ASSESSING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ADVERTISING AT DASHEN BANK SHARE COMPANY IN ADDIS ABABA

Abstract

The study assessed the effectiveness of advertising in the Dashen Bank Share Company in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In the era of globalization where free-market economic system operates and extremely competitive market environment prevails in most countries of the world, advertising has paramount importance in both private and public sectors. More than ever before, advertising has become an integral part of the social and economic systems of most societies in the world. Cognizant of the importance of advertising, business organizations use appropriate advertising strategies and methods to effectively and efficiently communicate with customers in different financial institutions, including Ethiopia. In all Area Branches of Dashen Bank, female customers were found to be dominant ones with more than half (51.4%) of the representation in the study. The majority of the respondents (67.3%) were in the age category of 18-37 years which could relatively be considered as young adults from both sexes. A considerable proportion of the sampled regular customers of Dashen Bank have already achieved a dip0loma educational status. About 71% of the respondents were found to have access to TV as advertising media. The most significant proportion of them also considered TV as the most widely used media by the Bank. The same advertising media was chosen as the most influential media (about 80%). In the same framework, the same media was further the most preferred form of advertising media (75%) among the various types of media used by the Bank. TV which is the most liked advertising media by the responding customers is the influential media to motivate them to become customers of the Bank (r=.622). On the other hand, there exists negative relationship between the most accessible media type and the most influential advertising media which are used by the Bank. Therefore, the most accessible media identified by the customers may not necessarily be influential one to motivate the respondents to become customer of Dashen Bank. The relationship between the most accessible media type and the most liked type of advertising media is not statistically significant. In addition, TV advertisings are the ones which are more recalled by the sampled customers than other types of adverting. Thus, advertisings on TV of the Bank are the most effective media in reaching to the customers and to stay longer in their minds. The broadcast (TV and radio) advertising media used by the Bank were liked most by those people who participated in the study (85%). The same proportion of the respondents expressed the believability of the messages advertised on TV and radio media because they had showed either strong agreement or agreement to the attractiveness of the Bank’s advertising messages communicated. Generally, the Bank’s advertisings have helped the sampled customers to become positive deviants in order to develop positive attitude towards the Bank’s service qualities, to know it in general and then to get influenced and convinced positively to become its customers. Similarly, the findings of the descriptive data analysis were found to be consistent with those above-stated observations. However, the customers’ knowledge of the Bank’s service qualities has no significant effect on their positive action-oriented decisions to become customers of Dashen Bank S.C. Based on the information provided by the Officials in the Marketing Department of the Bank, the study has found out that problems in the Bank’s advertising strategies and methods used as well as in allocating well-planned budget for adverting. Therefore, the study concludes that Dashen Bank S. C. has been effective in the implementation of various types of advertisings on TV and radio in that it uses rational and appealing messages 41 in its advertisings which are believed to be the most effective ones in terms of persuading and convincing customers to take reasonable decisions of joining the bank. It is also recommend that the Bank should use various types of adverting on different types of media and should frequently assess their effectiveness by allocating research-based budget for the advertisings to bring improvements in all aspects of its operations in the future.