver cited by Karlsson [10] communication is a process which originates from the sender, using pictures, words etc. The sender chooses a medium or channel to convey the message. This message is what goes into the buyers' black box. The message will have to be interpreted by the recipient and generate the necessary feedback that will be used to measure the effectiveness of the communication process. The feedback is then used to measure whether the media or the medium used in the communication process was effective in eliciting the anticipated required response from the buyer. The media/ medium through which the advert is made is very important as it plays a vital role in conveying the message generated from the sender to the recipient.
The media is the vehicle for conveying the message of the marketer to the target audience. Radio, television, newspapers, magazines, outdoor, transport are some of the commonly media used by marketers to convey their message to the target audience. Ayanwale et al. [11] and Bovee [12] highlighted that advert provides information through media in the form of visual, verbal and text to persuade or influence behaviour. This information that is provided in the advert is what is processed in the buyer's black box. The reaction of the consumer towards the advert is also an indication of the influence that advertising has on the consumer. A number of empirical studies provide support for this assertion that advertising has an influence on consumers purchasing behaviour.
Haque et al. [8] explored consumers' view on fast food restaurant advertisement using factor analysis and regression. They concluded that Print media do not have a significant impact on consumers mind. Commercial advertising comprising television and radio and internet advertising have a significant impact on consumers' mind. The authors therefore concluded that internet advertising impact on consumers mind, followed by commercial advertising which comprises television and radio advertising and print advertisements. Similar findings were also found in the studies of Dabanka et al. They sought to specifically identify what motivates customers in making purchase decisions, determine the extent to which adverts affect consumer buying behaviour and determine how the companies measure advertising effectiveness. The study found out that television, radio, newspaper and billboards were the media used to advertise the products of the telecom companies and concluded that advertising positively affects consumer buying behaviour of customers of the mobile telecommunication companies in Kumasi [8].
In a study by Abideen and Saleem [4] which was carried in three cities of Pakistan Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Lahore. The results of the study indicated that there exists a weak association between environmental responses with the consumer buying behaviour including attitudinal as well as behavioural aspects of consumer buying behaviour. Emotional response on other hand established strong association with the consumer buying behaviour. The study therefore concluded that consumers purchase products in the areas of Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Lahore by emotional response rather than environmental response. The environmental response of the purchasing associates these buyers with unplanned or impulse buying. The study also concluded that consumers purchase those products from which they are emotionally attached. Abideen and Saleem further explained that these emotional attachments are created through advertisement as audio, video, and text form which appeals to them.
Rajagopal also analysed the impact of radio advertisements on urban commuters towards buying behaviour in retail stores and attempted to determine the role of radio advertising on dissemination of information on the sales promotions. The study revealed that shopping behaviour of urban consumer at retail stores in response to radio advertisements is highly influenced by the physical, cognitive and economic variables. The researcher added that radio advertisements propagating promotional messages on sales of products have quicker response towards the supermarkets and department stores. Listeners of radio commercials are attracted towards advertisements which are more entertaining while disseminating the message. Different view on the influence of advertising on consumer behaviour was found in the study Petrova and Bochkareva [13]. The study concluded that advertising campaigns were perceived by TV watchers as neither informative nor persuasive.
Kotwal et al. [7]looked at the impact of television advertisements on buying pattern of adolescent girls in Jammu City of India. A sample of 100 adolescent girls studying in class 9-12 was selected for the study. A questionnaire was used to collect data for the study. The study revealed that majority of the respondents after watching an advertisement on television wanted to buy the new brand introduced in the market. The study therefore concluded that the responded preferred to buy branded and standardised products which are more advertised on television.
Sorce and Dewitz [14] made a case for print media advertising in the internet age by reviewing the media usage patterns in the US. They argued that the amount of advertising dollars spent on newspapers, magazines and business papers adverts account for approximately 40 per cent of all media advertising expenditure in 2004. Broadcast and cable TV and radio represent an additional 44 per cent of the media advertising dollars spent. The internet advertising category was significantly smaller but grew at a faster rate than all other media. Sorce and Dewitz concluded that magazine advertising was more effective than network TV advertising for promoting SUV brands over a 10 year period. People who were exposed to print newspaper advertising had a higher recognition of advertising content than those who received an online version of the same advertising message.
Anyanwale et al. [11] investigated the role played by advertising in influencing consumers' preference for Bournvita a leading drink in the food and beverage industry in Nigeria. The study was based on a survey of 315 randomly selected consumers of food drinks in Lagos, Ibadan and lle-Ife cities of Nigeria. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in analysing the data collected. Chi-square was used in testing the hypothesis generated from the study. The study revealed that advertising has a major influence on consumers' preference for Bournvita and concluded that television advertising media is currently the most potent of all the media used in advertising a product and recommended that more consideration should be given to television medium of advertising when advertising.
Calder et al. [15] developed measures to assess the media user's qualitative experience with magazines and whether this experience related to the advertising in it. The researcher concluded that the way a person experiences a magazine or newspaper can affect the way the person reacts to advertising in the publication.

