| dc.description.abstract | The two leading mobile phone companies in Kenya; Safaricom and Airtel periodically
present innovative services to attract new clients and retain existing ones. These services
are packaged and presented as offers. Some offers target specific segments of consumers
such as youth and professionals while others are meant for the general public. Due to the
hype in the communication strategies adopted to popularize the new services, they
generate considerable interest in the media and among the consumers. The wording and
graphic images accompanying these offers in the media, specifically television, may
determine their degree of acceptance and uptake rates.
The objectives of the study included determining the prominent representations in
Safaricom and Airtel advertisements, to establish if the advertisement representations
influence customer choices and to evaluate the extent to which the representations reflect
the socio- cultural context of Kenya. Theories informing the study were the information
processing theory as well as the theory of social semiotics.
The study was a case of Safaricom and Airtel companies. The population was sampled
using both purposive and multi- cluster sampling methods. Research tools included
interviews, questionnaire, in-depth interview, a focus group discussion and content
analysis. Data was analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively and using the computer
aided data analysis program SPSS.
Findings of the study confirmed that representations in Safaricom and Airtel
advertisements do influence consumer choice as well as reflect the social cultural context
of Kenya and thus their success. Recommendations of the study include education of
consumers on how to be a more critical audience of consumers so as to be less susceptible
to manipulation by misleading advertisements; translation of native and sheng languages used for consumers to understand the message since Kenya has different people of
different ethnicity; ensuring information of products also reaches the marginalized
communities instead of concentrating it in big town | en_US |
