Advertising Standards Survey - Report Example

Student Name: Student ID Word Count: Chosen Option: Advertising Standards Survey Tutorial Group Number: Tutor’s Name: Research Evaluation: Advertising Standards Survey Introduction This paper provides an analytical evaluation of the methodology employed by Jones and Eagleton (2012) on what Australian consumers think about current advertising standards. After a literature review on what other researchers have found out in the area of attitudes of consumers in advertising standards, the authors realised that there is a shortage of research on the current attitudes of advertising in general, especially researches who have used representative groups of consumers. Therefore, their research would address this gap and use a representative sample to find out what Australians thought about current advertising standards. How the Researchers Collected Data The researchers employed a structured survey design to collect data. Data was collected by way of a questionnaire which would assess the kind of attitudes consumers have towards advertising in general as well as the use of certain appeals and images in advertising. The development of items in the questionnaire was guided by consumer-based exploratory research. This means that it contained items that relate to the clauses in the advertising code as well as items from other qualitative studies. This is because those studies identified messages and imagery that the Australian consumers were concerned about. The fact that the researchers used findings from other studies to inform the development of their questionnaire was methodologically tactful. This is because, this study needed already established messages and imagery that the consumers were concerned about to establish what Australians thought about the current advertising standards. However, it is important to note that five years had elapsed since those studies had been carried out to the date of the study under analysis. This means that there could be significant changes in the images and messages used in advertising. On the hand the items on current advertising standards would provide direct answers pertinent to the research questions. The researchers evaluated their research questionnaire to ensure that the questions were well formulated and that they did not confuse people. This is an important step in ensuring that you get the intended information since the data collected using a questionnaire depends a lot in the way that the questionnaire is constructed. The researchers also pilot tested the questionnaire on a convenience sample of 25 people in order to avoid confusion and difficulty in answering them. Feedback from 25 people is sufficient enough to provide needed feedback and the number ensures that the researchers do not consumer too much time in the process. The researchers used random sampling to determine the participants of the study. They bought an electronic database of names and addresses in Illawarra, New South Wales, from a research agency. A sample of 4,000 people from the database were selected to receive the survey. This sample was thought to be representative since the researchers note a decrease in landline ownership. One of the questions that emerge here is how representative the sample is in relation to the overall objective of the research – seeking attitudes of Australian consumers. A sample from a single locality in New South Wales only may not be representative enough to draw a conclusion for the entire Australian population. This is because attitudes and tastes may change according to geographical locations; for example attitudes towards advertising may not be the same for rural people compared to those in the urban areas. Furthermore, the researchers say that off the 4,000 surveys sent, only 872 completed surveys were returned. This is a response rate of 21.8%. 872 people in a single locality in a single territory of Australia may not be termed as representative enough for this study. This is especially in relation to the relativity of the information being sought. This notwithstanding, the researchers quality their sample as representative by comparing key demographics of the Illawarra region and that of the national population and finding them to be similar. However, they note that there were few differences between their sample and those of the underlying population. The researchers say that 39.8% were male and 60.2% were female. In addition, all the respondents were above 18 years – which is a good age since everyone can be able to interpret their feelings about things at this age. The respondents belonged to different religious affiliation and majority of them had post-secondary education. 80% of them had children. What Data was collected? The researchers collected data on the opinions on current advertising in Australia including issues like; sometimes advertisements in the media are offensive, advertisers make adverts knowing they will cause offense, misleading nature of advertisements, adverts that encourage behaviour in children that is inappropriate for their age and moral standard should be reflected in creating adverts They also collected data on the demographic differences in attitudes towards advertising. This is in regards to age, religious affiliation, gender, education, parental status and media usage. Further the researchers collected data on the awareness of the respondents of advertising rules in Australia. Data on specific opinions of specific advertising appeals was also collected. The fact that this data was analysed according to demographic differences of the respondents was important in order to find out whether attitudes to advertising differed and on what parameters. When the data was collected According to Jones and Eagleton (2012), the survey was distributed in April 2008 via mail. Of the surveys that were sent, 656 completed surveys were returned. Later, in May 2008, the non-respondents were sent a reminder and sent a replacement questionnaire and 216 more completed surveys were returned. Why this data and not others The research needed to collect data on the general advertising standards since that was one of the objectives of the study. Furthermore, this study had the obligation of qualifying their claim that “the concept of community standards is the cornerstone of advertising regulation in Australia” (p. 315). Demographically categorising data was important in showing why different people had different opinions on advertising. The research needed to collect data on the opinions of people of current advertising appeals used in adverts. This is because adverts use appeals that are acceptable by the regulation standards. This means that responses of people in this area will reveal what they think about current advertising standards in Australia – which is the main objective of the study. Evaluation of Methodological Approach The literature review helped the researchers in deciding which method worked where. When informed with techniques that worked or did not work with other researches, one is better-placed in selecting a methodology that would provide valid answers. Jones and Eagleton used a previous research’s finding in constructing their questionnaire. The literature review here plays an important role of allowing a better contextualization of the research findings. This is especially so because one is able to compare his findings with what other researchers found. The selection of a survey method of data collected was appropriate since the study sought to collect descriptive information. Mail questionnaires are preferred because the researchers are able to collect information at a low cost and it gives a chance for respondents who can answer when they have time. In addition, respondents are more likely provide honest answers since no interviewer is present to bias their answers. However, as witnessed in this research, the response rate is very low and the researcher does not have control over who answers the questions. In addition, it is hard to gain informed consent with mail questionnaires. The use of a convenience sample of a mail-out survey, the researchers acknowledge that they received an over-representation of females and people who said they did not have a religion. These play out to show that the sample may not be convincingly representative of the Australian population. As earlier said, the researchers did a demographic comparison of the sample to those of the general population and found them to be generally similar. However, with the small response rate, the differences noted between the sample and general population and now the acknowledged limitation of this sample, one may conclude that the representation of the sample to the Australian population is questionable. The findings of these research may not be generalised to the broader population. The researchers admit that some the questionnaire had some terms that were open to subjective interpretations because they did not provide definition to those terms. This may not be blamed on them since they had tested their draft and did a pilot study and these issues were not raised then. Besides, every research has some limitations that may have not be foreseeable. One of the most important areas that this research failed to include is to provide different samples of adverts and have consumers react to them. This may have been because of the method used in data collection (mail-out survey). Collecting data on opinions of actual adverts without spelling out to participants what one is looking for provides unbiased response of attitudes towards different executions and different messages. Finally, the findings of the study inform the conclusion which gives various opinions that the consumers were found to have. This means that regardless of the few limitations the methodology may have posed, the methodology enabled the researchers to achieve the objective of the study and, in the most part, provide answers to the research questions. Read More