Consumers’ Message Orientation in Television Advertising and Branding: a Study on Indian Consumers

Abstract

The paper defines television advertising message from the consumers' point of view within the discourse of cross-cultural marketing communication. It highlights the ‘consumer preferred’ cultural elements in a scenario, where attitude towards advertisement, attitude towards brand and purchase intentions are absolutely relevant. As the paper explores the major ‘message’ elements employed in television advertisement, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) have been conducted to identify a smaller number of factors. It has been found that for Indian consumers, advertising messages that affect brand relationship in television advertisement are Entertainment, Social Values, Individual Values, Product Information and Logic. These factors have been found to be well identified in the message and can be studied individually. There is no study that draws the attention of Indian consumers towards message from cross-cultural context. This is one of the original studies that respects the practitioners and academics views, but explores the Indian consumers' view to justify the need and importance of future research in this country.