EFFECTS OF NOODLES TELEVISION ADVERT ON CHILDREN FEEDING HABIT

ABSTRACT
This is a research work carried out to effect of advert and consuming habit of noodles by children. Advertising is costly; often its effects are uncertain, and sometimes it takes a while before it makes any impact on consumers’ buying behavior. It is for these reasons that many companies think it appropriate, occasionally to reduce expenditures on advertising or to entirely eliminate it. Looking at huge promotion of noodles through advertisements and their influence on kids, the present research work was planned to study the role of advertisement in increasing the market of noodles and how children are influenced by the advertisement of noodle using. Data for the research were collected through primary and secondary sources. The collected data were analyzed in tables and simple percentages, while the hypotheses were tested using the chi square technique. Given three hypotheses as stated in chapter one, these hypotheses were tested critically in chapter four to reveal the authenticity of responses by the respondents to the research questions. For valid conclusion purpose of this study, therefore, the following findings were noted: given the first hypothesis, it is noted that awareness of children’s about instant noodles has not significantly affects their feeding habits; the second hypothesis indicated that has not been significant measures to which advertisement influences the behavior of consumers of noodles; the third hypothesis on the other hand, proved that there is no significant role on how advertisement and marketing affects the consumption of noodles. Some recommendations from this study are that advertising should be seen as an investment into the future of products and not to be evaluated by its immediate returns. It is not advisable for Firms to entirely eliminate advertising budgets in the event of challenges as advertising may go a long way to restoring their pride.

Statement of Problem
Advertising is costly; often its effects are uncertain, and sometimes it takes a while before it makes any impact on consumers’ buying behavior. It is for these reasons that many companies think it appropriate, occasionally to reduce expenditures on advertising or to entirely eliminate it. On the other hand, some companies sometimes consider it unnecessary to advertise when their brands are already enjoying great success without advertisement.
Such behavior implicitly fails to consider the fact that advertising is not just a current expense or mere exercise but an investment.
Competition poses another problem area of this study. Prior to year 2004, indomie was the only noodles in the market, which means, absence of competition. Given this situation, the product recorded high sales within the afore-mentioned period. Today, the massive introduction of the noodles earlier mentioned had made way for competition as so many women who used to sell only noodles now share their resources among the different brands in order to maximize profit. Also, identified was in the area of children who are seen as the chief consumers of indomie noodles. Before now, the indomie jingles (indomie, indomie, indomie noodles, delicious and tasty ……………) was sang often among them.
Today, it’s amazing how these children now sing the mimi noodles jingles more than the popular indomie jingles. This means that perhaps, these children hear more of the mimi jingles than that of indomie, and as a result, a good percentage of them would no doubt change from consumption of indomie to mimi. All these, have resulted in low sales of indomie noodles.

1.3 Aims and Objectives of the Study
Looking at huge promotion of noodles through advertisements and their influence on kids, the present research work was planned to study the role of advertisement in increasing the market of noodles and how children are influenced by the advertisement of noodle using Nigerian Television Authority as the case study. The main aim of the study was to:
1) To examine whether children are aware of instant noodles advertisement.
2) To measure the extent to which advertisement influences the behavior of consumers of noodles.
3) To determine the intense of advertisement on children’s consumption of noodles