The influence of advertisement towards brand choice: An exploration from initial attitude of con- sumers

Article history: Received: April 27, 2018 Received in revised format: June 21, 2018 Accepted: June 21, 2018 Available online: June 22, 2018 The purpose of this study is to investigate the difference between the brand selection decisions before and after the ad serving and to examine the impact of attitude, which is owned by the consumer before the ad, to the changes in consumer decisions in the selection of the brand. This study was conducted using causal research design. The sampling method used was non-probabilistic sampling and sample size of 540, consisting of 270 users for brand Pantene and 270 users for brand Rejoice. The results of this study indicate that the attitude of consumers before ad serving had an influence on several changes in the selection decision. This research is important for marketers to continuously understand consumer attitudes, by knowing the type of information on the brand owned by the consumer, the ability of consumer groups in information processing, and the ownership of motivation to process the information. © 2018 by the authors; licensee Growing Science, Canada


Introduction
Nowadays, practitioners and marketing experts believe that advertising has an influence on consumers, both in enhancing the recognition, improve preferences, encourage interest to try and then realize that interest into an action, as well as build relationships between users with the brand used.However, such beliefs are not supported by empirical facts, so that the new players who want to advertise their products find it very difficult to decide between using advertising as a communication tool to consumers or not.Similarly, players who are used to advertise do not have a clear calculation on investment that has been done through advertising.Doubts and obscurity arise because of the cost needed for ad are not little.These conditions are demanding strong accountability and a more mature calculation, given the current media fragmentation occurs so strong that advertising budget is more expensive per unit viewers.
This study aims to learn a few things, namely (a) the difference between the brand selection decisions before and after the ad serving, (b) the impact of attitude (which is owned by the consumer before the ad) towards the changes in consumer decisions in the selection of the brand.This research serves as a good guidance for marketing managers to make decisions based on continuously understanding consumer attitudes.In addition, it is very important for marketers to understand continuously on consumer attitudes towards consumer's brand preferences such as the type of consumer's brand information, the ability of consumer groups in information processing, and the consumer's motivation to process that information.
Furthermore, the present study contributes to the theoretical aspect on which ad will be able to change or improve consumer preferences in decision making towards brand choice which was initially decided not to buy then buy.Thus, the advertisement can provide a yield on consumer attitude in deciding brand choice.The magnitude of the yield depends on the attitude held by the consumer before ad serving, which lower the consumer attitudes toward the brand, the greater the change of brand selection decisions happen, and consumers' ability to process information.By performing a generalization, it can be said that advertising is a process of information transfer (from the owner of the brand to target market), whose influence will be determined by the quantity of information held by the recipient and the recipient's ability to process the available information.
Comparing the results of this study with the models the previous studies can enrich the market response model (Vakratsas & Ambler, 1999) at the individual level (Tellis, 1998).This study is also different from the Advertising Response Model (ARM) (Mehta, 1994), because the model of ARM uses the output of buying interest instead of brand choice.In addition, it is also different from the Relevance Accessibility Model (RAM) (Baker & Lutz, 2000), although both use the output of brand selection but will not use the antecedent of attitude and focus more on brand response involvement and advertising message involvement.The use of the antecedent of this attitude is also different from the model perception/experience/memory (P/E/M) developed by Hall (2002), which uses consuming experience.
As limitations, this study uses standard thinking learning hierarchy (Solomon, 1996), which is a learning process that is on the order of a cognitive-affective-conative.Solomon (1996) distinguishes three hierarchy of effects.Firstly, beliefs -attitude -behavior which are said to be an attitude that is based on cognitive information processing, which is then referred to as a standard learning hierarchy.Secondly, beliefs -behavior -affect, that attitude is based on the behavioral learning process, and the thirdly, affect -behavior -beliefs are mentioned as the formation of attitudes based on consumption that is hedonists.

