The Perceived Effectiveness of Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Transit Advertisements in Influencing Consumer Reaction

Abstract

Transit advertising, or the use of promotional materials in motion, has been a prevalent way of non-traditional advertising. It began in 1831 in New York but its resurgence only happened recently as more organizations tried to deviate from traditional advertising. This descriptive study researched on the different factors that affect the effectiveness of transit advertisements, particularly those that are found in the interior of the MRT trains. The criteria made by the study combined both physiological and psychological screens. These screens are perceived to influence the buying tendencies of a Filipino. With a population of 900,000 MRT passengers daily and the nature of the respondents being mobile, 100 respondents were purposively selected to answer the survey. They were students from the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman. Since it is the largest university situated near an MRT station, the probability of getting a respondent was high. From the survey, the respondents were asked to describe the advertisements. The physiological screens were evaluated at this part. Nearly half of the respondents ride the MRT either once or twice a week. In general, the respondents said the text is readable, the color combination is from fair to good, the amount of text and image is balanced, the nature of text is fair, and the size is just right. Subsequently, the respondents were asked to agree or disagree with different statements. These statements were designed to evaluate the psychological screens, particularly to find out the manifestation of Filipino consumer traits. It was found out that the respondents exhibited the bandwagon mentality, sabi nila attitude (belief in hearsays), hiyang attitude (brand contentment), celebrity/personality fascination, and saw/a attitude (decrease in interest or significance). Lastly, the respondents were asked to compare transit advertisements with traditional visual advertising, namely, billboards, print advertisements, and television commercials. Most still agreed that they were better than transit materials. From a scale of 1 to 10, the average effectiveness rating given by the respondents was 6.23. In this study, it was found out that there is a high level of awareness given to the advertisements inside the MRT. Both physiological and psychological screens affected a person’s cognition of an advertisement. These factors were deemed to be influential whenever a person is exposed to a brand advertisement. The study also concluded that although transit advertising is only an emerging means of non-traditional promotion, it delivers proportional results as of those with traditional advertising. The study recommended the use of random sampling as its method for the selection of the respondents to further strengthen the findings of the study. The lack of cooperation from the management of MRT to conduct the survey in their premises made the researcher to resort to purposive sampling. Furthermore, the criteria made by the study should be validated by professionals in advertising.