An Overview Of Teaser Advertising

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015 Last Modified: 25 Apr 2017

Zoon, V.I.B, 'On ne peut l'arreter'; these ad shouts for one's attention but there is no brand name. As you pass by, the hoardings yell out to you - they look extremely familiar but yet they reveal nothing except the promise of more to come. Sometimes they work in a tizzy while sometimes they ask a response out of you. It is suspense with a purpose to tease. These are Teaser advertising.

In Mauritius, this style of advertising - which tend to advertise for a new product while keeping the target audience interest arouse each day and at the same time creating a sort of buzz around the ad-the teaser, has become a craze lately. The Zoon Teaser advertising proved to be successful in teasing people. Nevertheless some people consider Teaser advertising to be 'Much Ado about Nothing' (quoting the word of Shakespeare).

But, why is there so much fantasy about communicating and advertising a product? Today, advertising is considered by many to be the most important factor in the success of the company as most organizations -small and large- that rely on marketing to create customer interest, are engaged in consistent use of advertising to help meet marketing objectives. An organization can have the best idea, product or service, but without effectively delivering their messages to its target market, these ideas, products and services can go unnoticed. An effective creative campaign in the form of a teaser can set a company apart from the competition and allows it to give to its potential customers an image of what makes the brand different from the competition which has for goal to be top of the mind of these busy consumers. This means that the name of the business or the brand is the first thing that pops into their head, when looking for a product in the respective category. Furthermore, given information asymmetry that prevails in the market, advertising is a communication tool that cannot be missed to signal potential clients and Teaser advertising with its ability to create buzz and word of mouth is for sure a successful method to spread news about a subject. But even if advertising including Teaser plays a crucial role in positioning the product in the mind of customers, does this type of advertising push people to buy the advertised product as such?

Therefore does this type of advertising always work? Does it create this sort of 'buzz' that it wants to cause? Does it create this sort of 'buzz' that it wants to cause? Does it has an impact on people and how do they react to it? Does it act as a source of motivation for customers to purchase? To know more about this interesting aspect of advertising and to explore this specific area of advertising, a study has been conducted towards this perspective by considering the recent teaser ads in Mauritius. This study will allow discovering and evaluating this particular technique of advertising and explore the surrounding galaxy of such tool of advertising.

1.1 Aims and Objectives

Ø Understanding the concept of Teaser advertising

o Teaser Ad as an advertising practice

o Teaser Ad as a communication tool

o Teaser Ad in relation with customer attitudes

Ø Evaluating the effectiveness of Teaser advertising in the Mauritian context

Ø Analysing Teaser ad as a source of motivation for customers to purchase

1.2 Hypotheses

Hypothesis 1:

H0: There is no relationship between Teaser advertising and frequency of purchase

H1: There is a relationship between Teaser advertising and frequency of purchase

Hypothesis 2:

H0: There is no relationship between Teaser ad as a source of motivation and purchasing decisions.

H1: There is a relationship between Teaser ad as a source of motivation and purchasing decisions.

Hypothesis 3:

H0: There is no relationship between Teaser effectiveness and level of expectation of revelation of the ad.

H1: There is a relationship between Teaser effectiveness and level of expectation of revelation of the ad.

Hypothesis 4:

H0: There is no relationship between teaser ad as a communication tool and purchasing decisions.

H1: There is a relationship between teaser ad as a communication tool and purchasing decisions.

Hypothesis 5:

H0: There is no relationship between buyers' self-concept towards teaser advertising and purchase intention of that product.

H1: There is a relationship between buyers' self-concept towards teaser advertising and purchase intention of that product.

Hypothesis 6:

H0: There is no relationship between religion and purchasing intention.

H1: There is a relationship between religion and purchasing intention

Chapter 2

Literature Review

2.0 Introduction

Under this chapter, teaser advertising will be treated as a style of doing advertising among others and also the concept of teaser advertising with relation customers. Thus teaser advertising will be defined under 3 main heading. Moreover, this chapter covers literatures on the development of this particular type of advertising in Mauritius. This section will try to analyse Teaser ad as a source of motivation for customers to purchase with reference to different literatures from various authors. Concrete authors' examples will be used.

2.1 What is advertising?

According to Smith et al. (1998), there exist twelve different communication tools available to a marketer. As per Leiss (1972), "advertising has been recognized as a major vehicle of social communication in the field of marketing in modern Western society."

Kotler and Armstrong (2007) provide an alternative definition:

"Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services through mass media such as newspapers, magazines, television or radio by an identified sponsor".

Advertising is the promotion of products and services carried out by companies principally to drive sales of the products and services and equally to establish brand identity and to communicate changes or new products or services to the customers. Marketers have identified several reasons for advertising, among which are as follows:

* Increasing the sales of the product/service

* Creating and maintaining a brand identity or brand image.

* Communicating a change in the existing product line.

* Introduction of a new product or service.

* Increasing the buzz-value of the brand or the company.

Thus, just like, there are several reasons for advertising; similarly there exist various media that effectively can be employed for advertising. Based on these criteria there can be several styles of advertising which will be discussed below.

2.2 Styles of advertising

The creative style of execution refers to the manner in which a particular appeal is transformed into a message of publicity which is presented to the consumer.

