Trying to Buy a New Product: What Does Advertising Do Nowadays?

Abstract

This research is conducted based on marketer's concern about whether new products offered by a company would be acceptable by its existing customers or not. These concerns arise since generally consumers tend to doubt the quality of a new product which is not obvious. Despite the overabundant and saturating advertising in todays' market, this research tries to prove that advertising is still considered effective in strengthening consumers' intention to try a new product offered by a particular company. The most popular skin clinic in Indonesia named Natasha Skin Care was chosen to be the object of this research. The topic in this research is then discussed based on Theory of Trying developed by Bagozzi and Warshaw (1990), a theory that is still quite under-researched compared to the previous theory explaining human actions such as Theory of Planned Behavior. By using the theory, consumer's motivation to achieve a specific goal will be tested simultaneously with attitude towards advertising in order to see their effects on attitude towards trying and their intention to buy the new products.Samples are 614 customers of Natasha Skin Care who have been using Natasha products, other than the new hair products, for at least 6 months. Results show that customers would have the intention to buy the new product if only they have a strong motivation to achieve a particular goal, in this case, try to get a good hair. In fact, advertising also becomes an important determinant to strengthen consumers' attitude toward trying a new product offered by the company, and also strengthening their intention to try. Recommendations from the study are that the content of advertising should be emphasized on elevating consumers' willingness to achieve a particular goal, and encouraging the consumers to think that the goal would be crucial for them in the future.