Analyzing Advertising's Influence on Coca Cola Purchase Decisions

This report investigates the influence of advertising on consumer purchase decisions, specifically focusing on Coca-Cola customers in the UK. The study aims to determine the impact of advertisements on consumer behavior, exploring the relationship between advertising, brand awareness, and product recall. The research utilizes a descriptive research design, employing a survey method with online questionnaires distributed to 100 respondents in the UK. The methodology includes primary data collection through surveys and secondary data from business articles and journals. The report reviews existing literature on advertising's role in shaping consumer perceptions and purchase behaviors. The conceptual framework outlines the dependent variable of consumer purchase decisions and the independent variables of advertising, brand awareness, and product recall. The study employs a deductive approach, based on positivist philosophy, to test pre-defined theories and explore the causal relationship between advertising and consumer behavior.

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To inquire the influence of advertising
for the consumer purchase decision:
Case of Coca Cola customers in UK?
Task 1
Introduction
An advertisement plays an important role in the perception of customers and modification of
their choice. The entity of advertisement is a must in the modern business world (Vaughn, 1986).
It is the most common way to attract maximum customers and maintain profitable business
strategy. In this era of high degree of competitiveness, advertising is a prerequisite giving
companies a competitive advantage. There is the need for effective advertising to target the
maximum number of customers (Pickett-Baker, and Ozaki, 2008).
Advertising paid communication with the public can be achieved through various forms of
media, like Radio, magazines, television, posters and newspapers. A company uses advertising to
convince, inform and remind their target group of customers about products or services. The
advertisement persists in regard of consumers’ attitudes worldwide (Gupta, Su and Walter,Z.,
2004). Consumers have their respective sources of motivation through advertising. It was
obvious, through much research that encourages advertising material to consumers (Dean, 1999;
Laurent and Kapferer, 1985).
To increase demand and awareness, Coca Cola has made traditional tools and advanced them for
the public. The company is investing a higher budget for the opportunity to more present their
brands to a number of people effectively and efficiently (Srinivasan, Rutz, and Pauwels, 2016). It

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is very likely that Coca Cola will lose their customers if contemporary advertising strategies are
not designed with the passage of time (Percy, Elliott and Rosenbaum-Elliott, 2016). For this
reason, the company should have a clear idea of how the current advertising strategies are
beneficial to bring the company's customers to the company (Zhang and Zhang, 2007).
Research Aim
The aim of this study is to find out the effect laid by advertisements on customers’ purchasing
decisions to buy Coke in UK.
Research Scope
The research scope is based on figuring out the influence of advertising and to explore the reason
why a big multinational company like Coca Cola is interested to invest hugely on outdoor
advertising.
Research Objectives
The objectives for this research are mentioned below:
 To inquire the impact of advertising on consumer purchasing decision.
 To explore the aspects linked with advertising leading to consumer purchase decision.
 To assess the influence of advertisements of Coca Cola on customers

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Success Criteria of Research
The research will be unbiased and the research respondents will be selected randomly. This will
help to enable accurate results to achieve the research objectives. The collection of primary and
secondary data will also lead to provide meaningful information on the research subject.
TimeScale
Research Questions
The research questions are as follows:
 What is the impact of advertising on consumer purchasing decision?
 What are the aspects linked with advertising leading to consumer purchase decision?
 What is the influence of advertisements of Coca Cola on customers?

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Justify the choice of research question
The research questions are selected in order to identify the research motives and explore the
influence of advertising in context of purchasing decision of the customer.
Summary of tasks
Task 2
2.1 Evaluate research techniques to assess their suitability for the project
2.2 Select suitable research techniques
2.3 Develop a detailed research proposal
The research will be accompanied with the review on the literature based on advertising and the
consumers’ choice and their relative purchase decision. The literature will include various
researches of research analysts in context of the topic of the research study
Research Strategy
The survey method of research rather selects a balanced sample from a population and makes use
of questionnaires to illicit information. The questionnaires can be completed in person, on
telephone or electronic mail depending on the requirements of the study. Surveys are usually
used to collect information that can be applied to a population.
Surveys are used for the collection of data in this research where the research respondents will be
interviewed by the help of online questionnaires.