According to the research done by Tony Yeshin (1997), the following are the most common styles of advertising:

2.3 Teaser advertising

The Marketing Dictionary and Barron's Educational Series, 2007 defines teaser advertising as:

"A brief advertisement designed to tease the public by offering only bits of information without revealing either the sponsor of the ad or the product being advertised".

2.3.1 Teaser advertising: As an advertising practice

According to this theory by Joannis (1995), the very old principle of Teaser advertising is to arouse the curiosity of the prospect by communicating to it the first part of the completely mysterious message. It is supposed to hold ones' attention and brings him/her to seek the second part of the message. Joannis (1995) also points out that this second part would not have been read if the curiosity excites by the first part, is very far away from the subject.

Joe O'Donnell (2002) puts forward:

"If they've got the right target audience and the right media, the audience is going to pay attention to the teaser campaign as it develops."

Jean-Marc Lehu (2006) for his part stresses that Teaser advertising is characterised by a two phases advertising campaign.

This technique can consist of two or even three teasers. (Lehu,2006)

Source: Two Phases Advertising Campaign adapted by Jean-Marc Lehu, 2006

Bruce Miller (2002) classifies the 'HERE' Teaser campaign in Baltimore (the largest city and cultural center of the U.S. state of Maryland) as an effective advertising practice.

The revelation part of the Teaser

Christopher Jacob (2006) puts forward that the revelation of certain Teaser ads are weak which eventually have a negative impact on consumer's purchasing decisions. For example in 2007, in France the Teaser advertising for Transatlantis proved to be very effective, however the revelation which relates to the offer (a journey) was somehow weak which eventually had a negative effect on customer's purchasing decisions.

2.3.2 Teaser advertising: As a communication tool

According to Hung (2000), teaser ads rely heavily on nonverbal executional cues to communicate.

As a copywriting approach to break through confusion, teaser ads provide incomplete information (Kover 1995) and rely on lush visual images, accompanied by music or other sound effects, to create an attractive image for the advertised brand and its users.

Aaker et al. (1992) considers:

"It is through teaser advertising that we can provide creative advertising along with effective communication. This is because; this style of advertising not only attracts the target consumers' attention, but also generates interest and educates the consumer about the product benefits and positioning, thus acting as an effective tool of communication."

Teaser ad is a powerful tool used to convey message to the target audience but in its own style of creating curiosity on what the ad is about and thus directs the attention of target audience (Journal of Advertising, 2001)

Erik Schmuckler (1999) views Lee Jeans' Teaser ad as an effective communication tool in terms of delivering the right message to the target audience. The main idea behind this mystery ad was to show that this particular brand is cool to wear. Lee became very cool very fast.

According to the agency's (Fallon McElligott, 1999) tracking study, perceptions that the brand was becoming more popular and was "cool to wear" jumped 10 percentage points from 25 to 35 percent and their sell-in of the Dungarees line was four times higher than anticipated. Most importantly, Lee gained 3 percent in market share in a flat year while Levi's dropped just as many percentage points.

2.3.3 Teaser advertising: With relation to customer attitudes

Lutz (1985) defines customers' attitudes towards Teaser advertising as a learnt tendency to react in a favourable or unfavourable manner to Teaser campaign in general. According to Bauer and Greyser (1968), Teaser ad had important economic and social effects and built up a set of belief items associated with positive and negative outcomes of such ad in these specific areas. The attitudes of customers towards teaser advertising vary from one another.

With particular reference to www.agencyfaqs.com, the following are some thoughts on teaser advertising with respect to customers:

Ø "Teaser campaigns are a bit like lemon. If one squeeze them too much they become bitter. One should quickly take out the juice and make the lemonade (as in the main campaign), rather than squeeze it drop by drop till it becomes too sour for anybody's liking"

Ø "Teaser ads are not cash cows in terms of immediate sale, but if one notices, they are always at the top of the mind..."

Ø "Teasers tease the consumers and do stimulate to buy provided it is a launch product or a new sensational stuff. Gums are fun to chew and get better on chewing more but loose the juice on chewing too long."

Ø "What a waste of advertising money!"

2.4 Development of teaser advertising

According to Dan S. Kennedy (2006), the main problem with carrying out big ad in the newspaper, in a trade journal, or in a national magazine is the number of people one pay for simply do not see it. This means that on any one day, ones best prospects may be out of town, sick in bed, or too busy to read newspaper.

As a solution to this problem, one strategy to focus attention on ones big ad is to precede it with a series of tiny, low-cost teaser ads. For example, a new computer store eager of making the business community aware of its existence for two months, in the weekly city business journal, ran small display ads. (Dan S. Kennedy, 2006)

2.5 Teaser advertising in Mauritius

Past research done by L'Express (2005) proves that many people are still unaware of this great phenomenon in advertising in Mauritius. This is because many people have difficulty in associating the 'Teaser' with advertising, or for the new generation this concept is still new, except those having knowledge in the marketing field. But if one asks someone about the 'Zoon' teaser advertising campaign, they will definitely recall it. In fact, Zoon was launched in October 2005 to assess the effectiveness of billboards. But primarily the billboard was featuring a dog (who was lost and his master apparently launch this ad campaign for it and even propose a big sum of money as reward), but this was all a teaser. This was done just to make zoon becoming the talk of the town as per Mr. Vincent Montocchio; Creative Director of Circus (L'express October 2005).

