Food Advertising and Marketing Directed

Interpretation of findings

To summarise the important questions that best represent the data and the results from this investigation:

• 88% of consumers have access to at least one fast food place
• Majority of consumers consume fast food more than three times a month
• Television is most popular for showing advertisements and all consumers receive a fair share of hours of television per week
• 88% of consumers view at least one advertisement per day
• Almost half of these consumers feel hungry or desire after viewing an advertisement
• Most of these consumers had recently consumed fast food before this survey
• Most find it persuasive and may be susceptible to being persuaded

Fast food marketing is highly persuasive, and these fast food restaurants can persuade the public and their customers to buy their products.

Fast food brands advertise on many platforms, but because television is the most popular platform for viewing advertisements, they advertise on television the most. All of the consumers that filled out the survey have exposure to advertisements almost every day and have exposure to television for a certain period per week. It has also been discovered that most of them buy fast food multiple times per month and they have many reasons for doing so. Fast food seems to be quite convenient for most people, and most people have easy access to these fast food places because most of them have at least one fast-food restaurant within a 1km radius of their household. All these factors come together to make fast food products even more attractive to the consumer's eye.

When comparing two specific graphs: the frequency of seeing these advertisements (graph 10) and the frequency of buying fast foods monthly (graph 7), you can conclude that the more frequent advertisements are viewed, the more frequently fast foods are purchased. It’s proven that everyone has been exposed to fast food items, and over time, these fast food advertisements create an image of the brand in your mind. When looking at graph 15 about hearing a rumor of a favorite restaurant, even though most people chose the other two options, the 30% that chose to carry on supporting the brand is a huge amount. These consumers would carry on supporting the brand regardless of what social media portrays or what they have heard or seen about the brand. They would continue to eat their products despite how unhealthy it is or how bad they will affect them physically. This contributes to customer loyalty but it also goes hand in hand with persuasive marketing and perceptions created via different fast-food marketing methods. Fast food companies have used these marketing methods to create a certain image, form a specific perception, and instill an idea about fast foods and their products within their consumers’ minds.

The majority of the consumers that filled out the survey admitted that they do find fast-food marketing persuasive. These easily persuaded consumers to understand the influence misleading fast-food marketing methods have on them, and this results in them buying the products being advertised. It can therefore be deduced that exposure to fast food marketing does impact the consumers’ buying behavior and that a consumer is most probable to purchase a fast food item if they view a lot of fast food advertisements and have developed a certain idea and image of this fast food restaurant with the help of fast-food marketing.

Conclusion

Limitations and Recommendations

The hypothesis for this task was that the use of persuasive marketing methods could significantly impact the consumers’ buying behavior of fast food products, therefore increasing product sales. It was also stated that the reason for the high return of consumers was either customer loyalty or other beneficial factors of the products i.e. place, price, or time is taken for production.

In the secondary research, certain factors helped prove this hypothesis to be right. One of the factors was successful branding. The better the brand is built and the more frequent this brand is confronted, the more familiar a consumer becomes with the brand. Another factor was the frequency of viewing fast food advertisements in general. It was deduced that the more a consumer views advertisements of a particular fast-food franchise, the more familiar they become with the business and the product. People tend to choose what they find familiar because familiarity brings a sense of comfort, therefore the more a consumer is familiar with the brand and the business, the more likely they are willing to purchase the product. The third factor was a promotion with regards to complementary products. People tend to buy the products because of the complementary products that come with them. This shows that successful promotion as a form of marketing also impacts consumer buying behavior.

With regards to the primary research and the raw data collected using surveys, there were also a few factors that also proved this hypothesis. One of the factors was the amount of television they watched. Many people are busy and don’t have enough time for television, but every respondent has their fair share of television weekly, and the majority view 5-10 hours weekly, which is enough time to catch many fast food advertisements. The majority of the consumers see at least one advertisement daily, and some see even more than that. The third factor was their mood after viewing the advertisement. Almost half of the respondents said they either felt hungry or desired what is being advertised. A large amount of television viewing and the high frequency of viewing an advertisement as well as the majority of the respondents consuming fast food more than three times a month were noted. Furthermore, the majority of the consumers consume fast food because they love the taste, it’s convenient and it’s sometimes the only option, and these are the reasons for the return of customers.