Methodology
The study adopted a correlational design to explain the influence of print and electronic advertising media on the purchase decisions of tertiary students in the cape coast metropolis. A sample of 402 and 352 was obtained from a population of 20,000 and 1,400 all regular students from the University of Cape Coast and the Cape Coast Polytechnic respectively. The samples used were larger compared to the Krecjie and Morgan [16] sampling size determination table. This was done to ensure that the sample sizes were closer to the population so to reduce sampling errors that might occur. Questionnaire was used for the data collection. The questionnaire had four sections. The first section sought to provide demographic characteristics of respondents. The second section focused on print advertising. The third section focused on electronic advertising and the last section focused on purchasing decisions. The instruments were pre-tested at a similar institution namely Takoradi Polytechnic, Sekondi Takoradi and the University of Education, Winneba. The pre-test yielded Cronbach Alpha reliability co-efficient between 0.802 and 0.980 which are in line with the recommendation by Pallant [17] that coefficient of above 0.70 are an indication of scale reliability.
The current study used the items identified by Engel et al. [18] Boachie-Mensah [19] the Marshallian Economic Model and Veblenian Social-Psychological model which covers motivation, consumers membership of a group or association of a group, price, quality of service, lifestyle, advertising, family and individual influence, experience from the use of the product to measure purchasing decisions. Twenty eight items were used to measure print and electronic advertising. Data on background characteristics of respondents, radio advert, television advert, newspaper advert, magazine advert and consumer purchasing decisions were obtained from primary source which was self-administered questionnaires completed by students drawn from university of Cape Coast and Cape Coast Polytechnic.
In order to ensure strict compliance to ethical standards of research, a clause, assuring respondents of anonymity and confidentiality, was also inserted in the introductory paragraph of the questionnaire. These were some of the steps taken to ensure adherence to accepted ethical standards and practices, respect for participants as well as trust and confidence in the integrity of the study.

Model specification
The stimulus response model indicates that, information gets into the buyers black box through communication which are turned into a set observable buyer response. Advertising in this sense provide the information to the buyers' black box which refers to as the thinking of the consumer before making a decision. Print and electronic advertising in this context provide the information which the consumer thinks about leading to a purchase decision. Against this background that this model is developed to test for the effect of print and electronic advertising on consumer purchasing decision, the following regression equations were formulated: Pallant [17] explains that before any regression can be relied on it is necessary to test the assumptions of multivariate regression. The assumptions are multicollinearity, outliers, normality, linearity, homoscedasticity and independence of residuals. To test the assumption of multicollinearity, it was necessary to check that the independent variables (print and electronic) show at least some relationship with the dependent variable (consumer purchasing behaviour). A correlation test was carried out. The results of the correlation indicates that both print and electronic advertising show a positive and significant relationship with consumer purchasing behaviour (CPD) (Print=0.103 and Elect. 0.152). The bivariate correlations between the independent variables are not above 0.7. This shows the absence of multicollinearity. However, collinearity diagnosis was also conducted to confirm the results explained above. The tolerance value for each independent variable is 0.97 which is not less than 0.10; therefore the multicollinearity assumption of regression has not been violated. This is further supported by the VIF value which is 0.1037 which is well below the cut-off point of 10. The next section presents a discussion of the results.