However, this particular teaser advertising is not the first one to appear in Mauritius. In fact, by the end of the eighties, one among the first teaser advertising which was famous to the public, is the one developed for the national airline company; Air Mauritius by the Immedia advertising agency. They placed a koala in 3D in front of Queen Victoria in front of the government house, without any indication what it is. This created curiosity among the general public and became the talk of not just the town but of the whole country, and it was even on the first page of the newspaper. A few days later, the teaser was revealed; it in fact introduces Air Mauritius first flight to Australia.

Subsequently, this teaser advertising campaign has brought the emergence of other teaser ads and fifteen years after, this style of advertising is still present. (Poonoosamy, 2006)

2.6 The 'When' of teaser advertising in Mauritius

This is commonly used by new products and new businesses to create an element of intrigue and curiosity and build excitement and anticipation. A good example is the launch campaign for the Nissan Micra (Baker, 1994) and the initial campaign for Cable and Wireless. (Tony Yeshin, 1997)

Generally, not all advertising agencies in Mauritius get involved in Teaser advertising, because it depends highly on the client's product positioning, budget of the client and most importantly, what does the client want; what dose the brand wants to say during the advertising campaign. But then when does one engage in teaser advertising?

Figure 2. 3: When to do teaser in Mauritius

New Product Launching

According to Belch and Belch (2003), the teaser advertising has for key objective to reveal the brand after hiding it for some time and after keeping this moment of pure intrigue. Therefore it will be wise to say that teaser advertising will best be adapted when the company is launching a new product or brand. For example, in France, the merger Neuf Telecom and Cegetel used online teaser ads to introduce its new subsidiary Neuf Cegetel that was meant to specialize in mobile communications (www.journaldunet.com). A local example is the national lottery LOTO where a Teaser campaign was used to advertise this product since it was new in the Mauritian market.

New Business

According to blimpcam.com, it is very important for a new business to generate customer interest before a business opens its doors. To achieve this, some businesses do teaser advertising. For example a teaser ad may be, 'the countdown has begun; there are only 60 days until a certain company opens". However in Mauritius, this particular style of advertising does not only used for new business but also for existing one. A recent example of Teaser ad in Mauritius for an existing business is Orange.

2.7 Evaluation of teaser advertising

All advertising efforts-regardless of its styles, are directed mainly towards the attainment of various objectives (in terms of business, marketing and advertising) i.e., to increase the sales turnover and thus to market the maximum profit. The advertiser spends millions of rupees in this activity. In the background of all these hard work, is an effort to attract the customer towards the product through advertising.

Pollay and Mittal (1993) put forward that Teaser advertising influences consumers on three levels namely:

Ø economic level

Ø personal level

Ø social level

However, in reality, does advertising especially Teaser ad really motivates ones to carry out the purchase activity?

Hristo Ivanov Katranjiev (2000) points out that in most cases, the ultimate response is purchase. Normally, consumers pass through six stages (see figure 2.4) in their way to making a purchase.

Phillip Kotler, Gary Armstrong (2001) suggest that prior to the first stage, consumers may be completely unaware of the product, know only its name or know a bit about it. So, there is a need to build awareness first and then knowledge. When Nissan introduced its Infinity automobile line, it started with with an extensive "teaser" advertising campaign to build name familiarity. Original ads for the Infiniti created curiosity and awareness by showing the car's name only and not the car. Later ads created knowledge by informing potential buyers of the car's high quality and many innovative features and continued like this till the last stage. In common cases, Teaser ads act as a source of motivation for customers to purchase activity.

2.7.1 Teaser advertising as a source of motivation for customers to purchase

According to David A.Aaker (1989), usually advertising in general is not well suited to directly precipitate action. Rather it is better at conducting some communication, association or persuasion task that will hopefully result in the desired action being precipitated. A communication results in the audience members' learning something new or gaining an improved understanding or memory of some fact.

However, according to David A.Aaker (1989), Teaser advertising is one of the many forces that motivate customers to purchase. That is this style of advertising is well suited to directly precipitate action of purchase (see figure 2.5).

According to Henri Joannis (1995), Teaser ad is actually an altered version of a very old model of advertising, the AIDA model, which points out that an announce must draw attention, arise interest, inculcate the desire and provoke action. Joannis (1995) also stresses on the fact that Teaser ad is altered in the way that the factor attention is separated from the factor interest and desire by the use of suspense element that creates curiosity.

In advertising settings, consumers are assumed to go through a process to compare Teaser ad contents with self-concept when they are exposed to the advertising messages. According to Markus et al. (1985), self-concept does not just have the meaning of mere knowledge of facts, but rather, it is a cognitive structure which is related with strong feelings and motivations.

While research pertaining to the effect of self-concept on purchase intention is rare, Landon (1974) and Belch (1978) found that both actual and ideal self-concept influence purchase intention (though their degree of relative impact is different). That is, the more closely the teaser ad matches the buyers' self-concept, the higher the purchase intention for that product.

However, previous research done by Hristo Ivanov Katrandjiev (2000) proves that Teaser advertising is cheaper than sales promotion and more expensive than public relations, but often evokes negative feelings (such as annoyance, anger, distrust, etc.).

Paul Hague (2001) states that the AIDA hierarchical model follows the decision making process from "lighting the lamp" for people through to the sale itself. At each level in the process the number of people drastically diminishes so that those who take action are a small fraction of those who are aware of or interested in the product (see figure 2.6).