Both the primary and secondary research conducted in this task proves the hypothesis to be right. It was also identified that there is a very small to no gap between the primary and secondary research. Both findings positively contribute to the outcome of this investigation and collaborate to form the results that match the hypothesis.

There were a few limitations discovered with regards to the surveys. The survey was limited to a maximum of 20 questions, therefore the results were limited to those questions and more variables could not be investigated. The results were also limited to the survey only, and the respondents had to be trusted to be completely truthful when filling out the surveys. There are small chances that they were not being honest and this could impact the results negatively. All results were drawn from the surveys, and there was a lack of information because no practical activities were being conducted. Other than these few limitations, the investigation was conducted well and the results are satisfactory.

To increase the reliability of this investigation and to gain more thorough research, a new survey should be conducted. Instead of using multiple questions to investigate one potential influential factor, create a broader questionnaire that remains 20 questions, but goes into more depth with the topic and touches on more factors that could potentially influence the results. Another way to gain more insight and gather more information would be to experiment over time with a portion of people of random selection. Each person could be exposed to an advertisement one day, and answer a variety of questions on the spot, and then a certain period after, they can be exposed to the same advertisement and be asked a different series of questions. This can be repeated to increase the frequency of exposure to that brand. This way, results could be more reliable because these factors are being tested first hand and the people being tested are tested on the spot and they are less likely to hide the truth.

Self-Reflection

I enjoyed partaking in this journey and it was a very enriching experience to conduct an investigation like this for the very first time. My expectations were high last year and everyone told me it’s a lot of work and is very difficult, but after having done it, I don’t understand why everyone said that. It was pretty frustrating having to meet deadlines and I was doing pretty well in the beginning, but then things got a little hectic, but I am grateful for having been exposed to this before departing to university.

I chose a topic that I found quite interesting and that I knew would contribute positively to my life because of the topic for business this year. I was nervous at first and I thought it wouldn’t turn out well in the end, but I learned a lot of new things and I enjoyed researching this topic the most.

The parts I enjoyed most were the literature review and the handing out of surveys. At first, I dreaded the literature review because I never wanted to sit down and do research, but once I found a couple of articles and read through them thoroughly, I found the articles I selected fairly interesting and I learned a lot from reading through these. I also enjoyed handing out the surveys a lot because it was a good feeling to go around asking people to partake in this investigation. It also gave me a sense of power considering I’m doing the investigation and everyone is filling out the surveys for me. I remember filling out surveys from previous years and it was a good feeling being on the other side of that transaction.

I didn’t, however, enjoy the raw data analysis. This part was frustrating because I had to go through 50 questionnaires, tally up all the results and create graphs on all 20 questions. I also mildly regret drawing up a survey with 20 questions and sending them to 50 people. I initially thought it would be good because I would gain a lot of input and the data would be reliable, but it just made my life harder and made the workload increase. Another part that I didn’t enjoy was trying to get the remainder of the surveys completed. At points, I ran out of options and people to ask. There were also a few people that promised to have the surveys filled out by the next day and they ended up losing the surveys and delaying me. This made me realize that you can’t rely on anyone but yourself. In the future, I now know that when you need something, people around you will not be reliable unless they’re a stakeholder in the outcome.

All-in-all, I believe this was a good experience, and even though at times I was frustrated with this project and wished it never existed, I did enjoy doing it. I think the main reason why I enjoyed it was because I never fell far behind and I had an interesting topic which I enjoyed immensely. I gained many great tips for future research tasks and have learned a lot of new things. I have also had many people that were supportive of me and helped me to keep going and not give up when the frustration got the better of me. I am also very grateful for the people that guided me throughout this task and helped me. I learned many new things on this journey and I am glad I got the opportunity to do this.

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