THE ROLE OF PRESS ADVERTISING IN ENCOURAGING THE PUBLIC TO PURCHASE

Abstract

This research sheds light on how press advertising affects consumer behavior and draws attention to it by identifying the factors that influence the intellectual perception process or attention to it. The aim of the research was to identify the factors that help achieve the objectives of the press announcement. The aim of the research was to identify the factors that help to achieve the objectives of the press announcement. The research problem was identified in four questions that were answered through a questionnaire distributed to a sample of students of College of Mass Communication, University of Baghdad. Do newspaper advertisements meet the readers’ need to search for the required product or service, as well as indicate the most important elements in the recipient’s press ads, and what is their role in stabilizing the reader’s mental image? This research is descriptive research. The researcher reached a set of conclusions, the most prominent of which were the following: Most of the interests of the respondents in the local newspapers were, respectively, the social, technical, political, sports, military, and finally economic topics. The ads published in the newspapers did not attain a high importance for the researchers, and this is a great indication of the declining position of the ads published in the newspapers While most respondents believe that newspaper ads are no longer able to meet their needs in identifying the nature, location and prices of the required goods and services. Moreover, they are unable to gain their confidence in determining the purchase of the type of goods and services, while most of them felt that they can guide those readers to their place only. The majority of respondents believe that press advertisements can raise happiness for those who purchase an advertised commodity in local newspapers. This is an important factor that can be invested in enhancing the position of newspapers among the means of communication. Most of the respondents are alienated from newspapers where advertisements abound, because they generate boredom and they see that ads are not their goal of reading newspapers. But they read them because they are close to a journalistic material that interests them, and press advertisements are important for industrial activity and they do not encourage wrong behaviors such as drinking wine or cigarettes. Most of the respondents do not trust the ads published in the newspapers. As those ads do not provide a safety factor for them through the information that they provide, according to the opinion of most of them. The respondents' interests in what was published in the press ads were, firstly, clothing, then perfumes, education affairs, entertainment parties, and other items.