Kim Shyan Fam et al. (2004) point out that religious beliefs play a major role in shaping human behaviour towards a particular ad no matter of its styles. According to Deng et al. (1994), religion also controls gender roles in a particular culture.

As per Philippe Tesseron (2006), the very effective style of advertising-Teaser ad was used in France for a hypermarket. The first billboard was introduced anonymously, without brand but with a promising revelation. Comparatively, that everybody, especially the religious ones, seems to remember the great advertising campaign which became a real scoop in 1981. There was a young woman in bikini which promises to take out her top then the bottom as they change posters, then to discover the reveal-a naked woman from the back with the slogan-"Avenir Advertising-They hold their promises".

Philippe Tesseron (2006) points out that this teaser ad on the hypermarket in France did not really act as a source of motivation for customers to do the act of purchase, but rather this ad arise questions: Is the body merchandise that we use to satisfy the desires of some advertisers? What is the relationship between the opening of a hypermarket and the back of a woman or man in underwear on posters and billboards? So the Myriam advertising campaign realized in France 1981 on the hypermarket has created lots of controversies. Philippe Tesseron (2006) also points out that these controversies were not only due to religious beliefs but on ethical ground which eventually lead to the idea that religion alone does not influence purchasing decisions.

2.8 Summary

Teaser advertising has for objective to create attention around a subject and to trigger curiosity its prospect. This technique of advertising is done in two phases. Despite the Zoon Teaser in Mauritius was a real success as it has been playing a lot on emotions, there exist lots of controversies of this style of advertising because of ethical aspects of some of the visuals displayed. Finally it is mentioned that Teaser ad acts as a source of motivation but does it really influence consumers in their purchasing decisions and force them to do the purchase activity. For this, various literatures from different authors have been used so as to obtain a deep understanding of the subject.

Chapter 3

Research Methodology

3.0 Introduction

According to Zikmund, research is the systematic and objective process of gathering, recording and analyzing of data for aid in making decisions (Zikmund, 2000). Advertising related research provides information in several areas, for example the uses of research pertaining specifically to the creative execution (Michelet, 2006).

While carrying out research, it is important for us to look at the steps in the research process that will be handled further in this chapter.

3.1 Step 1: Formulation of the research problem

The marketing environment is constantly changing and therefore marketers or managers have to address new issues which may create opportunities or problems for their organizations (Wilson, 2003). As far as Teaser advertising is concerned, some ad agencies and advertisers have forgotten what this style of advertising should do and how they should do it. As a consequence, some of the advertising produced in Mauritius has substantial flaws that limit its value as a communication tool.

Therefore, the present study investigates the perception of the Mauritian consumers on Teaser advertising. Basically, consumers' inference to the nature and purpose of mystery advertising has been decided. The following questions also have been addressed: how far does Teaser ad influence consumers in their purchase decisions, where there are similar types of advertising as well as lots of ad messages in today's clutter. The result is ineffective advertising that gives nothing to potential consumer and the advertiser. With lots of repeated ads, can advertising in terms of teaser advertising deliver information people need and want to make them make intelligent purchase decision and motivate them to buy?

Thus, a survey has been carried out and it has the following objectives:

Ø Understand the concept of Teaser advertising

o Teaser Ad as an advertising practice

o Teaser Ad as a communication tool

o Teaser Ad in relation with customer attitudes

Ø Evaluate the effectiveness of Teaser advertising in the Mauritian context

Ø Analyse Teaser ad as a source of motivation for customers to purchase.

3.2 Step 2: Determine Research Design

Research Design is simply the framework or plan for a study used as a guide in collecting and analyzing data. There are some important research design frameworks that are classified as:

Ø Exploratory

Ø Conclusive - (a) Descriptive

(b) Causal Research

This study is an attribute of both exploratory and descriptive research. It is to be noted that due to time and other constraints, a true exploratory design involving techniques like focus groups were not adopted for the study.

3.2.1 Exploratory Research

An exploratory research principally for this study has been conducted in order to find out the point of view of Mauritian consumers on Teaser advertising and also to identify the factors that influence their perception of Teaser advertising. This will help in the assessment of Teaser ad as a source of motivation for customers to purchase. Thus, the following hypotheses (with reference to various authors) were developed:

3.2.2 Descriptive research

Since the objectives of the study require information to be generated about Teaser advertising as a source of motivation for customers to purchase, this study is descriptive in nature as well.

3.3 Step 3: Determining Data Collection Methods

3.3.1 Secondary Data

Secondary data is information that has been previously gathered for some purpose other than the current research. As such secondary data which includes newspapers such as L'Express, the Internet and journal articles was collected externally.

3.3.2 Primary Data

It is collected by a program of observation, qualitative or quantitative research either separately or in combination. For this study, both quantitative and qualitative researches were chosen.

Quantitative Research: This approach was used so as to identify the influence of Teaser ad on purchasing decisions. Hence, a survey was conducted where questionnaires were designed and administered to the target population so as to get the required information.

Qualitative Research: This research was as important in this study so as to gain a deeper understanding of Teaser ad as a source of motivation to make purchase as a subject matter. So, the questionnaires were administered face-to-face. The main advantage was the high response rate and doubts and misunderstandings were cleared on the spot. In addition, since it is quite difficult to quantify each respondent's behaviour and perceptions, qualitative data was precious to know how the respondents feel when they are involved in decision making process.

