A research on the role of consumer attitude for racistic advertisements on the purchase decision process

Nowadays, individuals can be confronted with more advertising by means of mass media with increasing diversity in communication technologies. Therefore, the likelihood of staying away from advertisements is reduced and one of the areas where there is a lot of discourse about them is the advertisements. Advertising is an effective form of communication that is preferred by brands in order to reach a wide target audience by using the mass media. However, the failure to analyze the characteristics of the target audience successfully for various reasons while creating the advertisements of some brands increases the risk of crises. At this point, one of the main aims of the brands is to create a positive impression for the target audience and increase their sales in this direction. However, while it is thought that the visuals or slogans used in some advertisements will be liked by the target audience, the opposite situation can be experienced, the advertisement is perceived as negative and thus attracts reactions. In this respect, racism is undoubtedly one of the advertising issues that have recently caused the audience to react. In this case, the advertisements of some brands become the focus of public and especially the reaction of the target audience due to the fact that they do racism. After the incident, the brands that attracted the reactions, stated that the message was misunderstood, apologized to the target audience and announced that they had removed their ads from the publication. In this process, even though brands choose to re-establish their image, the positive or negative attitudes of consumers towards advertising constitute the main factor in determining their behavior. While consumers express their reactions to brand advertising through social media, they can also behave by not buying their products. Therefore, each brand aims to create a behavior towards the purchase of its products, and does not want to happen otherwise. In this context, in this study, the role of consumer attitude towards an advertising which is criticized and criticized for the brand's racism is investigated in the purchasing decision process. In the research, a survey method was applied to consumers who shop from a clothing store. The scope of the study consists of consumers aged 18 and over living in the province of Uşak. It was evaluated in 400 questionnaires applied as a result of interviews with consumers. According to the data obtained from the survey analysis, it is concluded that there is a significant relationship between attitudes towards advertising and purchasing decision process. Keywords: Advertising, Racism, Consumer, Purchasing Decision Process