Literature review
Basically, the marketing experts realized there is no single way to understand how ads affect consumer (Taylor, 1999).It depends on the situation surrounding the ad itself such as the type of product being advertised, the character of consumers, purchase motivation, and interest in decision-making which is owned by the consumer.The advertiser must have attention about how advertising affects consumers and how it works, with the aim to formulate strategies for more effective communication and efficient.Buttle (1991) conducted a study on the literature for advertising in the period from 1975 to 1989 and found there were 653 references to the influence of advertising.525 out of 635 references examined the influence of advertising on individuals, 44 discussed the influence of advertising on the company, 29 on the institutions, 5 on culture, and 16 focused on other issues.Research on the influence of advertising was concentrated mostly on cognitive (214), affective (169), behavioral aspects (126) and the psychological aspects (16).The evaluation of the effect of advertising on the audiences has been under evaluation (Cavaliere & Tassinari, 2001).Broadbent and Burnett (1992) conducted a study in the form of books and articles, as well as research reports in scientific journals about the effectiveness of advertising.They reported there were 456 measurements to determine the effectiveness of advertising and showed that the ads did not only lead to a single effect, but it also influenced many things.
The basic model used in the study has changed from the model used to measure the effect of advertising on sales response at the individual level, the model of ARM (Mehta, 1994) and Relevance Accessibility Model (RAM) (Baker & Lutz, 2000).Furthermore, this model is used by adding the consumer attitudes toward the brand before ad serving (Wu, 2001;Ambler, 2000), consumer response to ads served (Grewal et al., 1997;Beltramini & Stafford, 1993;Urban et al., 1993;Urban et al., 1987), and exchange prevailing on the model output of RAM, the brand choice models which use the ARM buying interest.
The research model about the influence of advertising on consumers has been developed and concentrated on two things, which is a process that occurs when consumers are exposed to ads and impacts arising after the ad (Hall, 1992;Meyers-Levy & Malaviya, 1999;Vakratsas & Ambler, 1999;Andrews et al., 1990;Buttle, 1991;Poiesz & Robben, 1994;Mixon Jr, 1994;Baker & Lutz, 2000;Mehta, 1994).This is specially brought to the understanding of the process of persuasion and engagement of consumers on one hand, and the influence of advertising on consumer behavior in the time dimension, on the other hand (short, medium and long) and then, among others, also have an impact on sales of the brand communicated by advertisement.At the same time, the attitude towards the brand/product and attitude towards advertising turned out to be mutually exclusive.Attitudes toward advertising are influenced by the messages about the products carried by the ad, although the intensity of the effect is lower if the opposite happens, the attitude towards the brand that is influenced by attitudes toward advertising.
In the meanwhile, MacKenzie and Lutz (1989) found that when a consumer involves in the execution of high advertising and engagement ad messaging is low, there is a process of persuasion through the periphery.Under this condition, the attitude toward advertising is more dominant on influencing attitudes towards the brand.Changes in attitude have been brought about by the process of persuasion through the peripheral route which are said to be temporary.
Previous studies conducted by Lutz (1985) and Shimp (1981) showed that the attitude towards the ads had a very strong influence on attitudes toward the brand and the interest to buy.Thus, the above models of ARM matched with the study.In fact, the research conducted by MacKenzie and Lutz (1989) and Mittal (1990) which support the notion that ads becomes a more important factor than the subjectivity belief that consumers have with the brand.According to MacKenzie and Lutz (1989), this is due to the credibility of the message which has a direct influence on consumer attitudes toward the brand.Franses and Vriens (2004) stated that advertising could affect awareness, although at the same time, there are effects for choice.Extra brand awareness and purchases also can be created by competitive awareness.Clark et al. (2009) reported that advertising had a strong positive correlation on brand awareness but no significant influence on perceived quality.It highlights advertising as important tools to provide information as differentiation between categories.The other study was conducted in India by Ampofo (2014).He concluded that advertising can affect consumer's purchase in the long run.Awan (2016) stated that advertisement was commonly applied to create awareness and promoting products.They concluded that advertisement impacts consumers' buying behavior and their choice, significantly.In addition, advertisement can motivate consumer of durable products to purchase.It induces significantly when the product is on quality and price.Product coverage and brand recognition from the variety of advertisements influence purchase behavior (Rai, 2013).
The impact of advertisement on consumer choice is also reported by Habib et al. (2015) based on a case study of SMEs and consumers.They stated that advertising and communication fee is very expensive.Therefore, when a company has economic crisis, advertising usually is cut from the budget firstly.However, it is necessary to know the most accurate instrument to stimulate consumer interest.The result shows there is a positive correlation between advertisement and consumer exposure towards purchasing behavior.Kumar (2013) stated that advertising could be used to convince the consumer to take some action on the products.They investigated the correlation between emotional response and buying behavior by involving 110 respondents.They reported some findings, involve 1) Ads will be able to change the opinion of the customers about the product, 2) Customers are likely to watch more of the ads which affect their opinion, 3) Advertisement will easily convince the customer for the product, 4) Advertisements are the strong means of communication media to convey the intended message to the target group of customers, 4) The ads should neither too long nor be too short, and 5) They should appeal and engage the customers toward involving in the advertisement.
In the digital era, besides traditional media, today companies also advertise in online media.Calder et al. (2009) conducted an experimental study on the relationship between online engagement and advertising effectiveness.Based on their research, there were two different kinds of engagements.First was personal engagement and second was social-interactive engagement.Both were positively associated with advertising effectiveness.Furthermore, they stated that social-interactive engagement could affect advertising after controlling for personal engagement.
Based on the ideas mentioned above, the model was developed and will be used in this study as shown in Fig. 1.From the developed model, the attitude towards the brand owned by the consumer before serving ads affects the changes in brand choice (before and after the ad).After the elaboration of ads, it will have a different effect on the favorability of ads, confidence in advertising, brand favorability and confidence in the brand, if consumer attitudes are different.Also, the advertising and its elaboration will have a different effect on the change of brand choice (the brand choice difference between before and after the ad), in the category of a different attitude.Vakratsas and Ambler (1999) stated that market response model is the model which combines the group of advertisings into one.It combines the advertising, promotions, and price to sales, market share and brand choice, both in the aggregate and individual levels.One of the studies on the individual level is to measure the effect of advertising on the brand choice decision (Vakratsas & Ambler, 1999).Referring to the model of sales response, the first hypothesis to be tested in this study is as follow: Hypothesis 1: There are differences between the brand selection before serving the ads and after serving the ads.(1983) and Robertson and Kassarjian (1991) explained that the decision taken by a person against an object, as well as choosing a supermarket that would be visited or which car to buy, is based on the attitude of the person to the object.Referring to that theory, the second hypothesis will be tested in this study as follow: Hypothesis 2: Attitude towards the brand has an influence on changes in the consumer's decision in choosing brands (between before and after the ad aired).