Hence, the use of different research methods allowed building on the strengths of each method as well as minimizing their weaknesses. The weaknesses of the quantitative method have been compensated by qualitative method and vice versa.

3.4 Step 4: Design Data Collection Forms

Once the research has been designed, it is now time to begin collecting the data by considering the following types of research and appropriate methods of collection.

3.4.1 Research Instrument: The Questionnaire

For the survey, the questionnaire was the main research instrument. The questionnaire was mainly structured making it simple to administer and easy to tabulate and analyse. The latter contained some open-ended questions as well. Emphasis was laid on the wordings and sequence of the questions. This was important in order to ensure the validity of any comparisons to be made among different respondents.

Reasons for choosing specific instruments:

Generally, questionnaires are ways to gather data from a potentially large number of respondents. It ensures the validity of any comparison being made between different respondent's answers, as well as providing data in a form that can be easily be analysed. Moreover, the different questions related to the objective of the study could be asked.

3.4.1.1 Questionnaire Design

Ø Structure of the questionnaire

The questionnaire was design by the use of different types of questions which are as follows:

Open ended - Such questions provide the respondents complete freedom to decide the form, length and detail of the answer. This kind of questions is most preferred when one is interested in knowing the upper most in the mind of respondents.

Dichotomous - This type of questions consists of only two types of response: yes or no.

Scale - Here, a scale is used for the purpose of rating something.

Multiple Choice questions - For such questions, the respondents are provided with 2 or more choices.

Ø Questionnaire Content - Section A

Ø Questionnaire Content - Section B

This section analyses the demographic profile of customers and consist of questions involving, gender, age group, status, region, occupation and income group. All questions are of personal nature. This information is necessary in the survey as it will help in cross-tabulations and hence make statistical inferences.

3.4.1.2 Pilot Testing

Pilot testing involves administering to a limited number of potential respondents in order to identify and correct design flaws. For this purpose a pilot test of 10 respondents were chosen to test the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. This exercise enables us to identify errors in the format, nature of questions, and judge respondent reaction to the questionnaire and determine the overall appropriateness of the questionnaire to the target population. Following this exercise, minor changes were made to the questionnaire to improve it and to minimize any further misunderstanding by other respondents.

The following modifications were made in the questions:

Ø In question 4(a), the option 'nothing' was added so that people who do not know or remember the slogan of Le Matinal and LOTO ad can choose this option.

Ø Question 15 was included so as to gain an idea of the level of expectation formed by the consumer after being exposed to Teaser ads.

Ø Question 21 was added to know the religion of the respondents.

3.5 Step 5: Design sample and collect data

The next step in the research process is to select those elements from which the information will be collected.

3.5.1 Defining the Population

The population of interest is the total group of people that the researcher wishes to examine study or obtain information from. Thus the population for this study was the general Mauritian people itself. Therefore people from 18 to 65 years old were selected.

3.5.2 Sampling Method

For the study, a non-probability sample was used. In fact, in a non-probability sample, there is no way of estimating the probability that any population element will be included in the sample (Churchill, 1996). For administering the questionnaire, quota sampling was used.

Age group	CSO Statistics (1st July 2008)	Sample taken for the survey
18-29	196,432	25
30-54	459,575	58
55-69	138,562	17
Total	794,569	100

3.5.2.1 Sample size

The sample size determines the number of member of the population to be surveyed. For this research, the sample size chosen was 100.

3.5.3 Data Collection

The questionnaire was administered to customers aged 18-65 years as a face to face during the month of February 2010. Most of the respondents contacted and recruited were from the working population and few of them were student and retired ones. All were randomly chosen.

3.6 Step 6: Processing and analyzing the data

When all data have been collected, they were inputted on the SPSS software (Version 16.0) as well as Microsoft Excel 2000. A preliminary analysis was made using basic statistics such as frequencies, cross tabulations and graphical representations. Further thorough analysis was carried out looking at the associations between variables, making use of the Chi square test and Pearson's correlation coefficient amongst others. The data was interpreted and presented in tables, pie charts and bar charts to make the analysis much easier to understand. The analysis and findings are presented in Chapter 4.

In the case that less than five questions were unanswered in a single questionnaire, missing values were assigned in SPSS and a mean value of all other responses shall be employed when analyzing the questionnaire. Ensure a precision of more than +-2%, questionnaires were discarded if more than five responses were missing.

3.7 Step 7: Preparing the Research Report

The last step is the preparation of the final report using the data collected and results from the survey as evidence to support and illustrate the main findings of the research project.

3.8 Limitations of the study

Due to time and resources constraints, sample size was restricted to 100 which was very less according to the total population. The responses given by respondents were not always accurate because they gave the response according to their understanding. Sometimes the respondents were not willing to fill the questionnaire and hence the resultant may not be accurate.

3.9 Ethical Considerations

Respondents were informed about the "confidentiality/anonymity" policy and that they were free to participate or to withdraw from the study.

Chapter 4

Findings & Analysis

4.0 Introduction

This chapter will show the results of the data collected from the questionnaire which were gathered from the Mauritian customers. In this section, information obtained from various respondents will be discussed. The analysis of these questions will be done taking into consideration both the objective of this research and the hypothesis also.

