A research for determining the level of advertisement literacy of consumers: Tokat province example

Today, with the rapid development of technology, there is a rapid change in marketing as well as in all other areas. Companies have to use more effective tools to adapt to changes and developments in the field of marketing in order to provide competitive advantage, promote their products and bring them to the consumer. At this point, manufacturers are obliged to introduce their goods or services, and consumers must have information about the products. This is only possible through advertising. In this respect, advertising have acted as a bridge between the producer and consumer. In advertisements, there is an interaction between the advertiser and the target audience of the advertisement. Advertisers try to convince consumers by introducing the product. On the other hand, consumers are trying to direct the buying behavior by reading the message given in the advertisement, understanding what they read and interpreting what they understand. This is where the concept of advertising literacy comes into play. In this context, the aim of this study is to determine the level of advertising literacy of consumers. The population of the study consists of consumers residing in the city center of Tokat. A questionnaire was used to collect data. Exploratory Factor Analysis, Independent Two Samples t-Test and One Way ANOVA were used in the analysis of the data. As a result of exploratory factor analysis, the statements related to advertising literacy were divided into six sub-factors. In the study, it was examined whether there was any difference in the level of advertising literacy according to the demographic characteristics of the participants. According to results, it was determined significant difference among age, income and education according to their advertising literacy but did not differ according to gender. The relationship between advertising literacy scale and attitude towards advertising was examined. Besides, according to the findings of the study, it was found that most consumers do not trust advertising and prefer to watch advertising.