Results and Discussion
This section discusses the results of the study. First, the background characteristics of the respondents are presented. Description statistics of the variables used are also presented next followed with the inferential statistics. The first issue addressed was the background characteristics of respondents. This focused on gender, age and the network(s) that respondents have subscribed to (Table 1). Table 1 depicts the sex, age and the networks being used by respondents. With regard to sex, it can be said from the table that 70.57 percent of the respondents were males whilst 29.43 percent were females. Out of the 732 questionnaires that were answered by the respondents, the youngest was 17 years old and oldest was 45 years old. The mean age of the respondents was 22 years and a standard deviation of 2.92. It can be said from the table that most of the tertiary students in the Cape Coast Metropolis are young and are said to admire technologically driven products as stated by Schiffman and Kanuk cited in Marfo-Yiadom and Ansong [6] Furthermore, it can also be said from the table that more of the respondents preferred MTN (38.55%) to the other networks. The least preferred network among the tertiary students in the metropolis was Expresso (0.65%) This is consistent with the NCA report which puts MTN as the most preferred network in Ghana. MTN dominance as being the most preferred network could be attributed to friends, family members and group members' usage of the network. This goes to explain why consumers behave the way they do as explained by Engel et al.

Influence of print and electronic advertising on the decisions of tertiary students to purchase telecom products in the cape coast metropolis
Print and electronic advertising provides the information that forms the basis of decision making by the consumer. Magazine and newspaper advertising media were used to measure the influence of print advert on the consumers purchasing decisions. Television and radio were also used to measure the influence of electronic adverts on the purchasing decisions of consumers. This section provides the descriptive statistics for magazine, newspaper, television and radio advertisement used in measuring print and electronic advertisement respectively. The items measuring print advertising were first described using a degree scale of 1-5. With 0-2.9 indicating least in agreement whiles 3-5 indicates highest in agreement. Table 2 presents the descriptive statistics for newspaper advert.
The mean score for each of the items were ascertained as well as the aggregate mean score as presented in Table 2. The findings indicate that the tertiary students in the Cape Coast Metropolis least agreed that their decision to purchase a telecom product was influenced by a newspaper advert ( X =2.360). This finding confirms the findings of Haque et al. [8] that print media do not have significant impact on consumers mind. Table 3 presents the descriptive statistics for magazine advert ( Table 3).
The findings indicate that the tertiary students in the Cape Coast Metropolis were least in agreement with the assertion that magazine advert influenced their decision to purchase a telecom product ( X do not have significant impact on consumers mind and Rajagopal that listeners of radio commercials are attracted towards advertisements which are more entertaining while disseminating the message. The next section of the paper presents the descriptive statistics for print advertising.

=2.2809). This also confirms the studies of Haque et al. that print media
Television and radio adverts were used to measure the influence of electronic advert on consumers purchasing decisions. The items measuring print advertising were first described using a degree scale of 1-5. With 0-2.9 indicating least in agreement whiles 3-5 indicates highest in agreement. Table 4 present the items used to measure radio advert.
Radio advertThe mean score for each of the items were ascertained as well as the aggregate mean score. The findings indicate that the tertiary students in the Cape Coast Metropolis were least in agreement with assertion that radio advert influenced their decision to purchase a telecom product ( X =2.2874). This finding confirms the findings of Rajagopal that listeners of radio commercials are attracted towards advertisements which are more entertaining while disseminating the message ( Table 5).
The findings indicate that the tertiary students in the Cape Coast Metropolis were highest in agreement with assertion that television advert influenced their decision to purchase a telecom product ( X =3.6248). This finding confirms the findings in the study of Kotwal et al. [7] that respondents preferred to buy branded and standardized products which are more advertised on television. Similar findings were also found in the study of Anyanwale et al. [11]. They also concluded that television advertising media is the most potent of all media used in advertising Bournvita products and recommended that more consideration should be given to television medium when advertising products.

Items
Mean score Least in Agreement Highest in Agreement   The inferential statistics used to determine the influence of print and electronic advertising on the decisions of tertiary students to purchase a telecom product is discussed in this section. The regression results for the influence of print and electronic advertisement is presented in Table 6.
To test for the influence of print and electronic advertising on the purchasing decisions of tertiary students in the cape coast metropolis regarding the use of telecom products, the study hypothesised that print advert influence the decisions of tertiary students to purchase telecom products in the cape coast metropolis. It can be said from Table 6 that, magazine advert influences the purchasing decisions of tertiary students with a T statistic and a sig value of 2.290 and 0.022 respectively. Magazine advertisements influence the purchasing decisions of tertiary students with regards to telecom products in the Cape Coast Metropolis. It can be inferred that since all the respondents were students who are occasionally exposed to magazine publications which are sponsored partly by some of these telecom products, it may provide a reason for this result. This finding is also consistent with the findings of Abideen et al. [4] which concluded that advertisement arouses the emotions of consumers and these emotions are created in the form of audio, video and text. The result of this test is also consistent with the proposition of Calder et al. [15] who accentuated that the way a person experiences a magazine or newspaper can affect the way the person reacts to advertising in the publication.
In contrast to the above finding that magazine advert influence the purchasing decisions of tertiary students in the cape coast metropolis with respect to telecom products, It can also be seen from Table 6 that, newspaper advert do not significantly influence the purchasing decisions of tertiary students with regards to the purchase of telecom products in the Cape Coast Metropolis. The table depicts a T statistic of -0.611 and a sig value of 0.541 respectively. Newspaper advert do not significantly influence the decisions of tertiary students to purchase telecom products in the Cape Coast Metropolis. To provide explanation for why newspaper did or did not influence the decisions of tertiary students to purchase a telecom product in the Cape Coast Metropolis, the questionnaire had some open ended questions which sought to provide explanations for the results.
Respondents were asked what feature of a newspaper was appealing to them, some of the respondents indicated personalities, the colourful nature of the newspaper, pictures used, feature stories where as some did not provide no response. Furthermore, respondents were also asked what motivated them to read newspapers; most of the responses indicated that football news rather motivated them to read a newspaper and not advert clearly supporting the earlier point that newspaper had little or no influence on the purchase decisions of tertiary students in the Cape Coast Metropolis on telecom products. These responses contradict with other findings that concluded that newspaper advertisements influence the purchase decisions of consumers. The paper also hypothesised that electronic advertisement influence the purchasing decisions of tertiary students in the cape coast metropolis to purchase telecom products. Radio and television were used to measure electronic advertisements. First the influence of    radio advertisement on the decisions of tertiary students to purchase telecom products in the Cape Coast Metropolis was first determined. From Table 6, it depicts a T statistic of 1.501 and sig value of 0.134. This finding contradicts with other research findings [4] which posit that radio advert can influence the purchasing decisions of consumers. It can be inferred from the finding that though electronic advertising in general has a significant influence on the decisions of tertiary students to purchase telecom products in the Cape Coast Metropolis as depicted in Table 6, radio advertisements was not the reason for the significant influence of electronic advertising on the decisions of tertiary students to purchase telecom products in the Cape Coast Metropolis rather, television advert was the reason for the influence of electronic advertisement on the decisions of tertiary students to purchase telecom products in the Cape Coast Metropolis. As depicted in Table 6,it shows a relatively high T statistic of 3.439 and a sig value of 0.001. Television adverts has a significant influence on the decisions of tertiary students to purchase telecom products in the Cape Coast Metropolis. Similarly Ayanwale et al. [11] concluded that, TV was the most preferred media for advertising. Again Fill cited in Pretrova and Bochkareva also posited that TV advertising presence can sometimes significantly improve the status of a certain product/service which will eventually influence the consumers' choice for that product/service. However, this finding is inconsistent with that of Petrova and Bochkareva [13] where the researchers concluded that TV as a communication tool was perceived to be neither informative nor persuasive.
To get explanation from the respondents on why such answers were provided, the questionnaire had some open ended questions to seek for such explanation. The respondents indicated that as students they spent most of their time on campus attending lectures, tutorials and having discussions. This makes it difficult for them to get time to listen to radio during the day. To buttress this point the respondents were also asked a number of questions which included what time will be convenient for listening to radio. The respondents again indicated that, morning; evening and weekends were the most convenient time for them to listen to radio. This goes to explain that the students are busy during the day and is on weekends or in the morning before lectures begin or in the evening when they have closed from lectures that they can listen to radio.

Comparing print and electronic advertising to determine which has a greater influence on the decisions of tertiary students to purchase telecom products in the Cape Coast Metropolis
Advertising has been identified as one of the means of communicating with the consumer. Through advertising, consumers are provided information which might influence their purchasing decision. This section sought to compare print and electronic advertising to determine which has a greater influence on the consumers purchasing decision regarding the purchase of telecom products by tertiary students in the cape coast metropolis. The study hypothesised that print advertising has a greater influence than electronic advertising on the decisions of tertiary students to purchase a telecom product in the Cape Coast Metropolis. A regression equation was formulated to determine that. Table 7 presents the regression analysis used to test the hypothesis that print advertising has a greater influence on the decisions of tertiary students to purchase a telecom product in the Cape Coast Metropolis.
The standardised beta coefficients as depicted in Table 7 show that a change in print advertisement leads to a 7.7 change in the purchasing decisions of tertiary students with regards to telecom products. However, Table 7 also indicates that a change in electronic advertising leads to 13.7 change in the purchasing decisions of tertiary students (ceteris paribus). This shows that electronic advertising has a greater influence on Consumer Purchasing Decision compared to print advertising. The study therefore fails to accept the hypothesis that print advertising has a greater influence on the purchasing decisions of tertiary students' in the cape coast metropolis regarding the use of telecom products. This finding supports Haque et al. proposition that consumers are more influenced by electronic advertisement (television) than print advertisement. Similarly, Saleem and Abideen [4] and Kotwal et al. [7] also established that electronic advertising has a greater influence on consumers purchasing behaviour than print advertisement.

Conclusions and Recommendations
The study established both print and electronic advertising had an influence on the purchasing decisions of tertiary students in the cape coast metropolis. However, for print advertising magazine adverts accounted for the influence that print adverts had on the purchasing decisions of tertiary students to purchase telecom products in the cape coast metropolis. With respect to electronic adverts, television adverts accounted for the influence that electronic adverts had on the purchasing decisions of tertiary students to purchase telecom products in the cape coast metropolis. Comparing print to electronic advertising the study concludes that tertiary students in the cape coast metropolis are influenced more by electronic advertising compared to print advertising Based on the key findings and conclusions presented above, the study recommends that budgetary expenditure on adverts targeted at the youth should concentrate more on electronic advertising.

Limitations of the Study
The study did not take into account the other four Ps of marketing. The study only concentrated on the use of promotion and the influence that promotion had on the purchasing decisions of consumers. Future studies can therefore include the other Ps of marketing that is price, product and place to be able to determine the overall influence that the four Ps of marketing has on the purchasing decisions of consumers.