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Research Design
Descriptive research is another stage in the research process. The exact timing of this may vary
but the purpose is to fill in the missing information by providing additional aspects. Analytical
research makes use of critical thinking and data evaluation techniques to read between the lines.
Data is not taken at face value; rather underlying factors are identified and discussed.
The design of this research will be descriptive, as the impact of advertising on customer
purchasing decisions has to be sought.
3.5 Data Collection Methods
The data will be collected through requesting the selected research participants to fill out the
survey forms. The survey questionnaire will be designed to have structured questions in order to
facilitate the respondents so they can answer in the shortest possible time.
3.5.1 Primary Data Collection
The primary data is collected by the help of the research surveys from the targeted respondents.
3.5.2 Secondary Data Collection
The secondary data is collected from sources like business articles, journals and research reports.
Sampling & Targeted Respondents
The selected region for this research is United Kingdom where the research respondents are
approached by means of online questionnaires. The total sample size for this research is 100
where the sampling technique is chosen to be random sampling. The research respondents are
asked several questions in order to identify their purchase decision and to explore the impact of
advertisements of Coca Cola.

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3.1Identify sources of information and literature relevant to the research question
3.2 Critically review literature to inform the development of the research proposal or the
research project
3.3 Record and report literature review in an appropriate format for the project
The research articles are searched on account of the availability of information on the proposed
topic of the research. The names are acquired by internet, business articles and research journal
sources. The names of the research articles are listed in the references section.
Literature Review
It has been identified that advertising helps to attract and retain customer in a number of ways, as
the brand identity among the customers is created by the company (Moriarty, Mitchell, Wells et
al, 2017). Advertising allows to develop perception of the product upon the customer and invites
a consumer to buy that particular advertised product (Kim and Kang, 2001). Advertising
develops emotional association for the product in a consumer mind and convinces customers to
make a purchase decision. Many attempts have been made with a particular goals and objectives
for identifying the purchasing decision in effect of the ad in the buyer's electoral process (Bart,
Stephen, and Sarvary, 2014; Hoyer, 1984).
Obviously, the main advantage of advertising for businesses is to raise awareness among
consumers about their products. Verma (2009) portrayed the positive image of the brand, which
in turn sends a message customers buy the product as finished, taking into account the effect of
advertising images and buyer behaviour in the population brand purchases General. The sample
size used for this study was 350 and the responses of the study was collected to confirm the
results. The results of this study are limited in scope because the authors did not take any specific

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product in consideration. Instead, the study was performed in order to raise public awareness
regarding advertising products (Verma; 2009).
At present, the impact of the information and media worlds, advertising accept an important role
in behavioural change, and how customers appear in actions. It has been observed that
advertising have been used for centuries for a variety of brands (Huang and Sarigöllü, 2014).
During the lifetime of the last two decades, a sharp increase in advertising of brands have been
observed. Advertising have an incredible impact on the customer decision for some brands. Ads
fulfils the increase in profits that enables a firm to acquire more sales. (Gabler, Landers and
Reynolds, 2017)
Advertising supports a company in building a strong brand and objectify products of the
company by the help of portraying unique selling point (USP). The approach of advertising is
one of the current approach which is used by managers of different brands to reach their goal.
This could be the reason for their social position. People have a perception that they need to wear
"right" clothes, drink the "right" sodas and use "right" perfumes for which they buy things
(Ackerberg, 2003.).
In recent decades, one of the key questions the company makes is to learn how the buyer reacts
to different things that are used to achieve their goal. The research on customer behaviour is in
continuous process as it has been a problem for advertisers because buyers might be able to
collect as their items and authorities needed to solve many problems affecting the variables that
affect their decision (Wang, Lu, and Ye, 2016).
Reynolds and Olson (2001) found that the main purpose of the review of consumer behaviour is
to explain why buyers act in special circumstances. The firms try to choose the segments that
affect the behaviour of buyers, especially in the context of money, social and mental attitudes,