Almost all the questions (except a few) will be categorized under a particular research objective where the analysis will be conducted.

4.1 Presentation and Analysis of the quantitative survey

4.1.1 General questions

Under this particular section of this chapter, two questions were asked so as to gain an idea of whether the target population is exposed to different advertisement.

Ø Questions 1 and 2 attempt to gain general information on whether the respondent is familiar or exposed to different ads.

Most of them were exposed to ads on banks, technological products, newspaper, LOTO (national lottery), Orange/Mauritius and among others. Therefore, it can be noted that advertisement regardless of its style, reached the majority effectively except those 7% who are not really exposed and interested also to Mauritian advertisement.

4.1.2 Assessing the effectiveness of Teaser advertising in the Mauritian context

An essential research objective is the assessment of the effectiveness of Teaser ads in the Mauritian context with respect to customers' attitudes. Thus to be able to attain this particular objective, the following questions were asked to the target population.

Ø Question 3 focuses on the level of respondents' awareness on Teaser ad.

In simpler terms, it has been found that most of the respondents, around 69%, have knowledge on Teaser ads while 25% do not have any understanding of such an ad. Moreover, there exist also another category of respondents, around 6%, who do not even have an idea of whether they possess any knowledge on Teaser advertising. Therefore, it is important to identify how to create awareness of such an ad so as everyone in Mauritius possess certain level of understanding on Teaser advertising.

Even though, 69% of the respondents are exposed to Teaser advertising, figure 4.3 illustrates that 68% of them remember of any example of Teaser ad and only 1% of the target population did not remember any teaser ads. The 68% respondents recall the recent suspense ads which are as follow:

Ø 'Le Matinal' advertisement - This is a newspaper ad which was created to arouse curiosity among customers for the product (Le Matinal) with a slogan "On ne peut l'arreter".

Ø Ads on 'LOTO' - this ad is on the national lottery namely LOTO with the slogan of "Toute est maintenant possible".

Ø 'Orange' advertisement - this ad was done when Mauritius Telecom was changing its name from Mauritius Telecom to 'Orange'

A detailed analysis of figure 4.3 will be 29% of target population recalls the latest suspense ad on the national lottery-LOTO. This points out that the ad on LOTO was more effective in terms of awareness of the product compared to that of Le Matinal (only 19%) and Orange (just 20%). Out of these three ads, Orange was the only one that had not been able to catch the attention of the respondents.

Ø Question 4 is on the Teaser ads of Le Matinal and LOTO (National Lottery)

It can be noticed that a major proportion of the respondents (<80%) are aware of both Le Matinal and LOTO (national lottery). This indicates that the use of Teaser ads for both Le Matinal and LOTO has been very effective in creating awareness of the product. In fact this is more reasonable for LOTO which was a new product for the Mauritian customers in the year 2009. The ad has been effective to such an extent that nowadays, everyone in Mauritius, regardless of their age, know about the product.

Even though, above 90% of the respondents know both Le Matinal and LOTO ads, it can be noted that the slogan used did not capture the same amount of attention. In other words, when the respondents were asked about the slogan of the product "On ne peut l'arreter", around 25% of the respondents was confused while for LOTO, 32% were puzzled. Despite the fact that a proportion of the target population was perplexed, it is to be noticed that out of a sample of 100, 75 recognized the slogan of Le Matinal newspaper and 68 for the national lottery LOTO.

Ø Question 5 gives an idea on how customers view teaser ads from other types of ads.

Thus this question allows ones to know whether the respondent can differentiate teaser ads among others. The figure below gives ones an idea of how many respondent agreed that such an ad is different from other ones and whether they understand the concept of such an ad or not.

According to the survey conducted, those who can differentiate Teaser ad with other ads, understand the concept of such an ad. This can be further illustrated by the fact that 82% of the respondents are able to differentiate Teaser ad with other common ad and 79% understand the concept of this style of advertising. However, there exist around 20% of respondents who either do not understand or do not have any idea about the concept of such an ad and these respondents found such an ad just like other ads.

Ø Question 6 - Objective of Teaser ads

Most of the respondents believe that the main objective of Teaser ad is to create curiosity. This explains that this proportion of the respondents understand fully the real meaning and concept of such an ad. On the other hand, 27% of the respondent has the belief that teaser ad is meant to tease customers. This reflects the idea that these respondents view Teaser ad as a fun or just for entertainment.

Furthermore, some do have the perception that this style of ad is meant for making one purchase the product while others think that Teaser ad will make that particular product become the talk of the country for example.

Ø Question 7 & 10 attempt to gain information on customers' perception on Teaser ads.

The perception of customers towards Teaser advertising. It can be noticed that 34% of the respondent view such style of advertising as an interesting one and 24% as an educating ad. In addition, around 14% of them do find Teaser ad to be persuasive.

However, there exist also some respondents who have the perception that Teaser ad is boring, annoying and among others. This gives the indication that not everyone has been able to accept Teaser ad. To gain, more information on this aspect, advertisement on Le Matinal and LOTO was taken as example.

The following figure 4.9, demonstrates that the majority of respondents, 73% (Le Matinal) and 70% (LOTO), enjoy these ads and also these ads were among their favourite ones. This statistics support the analysis of figure 4.8 which proves that these 70% who like Teaser advertising view it as an interesting, educating and persuasive ad.

