European Journal of Scientific Research

ISSN 1450-216X Vol.34 No.4 (2009), pp.591-603

© EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2009
http://www.eurojournals.com/ejsr.htm

General Attitude of College Students Towards Consequences

and Impact of Television Advertising in Pakistan

Jamshed Khan Khattak

Assistant Professor F.G. College Of Commerce, H-8/4 Islamabad, Pakistan
E-mail: jktk64@yahoo.com
Tel: ++92-51- 4445183

Muhammad Aslam Khan

Associate Professor HITEC University Taxila
E-mail: aslamnuml@yahoo.com
Tel: ++92-03005555084

Abstract

The purpose of this research study was to examine the consequences that television
advertising has upon the general attitude of college students towards television advertising
in Pakistan. The data was collected from the randomly selected 538 college students
including both genders. The respondents in five major cities like Peshawar, Islamabad,
Rawalpindi, Quetta and Karachi. were asked to answer a self administered questionnaire.
The descriptive, correlation and regression analysis tools were made use of to analysis the
data. The results revealed that the television advertising in Pakistan has a significant but
negative ethical and social consequence however a positive economic one. The results
indicated that there is significant positive general attitude of students towards the television
advertising in Pakistan. The respondents also demanded more regulations to control the
television advertising in Pakistan. The study also predicted a positive relationship between
the consequences and general attitude of the students towards the television advertising.
The study recommends that marketers and the regulatory bodies have the responsibility to
pay proper attention to the rising ethical, social and regulatory concerns of the students’
about the television advertising. Moreover the study provides a useful bench mark for the
future research studies.

Keywords: Attitude, Ethical, Economic, Social, Regulatory, Student

1. Introduction
Advertising is a communication tool used by the marketers to persuading the potential buyers to
purchase certain product or service. It plays a pivotal role in achieving the financial and commercial
objectives of the companies concerned. The role of advertising is also vital in the cutthroat competitive
environment and the mushroom branding in the present century. The challenges of the age demand a
bit more of the marketers towards informing, educating and facilitating the customer as to how to have
a timely access to certain product or a service in a novel and innovative way. The marketers are
therefore devising ways to make advertising more effective.
General Attitude of College Students Towards Consequences and
Impact of Television Advertising in Pakistan 592

Despite the fact that advertising is an effective tool for the business along with its being an
important element of the modern age and a fast growing industry, the public image of advertising is
still a matter of great concern. (O’Donohoe,1995).
Advertising is criticized for its presenting misleading information, promoting adverse values,
fake claims, subliminal seduction messages and persuading people to buy things they no longer need
(Katona, 1964; Pollay, 1986; Pollay and Mittal,1993). Again, this industry is blamed of spreading
unsustainable consumption patterns around the world over and encouraging excessive consumption.
All the foregoing aspects are apt to hinder its effectiveness as well as efficiency as a marketing tool
(Beales et al., 1981; Calfee and Ringold, 1987; Pollay and Mittal, 1993; Wright, 1986). Therefore, it is
critical of the advertising concerns to follow the public opinion advertising for its for reaching impact
on the economy, cultural values and on the business itself. (Wills and Ryans; 1982).
The students represent a sizeable segment of the society. They have dominating role in opinion
making. That is why; exclusive studies on the students’ attitude towards advertising are being carried
out in different parts of the world today.
To exploring the college students’ attitudes towards advertising is important for several
reasons. They are a large and ever growing segment of the populace. They have considerable amount
of money at their disposal. They are the outstanding asset for the product and service sellers as they are
the trendsetters and early adopters. They can influence the purchasing decisions of their peers and
parents, establish brand loyalties that continue long after the college days, and ensure a higher standard
of living after their graduation (Morton, 2001; Russell, 1996; Wolburg and Pokrywczynski, 2000).