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which can be further argued the mixture that the organization should choose the presentation.
Examine the behaviour of consumers, choose the course, the buyer behaviour is willing to do,
and give preferential examples in the progression of things, and qualities of the specific context
of the alternatives, etc. (Song, Sahoo, Srinivasan et al, 2016).
It is assumed that the buyer is "perceived", that is, respond in the header the theory to suggest
money and reference business points. Regardless of this, it is clear as often as possible that no
buyer test consummately fall into these typical cases. During the buyer's review behaviour "is not
driven too far, another device is to assess the complexity of the operation display. The company
is one of the most convincing devices that make the correspondence to show really customers to
buy things. It has also darkened a strong connection with the eagerness and media development
of the lines of perception of AIDA and incitement. Nevertheless, the attitude surrounds the
commercial support for the prospects of consumers' influence on the brand at the point of
purchase. The buyer receives the confident behaviour on the thought he / she purchase a
fundamental thing (Ogden, Ogden and Schau, 2004).
Advertising is an extraordinary means of communication that combines the ability of
imagination, creativity, thought, and reflection and advance the progress of new things and
remembers the changes in the former approach. Advertising also suggests that an idea of the
mind with the work of the hill and work needs. Advertising can tell the extraordinary and
supernatural. It has been seen that people in the general population are influenced hugely by
advertising. In today's world media in motion, an organization can adopt a key element of
appraising the advertising strategies (Wyer, 2016).

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2.2 Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework for this research study is derived by the help of the literature review.
The framework consists of two variables which are dependent and independent in nature. There
is one identified dependent variable in this research study which is consumer purchase decision.
There are three independent variables which are advertising, brand awareness and product recall
by the consumer. The dependent variable is the result while independent variable is the cause.
The following diagram embodies the conceptual framework of this study:
Consumer Purchase Decision Brand Awareness
Advertising
Product Recall
I
n
d
e
p
e
n
d
e
n
t
V
a
r
i
a
b
l
e
s
Dependent variable

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Methodology
The deductive approach focuses on causality and presents a hypothesis upfront since it is aimed
at testing a pre-defined theory. This study will be utilizing the deductive approach since the
conceptual framework and hypothesis are being developed taking help from the previously
established scholarly theories.
Positivism is a theory based on the idea that all events that occur under natural phenomena occur.
Sensory experience is the foundation of all knowledge through reason and logic. Because the
focus is on the interactions between individuals, therefore this research study is based on the
positivist philosophy and noted that the most appropriate as the data on consumer perception will
be collected accordingly. The data is analyzed by the help of qualitative analysis where excel is
used in order to provide answers to the research and fulfill the objectives of the study.
4.1 Collect and analyse data and information to inform research
4.2 Synthesise data and information to support results and conclusions of research
The questionnaire is prepared in order to fulfill the objectives of the research study. The research
questions are designed in respect to the questionnaire (listed in the Appendix-I). The
questionnaire consists of eight questions where seven questions are closed ended while the last
question is open ended. The reason for listing closed ended question in order to find definite
responses from the research respondent while the open ended are kept to observe the essential
data in context of the research questions.
The first question was asked to identify the number and percentage of male and female
respondents in the research examination. The research had 100 respondents and the distribution
of the gender percentage is shown in the diagram below:

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Male Female
70%
30%
Gender
Gender
The answer to the question revealed that there were 70% male while the female
respondents were 30%. This constitutes that the total number of men were 70 while the number
of women were 30.
The second question was asked in order to identify the age group of research respondents.
The questionnaire had four categories where the research respondents marked their age group.
The age distribution can be viewed from the pie chart shown below:
37%
32%
19%
12%
Age Group
15 - 30 years old 31 - 45 years old 46 - 60 years old 61 years and avoe

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The pie chart shows that 15-30 years old respondents were 37% (37 participants), the
respondents in the age group of 31-45 years of age were 32% (32 participants), the respondents
in the age group of 46-60 years were 19% (19 participants) and the respondents belonging to the
age group of 61 years and above were 12% (12 participants) respectively.
Question 3 was asked to ask the view of respondents about the advertisements of Coca Cola. The
likeness of an advertisements plays an important role in buying the product. The following graph
displays the results:
Yes No
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Do you lik e Coca Cola’s
A dver ti sem ents
Percentage
It was revealed that 86 respondents liked the advertisement of the soft drink while 13
respondents said that they do not like it. The reason for not liking the advertisement was
the continuity of ads on specific time intervals irritates the viewer.
The next question was asked in order to know whether the country of the origin of the
respondents does have any effect on the buying decision in context of the advertising
strategies of the company or not. The answers recorded from the participants are shown
in the diagram below: