Targeting Sanitary Towel at Female Polytechnic Students: Exploring Television Advertising as an Intrusive Communication Tool

Advertising is one of the marketing tools aimed at creating awareness about a product to both the potential and actual consumers of such product. Many organizations in recent times have invested so much in advertising using the television medium. However, the efficacy of this medium of advertising is subjected to the interest of the viewers as most of the viewers may not like the idea of intruding into their other ‘interesting’ programmes. This paper examined the relationship between television advertising of sanitary pads and the purchasing behavior of the female users. The study’s population consisted of female students of polytechnics in Ogun State. However, the targeted population were female students of three selected polytechnics namely; Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro; Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Ojere, Abeokuta; and ICT Polytechnic, Itori with combined female students’ population of 7,618.  A sample of 199 of the students was taken based on Yamani formula and served with questionnaire as the tool for data collection. 144 copies of the questionnaire were retrieved and used for the data analysis. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics while regression and correlation statistical tools were used to test the hypothesis of the study. The findings showed that there is a significant but weak linear relationship between television advertising and the buying behaviour of the female students (r=0.187, P<0.05), and that television advertising accounted for only roughly 12.8% of the changes in buying behavior of the female students studied (R 2 =0.128, P<0.05).The study concluded that exposure to television advertising has influence on the patronage of sanitary pad brands. The study therefore recommends that manufacturers of sanitary pads should invest more in television advertising that are creative, informative and rich in content. Keywords: Television Advertising, Intrusive Communication, Buying Behaviour, Sanitary Towel, Female Students, Media Exposure DOI: 10.7176/JMCR/69-04 Publication date: July 31 st 2020