2. Literature Review
2.1. Ethical Consequence
Penny M. Simpson, Gene Brown, Robert E. Widing II (1998 ) proposed that the unethical perceptions
of the advertisement shown significantly and negatively affected all advertising response variables like
Ad credibility, Attitude toward advertising, attitude toward the advertiser, pleasure and Ethical
judgment.
Sandage & Leckenby (1980); Rettie, Robinson & Jenner (2001) and Zhang (2000) suggested
that using meddling tactics in advertising while competing for consumers attention can be frustrating to
the audiences and can lead to affinity of generally negative public attitude towards advertising.
Chung-Chuan Yang (2000) has found that negative effects of advertising on students’ attitude
towards advertising. They found taht students in Taiwanese college consider advertising as wasteful of
national resources, encourages people to waste, and persuades them to buy things they should not buy.
The students also agree that advertising is misleading and deceptive
Reid & Soley (1983) found that in spite of doubtful effectiveness, sex appeals in advertising is
still thought-out a useful method to draw attention of consumer to an ad.

2.2. Economic impact

Nicholas J. Ashill, Ugur Yavas (2004) suggest that advertising attitudes consist of social and economic
dimensions. Their findings suggest that advertisers in Turkey and New Zealand should create
advertisements that are believable. The positive relationship between believability and overall attitudes
towards advertising also suggests that advertisers should be sensitive to tactics that generate consumer
skepticism
Chung-Chuan Yang (2000) has found Taiwanese college students agreed that advertising helps
a nation’s economy; advertising promotes competition and benefits consumers and raising their
standards of living. Chung-Chuan Yang (2000) identifies that students consider advertising as an
important source of fashion information and helps them keep up with the products and services
available in the market place.
593 Jamshed Khan Khattak and Muhammad Aslam Khan

Beard (2003) replicated Larkin’s study and found that college students recognize advertising as
performing an important economic role.

2.3. Social Consequence

Ramaprasad and Thurwanger (1998) studied Malaysian university students and found that they had
average to negative interactions with and beliefs about advertising. These students also rated the social
impacts of advertising more negatively than its economic impacts.
Muhammad Shahbaz Shabbir, Shabana Kirmani, Hafiz Faiz-Ul-Hassan (2008) conducted a
survey on children attitude towards T.V advertisement in Pakistan and found that a greater percentage
of respondent children disagree to the claim that TV add tells the truth Similarly their results show that
children feel the annoying qualities of advertisements and are agree that most TV advertisement are
poor in taste and annoying.
Dan Petrovici, Svetla Marinova, Marin Marinov, Nick Lee (2007) find out the perceived socio-
economic effects of advertising, and consumer beliefs and attitudes toward advertising in Bulgaria and
Romania. According to them there is a common belief (more than 80 per cent) that advertising
promotes undesirable values and messages. Beard (2003) found that college students of today strongly
believe that advertising persuade people to buy things which they do not need.
According to the Harvard Law Review Association (1967) since Aristotle most of the
intellectuals had dislike the materialism aspect of the marketplace. The critics consider advertising
being a source of vulgarity and focused on sensual values.

2.4. Advertising Regulations

Harvard Law Review (1967) reveals that as the complexity of marketing communication techniques
amplified, the deficiency of existing general and statutory law to deal with the evils of false and
deceptive advertising became more important. In the advent of marketing arena it is desirable of that
new regulation being considered to have complete and useful control over the advertising. It is further
stated in the public interest the regulation be open to public assessment and condemnation

2.5. Attitude towards Advertising

Daniel Katz (1960) defines attitude as an individual tendency to assess some body, thing or feature
around him in a approving or disapproving manner. It is considered that one way to express an attitude
is the verbal opinion.
According to Bauer &Greyser, (1968) attitude toward advertising is affected by audience
behavior toward advertising If the decision-maker’s behavior is positive towards advertising, he/she
will be inclined toward advertising (Pollay and Mittal, 1993). The advertising dimension that was
researched extensively was attitude towards advertising (Ramaprasad and Thurwanger 1998).
A search of the literature revealed a huge gap in the measurement of consequences and impact
of television advertising, and students’ general attitudes toward television advertising in Pakistan. To
the best of researcher’s knowledge, no study on students’ general attitude towards television
advertising has been carried out in the Pakistani context.
The fact that college students in Pakistan represent a large segment of the market, has a good
deal of “purchasing power” and influence, they deserve serious attention by marketing researchers.

