DETERMINANTS OF CUSTOMER ATTITUDE TOWARDS SMS ADVERTISEMENT AT ETHIO-TELECOM

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the determinants of customer attitude towards SMS Advertisement at Ethio-Telecom. The underlying paper discusses its relevance and investigates antecedents of consumer attitudes towards SMS advertising via mobile devices and variables influencing it. The analysis is based on a consumer survey. The purpose of the design is to correlate attitude of customers towards SMS advertisement with antecedents of attitude towards advertisements namely entertainment, in formativeness, credibility and irritation. The research approach has a quantitative nature and particularly causal research design was utilized. The study used primary and secondary sources to gather data. Primary data were collected through structured questionnaire for this purpose, 246 customers has been contacted. Descriptive statistics were employed to describe the given data. Inferential statistics such as Correlation analysis and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) model were employed. Cross-sectional study technique is used in this research. Therefore, the result of this data will not include the changes of the targeted respondent characteristic over time. It was found that entertainment value of the advisement and Informativeness are positively correlated to consumers’ overall attitudes towards SMS advertisements. The study further found consumers’ perceptions of the irritation aspect of SMS advertisements is negatively correlated with consumers’ attitudes towards SMS advertisements. The results indicate that attitude toward advertising via mobile devices strongly depends on message nature, meaning its attractiveness and relevance. The message characteristics need to be developed carefully. This study recommend that the nature of the advert should be more informative that contain relevant information uploaded based on customer need assessment, the frequency of messages that delivered to customers should be based on need assessment and consent of customers.