Attitudes and perceptions of mobile advertising among rural youth in the Limpopo Province.

Master of Commerce in Marketing Management. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2017.Mobile advertising, a form of advertising that targets people using mobile devices such as cell phones and tablets, has opened a platform for advertisers to communicate with their target markets at any given time and location. The mobile market continues to multiply in South Africa, and devices are continuously becoming more technologically advanced, resulting in more sophisticated advertising vehicles and mobile users. In addition, mobile advertising has been referred to as one of the best means to communicate with the youth. This study explores the attitudes and perceptions of youth in rural communities towards mobile advertising. As such, it addresses a gap in the literature on youth and mobile advertising, which tends to focus on youth in more urban contexts. The study focuses on the following types of mobile advertising: SMSs, video advertising, mobile web banner advertising and app advertising. An exploratory qualitative study was conducted, involving a sample of 38 participants. Six focus group sessions were conducted in Thohoyandou and Turfloop. The study used the ARF Model (that is, vehicle exposure, advertising attentiveness, advertising communication, advertising persuasion, and advertising response) and the ABC model of attitudes (that is, affect, behaviour, and cognition) to develop the research instrument, and then additionally used the Ducoffe Extended Model (that is, informativeness, entertainment, credibility, and irritation) to guide the analysis of the collected data. The following are the main findings of this study: The majority of participants show low responsiveness towards mobile advertising; however, some welcome mobile advertising. Most participants find mobile advertising ‘annoying’ or ‘irritating’, mainly because they feel that the content advertised to them is not always relevant, has poor timing and invades their privacy. Other participants are happy receiving mobile adverts if the content is relevant, informative, helpful, creative and entertaining. Participants generally appear to have negative overall attitudes towards SMS advertising in particular, again largely due to irrelevant content. Video, mobile web banner and app advertising receive mixed reactions. Implications and recommendations are provided, for marketers and future researchers