3. Problem Statement
This study aims at investigating the consequences and impact that television advertising has upon the
general attitude of college students Pakistan.
General Attitude of College Students Towards Consequences and
Impact of Television Advertising in Pakistan 594

4. Research Question
This study aimed at investigating the consequences and impact of television advertising upon the
college students’ general attitude. Keeping in view the ever growing need for understanding the
students for their being an important segment of the customers purchasing the products and services
the following research questions were posed:-
Is the television advertising creating any ethical, economic, social and regulatory concerns
among the college students in Pakistan?
Do the consequences of the television advertising predict the general attitude of the college
students in Pakistan?

5. Research Objectives
The following are the objectives of this research study, namely:
1) To examine the consequences of the television advertising upon the college students.
2) To examine the students’ attitude towards the television advertising in general.
3) To determine the impact of different consequences of the television advertising upon the
college students’ general attitude towards television advertising.
4) (4)

6. Significance of Study
5. The study provides adequate guideline, for the regulator, the advertisers and media alike to
reformulate their strategies in the light of the prevailing trend with the view to making the
television advertising more effective.
6. The study will provide a benchmark for future studies with regard to the college students’ attitude
towards advertising

7. Hypothesis
Keeping in view the purpose of the study the following hypotheses were developed:

H1: The television advertising has the ethical consequences for the college students in Pakistan.
H1a: The television advertising is considered to be deceptive by the college students.
H1b: The college students feel that the television advertising has been greatly exaggerated.
H1c: They perceive the television advertising as the pornographic one.
H2: The television advertising has the economic consequences for the college students in Pakistan.
H2a: They consider the television advertising a source of economic growth.
H2b: They feel the television advertising to be a major factor aiming at improving the standard
of living.
H2c: They perceive that the television advertising ensures quality products.
H2d: They believe that the television advertising promotes competition and help curtail the
prices of product and services.
H3: The television advertising has social consequences for the college students.
H3a: The college students feel that the television advertising encourages the people to buy
things which they don’t need.
H3b: They feel that the excessive television advertising is confusing the people
H3c: They argue that the television advertising degrades the people value system by promoting
the materialistic way of life.
595 Jamshed Khan Khattak and Muhammad Aslam Khan

H3d: They criticize the television advertising for its being a promoter of undesirable values
among the youth.
H4: The college students demand the new comprehensive advertising regulations..
H4a: They demand ban on advertising of products which are harmful for society.
H4b: College students recommend regulations to control deception and puffery in television
advertising.
H4c: College students recommend regulations to control proliferation in television advertising.
H5: The college students have generally positive attitude towards the television advertising.
H5a: They believe that the television advertising is generally good.
H5b: They believe that the television advertising is generally helpful.
H5c: They consider the television advertising to be generally believable.
H6: Ethical consequences of the television advertising are positively correlated to the general
attitude of students.
H7: Economic effects of the television advertising are positively correlated to the general attitude of
students.
H8: Social consequences of the television advertising are positively correlated to the general
attitude of students.
H9: Feelings about the television advertising governing regulations are positively correlated to the
general attitude of students..

8. The Research Methodology

8.1. Sample
With the view to investigating the attitude of students (both male and female) towards the television
advertising, the targeted populace was confined to the college students. For the purpose a countrywide
survey was conducted in the colleges of the six metropolitans (Karachi, Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar,
Rawalpindi and Islamabad). A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed out of which 508
questionnaires were retrieved. The response rate was 85%.