Methodology
As shown in the model, consumer attitudes towards brands are created from three aspects, namely cognitive, affective and conative.The cognitive aspect is translated into the belief (Ajzen & Fishbein, 2000), and then into the emotional-affective and conative feeling is translated into intention.In cognitive aspects, there are three things, namely knowledge about the quality, usefulness and value brands being tested.Affective aspects used in this measurement is the feeling that arises and is owned by the consumer after using the brand.Conative aspects used in this study is about preference compared to other brands and interest in using the brand.The scale used in this measurement is a Likert scale from 1 to 5, which stated that one is strongly disagreed, 2 agree, 3 between disagree and agree (neutral), 4 agree, and 5 strongly agree with the statement mentioned.Decisions about brand selection are done by using a scale of 1-6, where 1 to 3 represent the decision not to choose and 4-6 represent the decision to choose.The question posed to respondents was: "How likely are you to buy shampoo brand Pantene / Rejoice".
The main objective of this study was to determine the effect of advertising on brand choice so that the desired conditions are brand selection before and after the ad serving ad impressions.Therefore, advertising is considered as a treatment that causes differences in brand choice.Ads used in this study is the television advertising about Pantene and Rejoice which lasted 30 seconds.This ad has not been shown on television, so it avoids the bias from the introduction to respondents.Ads shampoo products selected as this product has a shorter buying cycle so that the effect of a single ad can still be measured.
In accordance with the ad targets, the respondents are women, aged 15-55 years old and come from socio-economic class A and B (routine expenses household per month is greater than one million Rupiah).The respondents are divided into three group experiences, for examples are respondents who know but do not like and have never used shampoo Pantene/Rejoice, know and love but never use a shampoo Pantene/Rejoice, and groups of all three know and use Pantene/Rejoice.The sampling method used in this study was non-probabilistic sampling, and the sample size was 540, consisting of 270 users of brand Pantene and 270 users of Rejoice.
In this study, Interviews were also conducted.Advertising was being tested with three segments shown as follows: The first six minutes of the film segment, segment 2 in the form of 2-minute ad impressions, and the third segment six-minute film.The film used in this study were selected in accordance with the target respondents, and used serial FRIEND.While commercials used as a companion ad tested well adapted to the target respondents and used bank ads (Bank Internasional Indonesia), mobile phone (Telkomsel) and a facial cleanser (Biore).