Moreover, it can also be noted that a very small proportion of the respondents do not like such an ad and their perception towards Teaser ad are: boring annoying and confusing. While the rest do not possess a clear opinion of whether they like such ads or not.

Ø Question 9 attempts to assess the main strength of such Teaser ad from the customer's point of view.

26 % of respondents confirm Teaser ad as being high in terms of persuasiveness, 24% of them feel that such an ad is original and 22% believe that creativity is its main strength. These figures show clearly that people in general appreciate the concept of mystery ads. Also apart from the persuasiveness, originality and creative aspect, people like the appeal of Teaser ad. However, suspense ad achieves low in terms of funny aspect and informative aspect with 9% only, showing that such style of advertising fails in informing people clearly about the benefits of the product.

4.1.3 Analyzing Teaser ad as a source of motivation for customers to purchase

Analyzing Teaser ad as a source of motivation for customers to purchase is another research objective and with the help of the following questions, this particular objective has been achieved.

Ø Question 11, 12 and 13 assess the influence of Teaser ad on purchasing decision

only 49% of the respondents are influenced by Teaser advertising while making the purchasing decision, but this influence might be both in a negative or positive way. That is customers may be positively influenced and make the purchasing activity because of this ad while others may not. But there exist also 42% who explain that such advertising do not really have any impact on their purchasing activity.

As per the following figure, almost all the respondents are influenced by Teaser advertising while making purchasing decision except the 33% who are not influenced by any Teaser ad.

The 67% of the respondents were influenced in a positive manner that is these respondents have purchased that particular product because of its Teaser ad. In Mauritius, there are many Teaser ads and the most common one are: LOTO (most recent), Le Matinal and Orange.

it can be said that among the 67% of respondents whose purchasing decision are influenced; only 60% knows exactly what product they have been purchased because of its Teaser ads. The 7% left do not know about the product and they just have the knowledge that they have once bought a product due its suspense ads. Out of the 60%, 23% was for LOTO, 19% for Le Matinal and 18% for Orange. 40%

out of the 23 respondents who play LOTO, 53% of them were encouraged to play LOTO because of its style of advertising. This gives the idea that Teaser ad does influenced purchasing activity to a very large extent. 36% have the perception that this style of advertising influenced their purchasing decision to a very little extent. However, the remaining 11% do not have any idea of whether mystery ads encourage them or not to do the purchasing activity.

For further analysis, statistical test like Chi Square and Analysis test (ANOVA) will be used. By using Chi Square and ANOVA, for the hypothesis to be true, we assume that the P-value should be greater than 0.05. This means that if P-value is greater than 0.05, then we should accept H0, whereby the result is not significant. On the other hand if P-value is less than 0.05, then we reject H0, whereby there is a strong relationship.

Hypothesis 1- Assessing the relationship between question 11 & 12

H0: There is no relationship between Teaser advertising and frequency of purchase

H1: There is a relationship between Teaser advertising and frequency of purchase

The Analysis test (ANOVA) with a p-value of .724, greater than .05 which means that the null hypothesis, H0, is accepted but H1 is rejected. A conclusion is made that Teaser advertising is not associated with frequency of purchase. This can be translated to the fact that this style of advertising has been able to influence the purchasing decision of consumers but has not been able to make them purchase. Hence, there is no statistically relationship between Teaser ad and frequency of purchase.

The above analysis clearly corresponds to the statement of Paul Hague (2001). According to Paul, Teaser ad does create curiosity among lots of people but when it comes to make the purchasing activity, this particular style of advertising fails to do so. Hence both the survey and research conducted by Paul Hague (2001) prove that there is no relationship between Teaser advertising and frequency of purchase.

Ø Question 14 examines Teaser ad as a source of motivation for customers to purchase.

A major proportion of the target population (70%) have the thought that this specific style of advertising does act as a source of motivation for customers to purchase. It may be that these 70% possess this thought, but in reality only 67% do the act of purchase as mentioned earlier. However, it is to note that only 18% were unmotivated to make purchase following the teaser campaign. Furthermore, 12% of them have no idea if whether Teaser advertising campaign has motivated them or not to make the purchasing activity. This shows some kind of indifference of people towards advertising.

For further analysis, we will cross-tabulate the number of people who have purchase a product because of its Teaser advertising and those who consider such an ad as a source of motivation to purchase.

Hypothesis 2- Assessing the relationship between question 12 & 14

H0: There is no relationship between Teaser ad as a source of motivation and purchasing decisions.

H1: There is a relationship between Teaser ad as a source of motivation and purchasing decisions.

The p-value is printed as .000, but this should be interpreted as p<0.001 and not be taken as exactly 0. Since an assumption of 17.5% have expected count less than 5, this proves that the Chi Square test is effective. That is, for this particular hypothesis, Chi Square test can be used.

As per the Chi Square test, p-value is less than 0.05, with p<0.001, this means that H1 should be accepted. The Spearman value being .522 shows that there is a positive relationship although a moderate one, those who make the purchase action because of the mystery ad and those who view this style of ad as a source of motivation. As such people who buy a product due to its Teaser ad are those who feel motivated to purchase more because of this ad. The main aim of advertising is to make people buy the product, but the fact remains that people will buy a particular product only when they are motivated to do so. Thus, marketer can make use of Teaser advertising to achieve this goal since the Chi Square test show that there is a relationship between Teaser ad as a source of motivation for customers to purchase and purchase intention and according to the Spearman correlation this relationship is a positive one.

