1. ATTITUDE TOWARDS ADVERTISING:
A COMPARISON BETWEEN MARKETING AND
NON-MARKETING STUDENTS AT A PRIVATE UNIVERSITY
APMMC 2013
Ernest Cyril de Run
Hiram Ting
Jee Teck Weng
Sally Lau Yii Choo

2. Introduction
•
•
•
As technology continues to grow rapidly, seen especially in the burgeoning
use of internet, young consumers are becoming increasingly aware of
various advertisements, thus making the whole matter more intricate than
ever before (Purosothuman, 2008; Tai, 2007).
While much research has been conducted to investigate public’s attitude
towards advertising, studies that seek to understand students’ attitude
towards advertising are also on the rise (Dubinsky & Hensel, 1984; Larkin,
1977; Munusamy & Wong, 2007).
University students represent a meaningful and substantial segment of the
general public, and hence it requires continual attention (Beard, 2003).
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)

3. Introduction (cont.)
• This study aims to investigate the present view of university students
towards advertising. In particular attitude of marketing and non-marketing
students from a private university towards advertising is focused on.
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)

4. Brief Review of Literature
Attitude towards Advertising
• Interest in assessing attitude towards advertising is generated and perpetuated
by empirical results that underline its effect on advertising effectiveness
(Greyser & Reece, 1971; Kotler, 1988; Mehta, 2000; Mehta & Purvis, 1995),
attitude towards specific advertisement (Lutz, 1985), purchasing behavior
(Bush, et al., 1999; Ha, et al., 2011), and social policies (Pollay & Mittal, 1993;
Rotzoll, et al., 1986; Wills & Ryans, 1982) .
• Such attitude is predicted by beliefs about advertising, which is described as
specific statements about the attributes of objects (Brackett & Carr, 2001;
Ducoffe, 1996; Pollay & Mittal, 1993; Wang, et al., 2009).
• The seven-factor belief model by Pollay and Mittal (1993) is regarded as one
of the most comprehensive works in explaining attitude towards advertising
(Korgaonkar, et al., 2001; Munusamy & Wong, 2007; Ramaprasad &
Thurwanger, 1998).
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)

5. Brief Review of Literature (cont.)
•
The model includes two dimensions, namely personal utility factors and
socioeconomic factors, and these measures have been validated empirically
(Korgaonkar, et al., 2000; Korgaonkar, et al., 2001). Personal utility factors are
made up of product information, social image information and hedonic
amusement whereas socioeconomic factors are composed of good for
economy, materialism, falsity and value corruption.
Theoretical Consideration
• Theory of Reasoned Action by Fishbein and Azjen (1980) is adopted as the
basis to investigate students’ beliefs and attitude towards advertising.
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)

6. Research Framework
Product Information
Social Image/Role
Pleasure/Hedonism
Good for Economy
Attitude towards
Advertising
Materialism
Falsity/No Sense
Corrupting Value
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)
Intention towards
Advertising

7. Research Problems
•
•
It is evident that recent development in economic and technology has changed
the landscape of academia and business to a large extent in a short period of
time (Eze & Lee, 2012). University students can see and learn so much in front
of their computers, smartphones and paid TV (Waller & Fam, 2000). There is
still a huge gap in the knowledge of measurement of students’ beliefs and
attitude towards advertising when compared to the West (Munusamy & Wong,
2007; Ramaprasad, 1994).
Furthermore there is an extreme lack of literature on how marketing and nonmarketing students perceive advertising. Despite being one of the major
components in marketing, it remains unclear as to what differentiate marketing
students’ belief and attitude towards advertising from others.
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)

8. Hypotheses
H1: Beliefs about advertising (seven belief factors) between marketing and nonmarketing students will be significantly different.
H2: Attitude towards advertising between marketing and non-marketing students
will be significantly different.
H3: Intention towards advertising between marketing and non-marketing students
will be significantly different.
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)