Research finding
As mentioned earlier, the analysis of the factors used in two constructions, namely the construction of attitude before ad serving, and construction of joy and trust in brands and advertising.Factor analysis was conducted on attitudinal variables.It showed that nine observed variables set the cognitive aspects, 6 observed variables set the effective aspects and 3 observed variables set up the conative aspects, each acquired one component that has the eigen value > 1. Percentage of variance for one component of the cognitive was 69.69%, 79.72% affective and conative 90.76%.Thus, the three components of dimension reduction results can be used for two-factor analysis at this stage to determine the score of attitude.The results of the factor analysis of the second stage show that there was only one component with the eigen value > 1, with the total variance of 88.12% so that these components can be considered as a score of attitude.Furthermore, this attitude scores are grouped into three categories, where attitude = 1 is between a score of -4 up to -1.01 attitude, the attitude = 2 is between -1 to +1, while the attitude 3 is between + 1:01 to by 4. In other words, the category of attitude = 1 is referred to as a less positive attitude, attitude category = 2 is referred to as a positive attitude and the attitude category = 3 is referred to as a very positive attitude.In the meanwhile, factor analysis of satisfaction on the ads that are composed of joy associated with the execution of advertising and preferences related to messages carried, it shows that there is one component with the eigen value > 1, and factor analysis on the second stage of the two components also showed only one component with the eigen value > 1.Therefore, the last one component can be considered a favorite component in the advertising.
Analysis of factors of trust on ads, preferences toward the brand, and trust in the brand showed only a component that has the eigen value > 1, so that factors formed can be used as a score of trust in advertising, a preference toward brand and trust in the brand.In testing on the effect of advertising on brand selection (hypothesis 1), testing is done by comparing two means using paired sample t-test, and the average brand selection before and after the ad aired will be described in Table 1.It shows that the difference between the before and after the brand selection has significant (p-value 0.001).Thus, the conclusions that can be drawn is that the average brand selection after an ad is higher than before the ad, or in other words, the ad being tested is able to increase brand preference election.The differences of brand choice between before and after ads aired are further discussed into each attitude category (hypothesis 2), the results are described in Table 2.

Table 2
The average of brand selection before and after advertising based on attitudes  The results of brand choice differences between three categories of attitude are shown in Table 3. Attitude = 1 (attitude less positive) and attitude = 2 (positive attitude) are significant (p-value: 0.001 and 0.079), while the attitude category 3 is not significant.It can be concluded that the group of consumers who have less positive attitude and positive attitude, ads that were tested were able to increase the preference for the selection of the brand communicated by advertisement, while in the group to be very positive, ads that were tested are not able to increase preference brand selection (communicated by advertisement).Output ANOVA in Table 4 was used to test the hypothesis: 1 = 2 = 3 shows the p-values of 0.020, so the hypothesis that the similarity of changes in brand selection in all three categories of attitude is rejected, or in other words that for at least one pair in a different brand electoral changes.To find out the average difference in brand selection by category, contrasts test of this attitude is shown in Table 5.The test results with Lavene statistics show that the assumption of homogeneity of variance cannot be met so that the contrast test used is not assumed in common variant.In Table 6, the hypothesis testing between 1 and 2 are shown in contrast one with the p-values 0.018.Then the p-value is 0.018/2 = 0.009, so that <α = 0:05.Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected, or 1 > 2.In other words, the results of this study indicate that changes in brand selection in the attitude category = 1 (less positive attitude) are greater than the change in brand selection in the attitude category = 2 (group positive attitude).In the analysis of the difference between 1 and 3 (contrast 3), the p-value is 0.024, so that the p-values for testing the hypothesis of the right side is 0.024/2 = 0.012 <α = 0.05 so it can be concluded that the null hypothesis is rejected.In other words, changes in brand selection in the attitude category = 1 (less positive attitude) are greater than the change of brand choice in a group of consumers in the category attitude = 3 (very positive attitude).

