An Assessment Of Facebook And Radio Advertisements On The Purchasing Habits Of University Students.
[A CASE STUDY OF GODFREY OKOYE UNIVERSITY THINKERS CORNER ENUGU]

HISTORY OF RADIO IN NIGERIA

Wired-wireless activities preceded radio broadcasting in Nigeria. The wired-wireless system began in 1935 when the 40 colonial governments in Nigeria directed the Nigerian Posts and Telegraphs Department to develop the system. Wired wireless-- also called "Wired Radio," "Radio Distribution Service" (RDS),

or "Rediffusion"--was a method of distributing programs by wire to those who subscribe. 5 The service operated in conjunction with the Empire service of the BBC and was confined to rebroadcast of BBC programs. The first wired-wireless distribution station was set up in Lagos in December, 1935. By 1939, there were three RDS stations, operated and maintained by the Nigerian Posts and Telegraphs Department.

The same year, the newly established Public Relations Office (PRO) in the colony began originating a few local programs to be used on RDS stations. But even as late as 1948, some RDS stations rebroadcast British-originated programs seventeen and a half hours daily and ran only one hour of PRO (local)

Programs. By 1951, however, the then thirteen RDS stations began to emphasize local programming. An officer of PRO was put in charge of each station with orders to include local productions in its activities, to provide Nigerian artists with opportunities to perform and to localize program structures. With station responsibility assigned to PRO, only maintenance of the lines connecting subscribers to the RDS stations remained the responsibility of the Posts and

Telegraphs Department. At the beginning of the RDS, the composition of its audience ranged from the small community of British residents in Nigeria to the mass of semi-literate and illiterate tribesmen. In between these two groups were the few native elites. The majority of the tribesmen were farmers, unfamiliar with the English language. And while the British residents and native elites enjoyed and probably benefited from the rebroadcast British programs, the greater part of the RDS audience preferred the PRO-produced local programs. Also, though

Individual subscription to RDS was common among the British residents and native elites, most tribesmen had smaller incomes than the residents and elites and subscribed in groups. In 1948, it was assumed that an average of six persons

listened on each receiver or wired loudspeaker. Following recommendations of the 1949 Turner-Byron Report, RDS existed side by side with broadcasting in Nigeria for a number of years. In 1960, there were forty-eight RDS stations, thirty-six of them privately owned. RDS systems were a source of colonial revenues for Britain, since many such as the Overseas Rediffusion Limited, were owned by British companies. RDS systems grew from serving less than 1,000 subscribers in 1939, 16 radio started with the introduction of the Radio Distribution System in the year 1933 in Lagos by the British colonial government under the Department of Post and Telegraphs (P&T).The Radio Distribution System (RDS) was a reception base for the British Broadcasting Corporation and a relay station, through wire systems, with loudspeakers at the listening end. In 1935, the Radio Distribution System was changed to Radio Diffusion system. The aim was to spread the efforts of Britain and her allies during the Second World War through the BBC. The Ibadan station was commissioned in 1939, followed by the Kano station in 1944. Later, a re-appraisal of radio broadcast objectives gave birth to the establishment in 1950 of the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS). The NBS began broadcast in Lagos, Ibadan, Kaduna, Kano and Enugu on short wave and medium wave transmitters.

2.2.6         

ADVERTISING IN NIGERIA

Nigeria’s advertising business has witnessed tremendous growth especially in recent times. Though the business is witnessing colossal growth, the industry, like most business sectors of the economy, had its humble beginning rooted in colonial history, advertising developmnt could be traced to about the year 1928 with the birth of West African Publicity Limited. An off shoot of UAC, the company was set up to cater for the marketing activities of the colonial masters in both Nigeria and West Africa. This company was later to transform to a full fledged advertising firm in 1929 known as Lintas with two other subsidiaries newly Afromedia, the outdoor medium and Pearl/Dean, the cinema arm. With the setting up of the companies then headed by expatriates. By the later 1970’s however, two ambitious agencies, Rosabel Advertising and Insight Communication, sprang up. The coming of the two agencies which till today are still doing very well.
APCON the regulating body in the practice of advertising in the country, started operation in 1990 with the employment of the pioneer registrar in the person of Dr Charles Okigbo. The era of economic restructuring and liberalization opened up the Nigerian business to global economy. Foreign investments started flowing into the economy the expatriates who once left the shores of the land due to the indigenization policy gradually returned. And with them, the boom in economy. Aside, privatization of mass communication medium in the 1990’s also witnessed the setting up of private owned media houses which are platforms for advertisement placements.

Purchasing habits

This can be said to be the  purchase of the same brand over and over again, more due to absence of dissatisfaction than because of a positive loyalty

Advertising defined:

• Philip Kotler – “Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of goods, services, or ideas by an identified sponsor.”

• Frank Presbrey – “Advertising is a printed, written, oral and illustrated art of selling. Its objective is to encourage sales of the advertiser’s products and to create in the mind of people, individually or collectively, an impression in favour of the advertiser’s interest.”

• William Stanton – “Advertising consists of all activities involved in presenting to a group a non-personal, oral or visual, openly sponsored identified message regarding a product, service, or idea. The message, called an advertisement, is disseminated through one or more media and is paid for by the identified sponsor.”

• John E. Kennedy – “Advertising is salesmanship in print.”

• American Marketing Association (AMA) – “Advertising means any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor.”