9. Methodology
•
•
•
•
Private university can be quite different from public university (Lee, 2004a,
2004b; Wan, 2007), and this is apparent in the university’s clientele (Ahmad
& Noran, 1999; Altbach, 2002; Sato, 2007; Wan, 2007).
Students studying at Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak (SUTS)
in the year of 2013 constitute the population of the study. The reason for
such selection is because SUTS is one of the two largest private universities
with its own campus in Sarawak.
Purposive sampling approach was used to ensure proportionate marketing
and non-marketing students were sampled. A self-administered
questionnaire based survey was used to collect data.
300 copies were distributed and 217 usable copies were later collected.
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)

10. Findings
Respondents profile:
Variable
Gender
Race
University Year
Type of Student
Male
Female
Malay
Chinese
Indian
Others
First year
Second year
Third year
Fourth year
Postgraduate level
Marketing
Non-marketing
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)
Frequency
100
117
12
148
3
54
68
88
53
7
1
101
116
Percent
46.1
53.9
5.5
68.2
1.4
24.8
31.3
40.6
24.4
3.2
0.5
46.5
53.5

11. Findings (cont.)
Mean and T-test Values by Marketing and Non-marketing Students
Variable
Item
Overall
Marketing
Intention
Attitude
Information
Image Role
Hedonism*
3
2
3
3
3
Mean
4.40
4.96
5.42
4.35
4.75
STD
1.11
0.93
0.98
1.11
1.06
Mean
4.43
5.01
5.39
4.36
4.62
STD
1.03
0.91
1.03
1.00
1.12
Economy
MaterialismR
FalsityR
Corrupted
ValueR
3
3
2
4.47
3.48
3.75
0.79
1.20
1.06
4.34
3.46
3.75
2
3.85
1.01
3.86
Non-Marketing Cronbach
Alpha
Mean
STD
4.37
4.92
5.45
4.35
4.87
1.18
0.94
0.92
1.20
0.99
0.88
0.64
0.77
0.74
0.70
0.80
1.18
1.09
4.58
3.50
3.75
0.78
1.23
1.04
0.25
0.68
0.49
0.98
3.85
1.03
0.69
* t-test significant at 0.05; R indicates reversecoded
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)

12. Discussion
•
•
The findings show that product information, hedonic amusement and good
for economy are three most dominant beliefs shared by both marketing and
non-marketing students at the private university. This corresponds to the
early study done on marketing and non-marketing students in the public
university (de Run & Ting, 2013).
Only hedonic amusement of advertising is significantly different between
marketing and non-marketing students. as advertising is a social
phenomenon which people see everywhere and every day, it also explains
why both groups of students share the same beliefs about advertising.
Given such conclusion, it is clear that the first hypothesis is not supported.
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)

13. Discussion (cont.)
•
•
•
The findings also show that attitudes and intentions towards advertising
between marketing and non-marketing students are not significantly
different. This contradicts the findings of de Run & Ting (2013) at a public
university in Sarawak. As such the second and third hypotheses are also not
supported.
It suggests that there is no distinctive characteristic about marketing and
non-marketing students in terms of their view about advertising.
It may due to the fact that private universities usually provide more lenient
pathway to entry, and more flexible selection of courses. As a result,
marketing students may end up graduating as management students
because they can take management as major subject and marketing as
minor subject. Moreover non-marketing students can also take marketing as
their elective course.
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)

14. Conclusion
•
•
•
Despite receiving different types of education, marketing students seem to
share similar beliefs, attitude and intention towards advertising with nonmarketing students.
From the academic point of view, this may be something to look into so as
to redefine the value of marketing studies. Otherwise, marketing would
simply become an optional subject for students to complete the required
unit of studies.
From the business perspective, it may well insinuate the reasons why
marketing is being commonized in many organizations in Sarawak. Many
are still treating marketing as almost a synonym to sales or a mere subset to
business in general, thus deprecating it as a discipline and profession in its
own right. Such mentality and condition may have prevented organizations
in the state to grow and develop further.
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)

15. THANK YOU
Ernest Cyril de Run
Faculty of Economics and Business
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
94300 Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia
E-mail: drernest@feb.unimas.my