Research analysis
Research on the effect of advertising on brand selection indicates that there has been a change of brand selection decisions between before and after the ad serving (hypothesis 1), or in other words that the ad is able to change the brand selection decisions are made by consumers.These changes occurred primarily in two groups, namely the consumers who have a less positive attitude categories (categories attitude = 1) and a group who are positive (category attitude = 2) and to improved average scores were tested brand selection.In the meanwhile, the group has a very positive attitude (attitude category = 3), the decision brand selection changes but not significant, since the average score in the group brand selection is already high prior to ad serving.In other words, increased preference towards the brand is not significant in those who already had a high preference.
The change in the brand choice between before and after the ad serving means a communication process is a persuasion through five stages are the persuasive message, attention to the message, the message comprehension, acceptance/rejection of the message, and a change in attitude has been running (Deaux, 1993).In this process, it appears that advertising is used as a messenger which is going through the process of reasoning and produces the output in the change of brand selection (Ajzen, 1993;Manfredo, 1992).
According to Ajzen (1993;Manfredo, 1992), a persuasive message will consist of three components, namely the recommended position, the arguments used to support the recommended position, and the factual evidence that supports those arguments.Furthermore, based on the information that they had before, consumers will perform reasoning.When the position, arguments and factual evidence were accepted by the consumers it will produce output as desired by persuasive communication (advertising).
From this study, it appears that the position suggested by the ad (the shampoo ad with nice hair and healthy), supported by arguments vitamins contained in the shampoo and visualized factual evidence with a star (as it were) already using the shampoo, it is accepted by consumers and furthermore able to change the decision-making brand selection.
By linking the above results with the theory of persuasion, it can be concluded that the information content of ads shown (tested) was able to change the decision of consumers to the brand served ads, or in other words, information on the brand brought on by advertising into valuable information in decision decisions made by consumers.
In reinforcement theory (Ambler, 2000), the role for ads is not in the position to influence the consumer to change his/her mind, but reinforce the behavior of the advertised brand.It also can relate to very positive attitude (category attitude = 3) that the changes of customer selection towards the brand do not depend on ads.Based on previous research, the score of brand selection before ads in this group is quite high before ad serving (mean 5:07 of 6), and after the ad serving (mean 5:13 of 6), thus there was a strengthening brand selection advertised in this group.
In process models, Kelman (1958) and Haugtvedt and Petty (1992) stated persuasion has three models.Firstly, internalization, which is a permanent form of a change in attitude that is based on personal acceptance of the messages conveyed, and is produced by the trust to the source.The second is the identification, which is a change that is associated with a continuous association with the desired referent, and this model is caused by the attractiveness of the source.And all three are compliance, a change that is expressed only under threat of punishment and gifts delivered by the source.We can conclude that something happens to change the brand selection decisions are identified and the changes are the result of the identification process of persuasion through the periphery.This occurs because of changes in the selection of brand shampoo is not a permanent form, but driven by ads using a source of excitement, so that the change in attitude that occurred was not permanent (model persuasion first) nor encouraged because there are reward and punishment (model persuasion to-three).
The second results related to changes in decisions of brand selection between before and after the ad are that many of changes (incremental) score brand selection and it is different for each category of attitude.
The more positive attitude of the consumer, the smaller the magnitude of these changes happens (hypothesis 2).In other words, the attitude of the consumer before ad serving affects on changes in brand selection decisions made before and after the ad serving.
In relation to the effect of massive change attitudes toward a brand, Leippe and Elkin (1987) in (Haugtvedt & Petty, 1992) stated that when the personal interests at a higher message, people will be motivated to use the information they receive.In the context of the ad, as the relevance is high, people will be willing to take more time to process the advertisement and claim brought advertising, and generate thoughts and conclusions are related to the advertised brand (Celsi & Olson, 1988;Kardes, 1988;Haugtvedt & Petty, 1992).But when the relevance is low, the processing of arguments related to the brand brought on by advertising reduced, and the attitude of the person will be affected by matters relating to the processing of the periphery, which is derived from the attractiveness of the sources, execution, and others (Miniard et al., 1988;Haugtvedt & Petty, 1992;Haugtvedt et al., 1992;Petty et al., 1983).
By linking this theory with the above results, it appears that the group that owns the category of attitude the lowest (less attitude positive towards the brand), have higher motivation to process information received through advertising compared to other groups, because the information conveyed by the advertisement is something new and relevant to the information held.While consumers whose attitude has been positive and very positive that already have, such information conveyed by the advertisements, information received from advertising is not additional information.Thus, the relevance of the information carried by the ads is not too high, and there was a massive difference in the change of ownership of information among consumer groups.Consumers of categories attitude = 1 (less positive towards the brand) experience a surge of information about the advertised brand, while consumers of the category of attitude do not have a higher surge information.
In this case, there has been a thing as mentioned by McGuire (1969) in (Haugtvedt & Petty, 1992) that persuasion will depend on yielding to the message in addition to just 'accept' message.Therefore, a piece of the same information can lead to differences in views among the recipients.Thus, the implication that emerges is that the group is less positive attitude categories (attitude categories = 1) changes in brand selection is higher than the group of the category of attitude = 2 or 3.
In line with this theory is the existence of a preliminary understanding of the purpose of persuasion or referred to as a forewarning (Baron, 2004;Cialdini et al., 1981), which states that the effectiveness of persuasive communication depends on the initial understanding possessed by the message recipient.If the recipients understand the message about the intent of the message, the effectiveness is reduced, but the reverse situation occurs when knowledge of the intention of the messenger is not known.The analogy with this is if the information held is sufficient, then the acceptance of the same information will not have any effect.While in the group have less information, and then the information conveyed by the ad will have a significant effect.

