The Levels of Effectiveness of the Point of Purchase Materials of Globe Telecom’s G-Pass Service in Influencing Consumer Response from Metro Rail Transit Users

Abstract

In today’s complex society, people and organizations continue to specialize. In the same manner, Advertising has learned to adapt itself as new products, new challenges, and new communicative situations emerge. As more advertisements pour in each day and media prices get more expensive, advertisers look for more practical ways to get their messages across. Point-of-Purchase Advertising can be one of those avenues where advertisers can focus their efforts on, reaching highly specific markets at minimal costs. POP brings together the ad, the product, and the buyer at the place where the purchase can be made. The study subscribes to Lasswell's Model of Communication and Batra, Myers, and Aaker's Model of (Advertising) Communication and Persuasion Process. These frameworks illustrate well the variables and elements in this research. This descriptive research made use of quantitative methods. Frequency Distribution and Chi-Square were used to interpret and analyze the collected data. The respondents of the survey questionnaire were purposively selected, a total of 100 UP Manila students completed the said instrument. It has been found in this study that the POP materials of Globe Telecom's G-Pass are only moderately effective. This means that the consumer is open to act on the advertisement but is not strongly motivated to do so. In relation to the AIDA principle, it has been found that the booth advertising used by the G-Pass does not elicit much attention and interest, therefore desire and action are low. The respondents commented that the booth itself is only of moderate impact, whose attractiveness is not very special and tends to blend into the background. It has also been found that while there is high awareness of out-of-home media in the MRT stations, the ones placed inside the paid areas are more noticed than those on the ticket-vending areas. In conclusion, the POP materials that were studied appear to be non-intrusive. Passengers, upon seeing the booth advertisements are not very motivated to ask about or purchase the product being offered. It is likely not powerful enough in raising familiarity and awareness of the service and its features. It also does not help that riders and potential viewers are highly mobile and perhaps preoccupied and that the MRT environment does not really allow for leisure strolling nor viewing. Because of the nature of this selling environment, POP materials should be interruptive, so that information will reach possible customers with little effort exerted from the latter. Based on the findings, rhe researcher recommends that the booth advertising of the G- Pass be complemented with POP radio, using a jingle or an announcement over the train line's public announcement system. In this way, audiences are held captive since they have no way to control the radio's frequency and are more likely to be receptive to these announcements because of the hushed ambiance inside the train cars and stations.