This undoubtedly corresponds to the statement of Phillip Kotler, Gary Armstrong (2001). According to this particular author, Teaser ads act as a source of motivation for customers to purchase activity. Hence our survey corresponds to that of Phillip Kotler which illustrates the same results.

Ø Question 15 and 16 assess the level of expectation that consumers form in their mind after being exposed to Teaser ad.

Figure 4.16 reveals that the majority of respondents with 67% form a high level of expectation after being exposed to any Teaser ad. This indicates that, generally, this particular style of advertising increases the level of expectation in terms of product features, usage, etc. However, there exist a small proportion of 20% who do not really build any kind of expectation and the remaining 7% do not really have an idea of whether they possess any level of expectation from such an ad.

most of the respondents feel not extraordinary, such an ad is a waste of money and useless when in reality their expectation is not matched after using the product for example. For the Mauritian consumers these are their when actually Teaser ads are not able to match their expectation. Normally, marketers create the tease in such a way that it builds up certain level of expectation in the mind of Mauritian customers and generally it is the case that these expectations are not fulfilled which evokes negative feelings towards Teaser advertising.

For further analysis, we try to find the relationship between Teaser ad and level of expectation.

Hypothesis 3- Assessing the relationship between question 12 & 15

H0: There is no relationship between level of expectation of revelation of the ad and purchase intention.

H1: There is a relationship between level of expectation of revelation of the ad and purchase intention.

Since an assumption of 19.3% have expected count less than 5, this proves that the Chi Square test is effective. That is, for this particular hypothesis, Chi Square test can be used.

From the Chi Square tests, p-value is less than 0.05, with p<0.001 which means that H1 should be accepted and reject H0. Therefore, it can be said that there is an association level of expectation of revelation of the ad and purchase intention.

Furthermore, the Spearman value being .655 shows that there is nearly a strong positive relationship, between those who make the purchase action because of the mystery ad and those who forms a high level of expectation of revelation of the ad.

This undoubtedly corresponds to the statement of Christopher Jacob (2006) which is: weak revelation of Teaser ads has a negative impact on consumer's purchasing decisions. Thus our survey matches the research done by Christopher Jacob and the result of relationship between level of expectation of revelation of the ad and purchase intention remains.

4.1.4 Understanding the concept of Teaser ad as an advertising practice & communication tool.

The objective set for the research is: understand the concept of Teaser ad as an advertising practice and as a communication tool. The following questions have helped in realizing this research objective.

Ø Question 17 assesses the effectiveness of Teaser ads in terms of communication tool and advertising practice.

From figure 4.18, it can be noticed that there is no major difference in terms of statistical figures when analyzing the effectiveness of Teaser ads as a communication tool and as well as advertising practice. 87% and 85% of respondents consider Teaser ad to be very effective as well as effective both as a communication tool and as an advertising practice while the remaining not effective at all.

For further analysis, we try to find the relationship between Teaser ad as a communication tool and purchasing decision.

Hypothesis 4 - Assessing the relationship between question 12 & 17

H0: There is no relationship between teaser ad as a communication tool and purchasing decisions.

H1: There is a relationship between teaser ad as a communication tool and purchasing decisions.

Chi-Square Tests Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Pearson Chi-Square 7.422a 2 .024 Likelihood Ratio 7.791 2 .020 Linear-by-Linear Association 4.677 1 .031 N of Valid Cases 100 a. 1 cells (16.7%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 4.29. Symmetric Measures Value Asymp. Std. Errora Approx. Tb Approx. Sig. Nominal by Nominal Phi .272 .024 Cramer's V .272 .024 Interval by Interval Pearson's R .217 .094 2.204 .030c Ordinal by Ordinal Spearman Correlation .235 .093 2.397 .018c N of Valid Cases 100 a. Not assuming the null hypothesis. b. Using the asymptotic standard error assuming the null hypothesis. c. Based on normal approximation.

Since an assumption of 16.7% have expected count less than 5, this proves that the Chi Square test is effective. That is, for this particular hypothesis, Chi Square test can be used.

After analyzing the Chi Square tests, we can notice that the p-value is less than 0.05, with 0.024; this means that accepts H1 and rejects H0. Accepting H1 means that there exist any kind of association (either positive or negative) between Teaser ad as a communication tool and purchasing decisions.

The Spearman value being .235 indicates that there is a positive but weak relationship between Teaser advertising as a communication tool and purchasing decisions. It can be deduced that people who believe that Teaser ad is effective as a communication tool are more inclined to make a purchase.

The above analysis undoubtedly corresponds to the statement of Erik Schmuckler (1999) which is: Teaser ad as an effective communication tool positively influences purchasing decision. Thus our survey matches with the research conducted by Erik Schmuckler and the result of relationship between ad as a communication tool and purchasing decisions remains.

Ø Question 18 analyses the customers' views/perceptions on Teaser ads.

Figure 4.19 demonstrates that customers' views on Teaser ads vary from one another. 20% of the respondents view Teaser ads as a creative ad which aims at encouraging people to know more about the product and 17% of them have the thought that this style of ad is an entertaining one. 12% believe that this style of advertising make one do the purchasing activity while another proportion of 12