Conclusion and direction for future research
Based on the discussions, advertising can change the brand selection decisions.At low consumer attitudes, change the selection of these brands have significant differences, while at the high attitude of consumers, these changes include increased preference election, and the process that occurs is reinforcement.In this process, it appears that advertising is used as a messenger after going through the process of reasoning produce the output of the change of brand selection decisions.While the processes that occur in the brand selection decisions in this research is the identification process, and the persuasion process which was done through the periphery.
We can conclude that the more positive attitude of the consumer, the smaller the magnitude of these changes occurs.This relates to the personal and motivational owned by consumers in each category.The lower consumer attitudes, the higher the relevance of the information conveyed by advertising and this motivates consumers to process information through advertising, by yielding information that are increasingly large.The higher consumer attitudes, the higher the potential for forewarning, so the effectiveness of advertising in influencing brand choice is getting low.Advertising is a process of information transfer (from the owner of the brand to target market), whose influenced by the quantity of information held by the recipient and the recipient's ability to process information that is available.
For further research related to the topic of this research, there are some suggestions that can be done to understand the influence of advertising on consumer behavior in choosing and decided to purchase the product.First, this study only uses ads from shampoo products, so it needs to be enriched by using ads from other product categories that have the same characteristics of low involvement, thus strengthening the implications of these results on the product low involvement, or use ads from the product category high the involvement of different decision-making character.Secondly, add more variable of ads as treatments.This study uses only two exposures, thus ignoring two things: changes in consumer information held before and after the ad serving, and the second did not adopt the concept of advertising wear-ins.Thirdly, expand this study into several stages of the product lifecycle.This study uses only advertising of products which has the same maturity and it cannot be considered into the model.On the newly launched brand advertising certainly, will have a different effect than the brands that are quite old and have a significant market share.
Next, adding the factorability for consumers in processing the information.This factor is particularly important because the customer is not only depending on the ownership of information, but it will also depend on the ability of consumers to process the information.Lastly, authors suggest the models of this brand selection can be developed by adding two behavior variables such as last time brand purchased by consumers and brands bought by consumers after ad testing.Thus, there will be a model linking the five variables, namely: (1) brands purchased last time, (2) the initial attitude of consumers, (3) brand selected before ad serving, (4) brand selected after ad, and (5) brand purchased after ad testing.This model will not only add the relationship between brand selection decisions with the realization of the decision, but it will also be able to address issues of accountability ads.In addition, this model will determine the impact of advertising on sales.

Fig. 1 .
Fig. 1.Theoretical FrameworkPetty et al. (1983) andRobertson and Kassarjian (1991) explained that the decision taken by a person against an object, as well as choosing a supermarket that would be visited or which car to buy, is based

Table 1
Mapping of the Literature Related to Research Model

Table 4
Analysis of Variance: The Influence of Attitude toward Brand Selection

Table 6
Output Analysis: Contrast Difference toward Brand Selection