8.2. Measurement of the Variables

Bauer and Greyser (1968) adapted Larkin’s (1977)’s items to study the attitudes toward advertising.
Subsequently, numerous other studies (Anderson et al., 1978; Andrews, 1989; Greyser and Reece,
1971; Haller, 1974; Schutz and Casey, 1981; Triff et al., 1987) employed the same scale. The
researcher has designed measures to assess the following four attitudinal using Larkin’s scale:
(a) Ethical consequences (Deception, Puffery, Sexual Appeals)
(b) Economic consequences (Economic growth, Standard of living, Quality products, Decreasing
Prices)
(c) Social consequences (Needless products, Clutter, Materialisms, Undesirable values)
(d) Advertising regulations (Harmful Products, Regulations, Proliferation)
The questionnaire selected the General Attitude scale from Pollay and Mittal (1993) to measure
the general attitude (Good, Helpful, Believable) of students towards advertising. The five point Likert
Scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree were devised to measure response.It also sought the
demographic information like gender, age and class of the respondents..

8.3. Analysis Tools

The descriptive statistics were made use of for analyzing the consequences of the television advertising
and the governing regulations. The t-test was resorted to determine the significance of the descriptive
statistics with the reference value of 3. To determine the relationship among the various elements of
the television advertising consequences and general attitude of the students towards this industry the
General Attitude of College Students Towards Consequences and
Impact of Television Advertising in Pakistan 596

Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used. Linear regression model was used while determining the
influence of the television advertising consequences upon the attitude of the students towards the
television advertising. All tests were conducted at 5% level of significance.

8.4. Respondents Profile

Table 1: Demographics Comparison of Respondents

Metropolitan City
Demographic Total
Peshawar Islamabad Rawalpindi Quetta Karachi
Gender Male 34 (38.2%) 53 (58.2%) 45 (46.4%) 39 (28.9%) 38 (39.6%) 209 (41.1%)
Female 55 (61.8%) 38 (41.8%) 52 (53.6%) 96 (71.1%) 58 (60.4%) 299 (58.9%)
Total 89 91 97 135 96 508
Age 16 years 3 (3.4%) 4 (4.4%) 2 (2.1%) 4 (3.0%) 0 (.0%) 13 (2.6%)
17 years 15 (16.9%) 10 (11.0%) 6 (6.2%) 5 (3.7%) 1 (1.0%) 37 (7.3%)
18 years 31 (34.8%) 20 (22.0%) 30 (30.9%) 16 (11.9%) 4 (4.2%) 101 (19.9%)
19 years 40 (44.9%) 57 (62.6%) 59 (60.8%) 110 (81.5%) 91 (94.8%) 357 (70.3%)
89 91 97 135 96 508

The respondent comprised of 41.1% male and 58.9% female college students in the selected
metropolitan cities. The respondents surveyed in the age of 16 years were 2.6%, 17 years of age 7.3%,
18 years of age 19.9% and that of 19 years of age 70.3%.

8.5. Reliability of Scale

Guilford (1973) earmarks that for a well conducted test, the range of the item inter-correlations must be
0.10 to 0.60. Relying upon the Guilford (1973) guidelines, the reliability analysis was carried out. The
inter-item correlation analysis along with Cronbach’s alpha is listed in Table 2. The intercorelation
among the items show that out of 136 inter correlations, 90 significant one and the value of Cronbach’s
alpha reliability amounted to 0.654.All the forgoing findings suggested that the Larkin’s (1977) scale
for attitude towards advertising and Pollay and Mittal (1993) scale for general attitude towards
advertising could be undoubtedly applied in the case of the college students in Pakistan for measuring
their attitude towards the consequences of the television adverting as well as the impact of
consequences upon their general attitude towards it.
597 Jamshed Khan Khattak and Muhammad Aslam Khan

Table 2: Items inter-correlation and Cronbach Alpha Reliability Coefficient

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
1 1
2 .175** 1
3 .080 .095* 1
4 .108* .064 .045 1
5 .136** .069 .068 .208** 1
6 .023 .042 -.011 .201** .296** 1
7 .042 -.129** -.178** .105* .008 .153** 1
8 .132** .130** .081 .027 .100* .064 .044 1
9 .110* .101* .111* -.017 .066 .023 -.071 .163** 1
10 .119** .143** .154** .082 .133** -.017 -.076 .204** .107* 1
11 .123** .117** .124** .000 .083 -.078 -.052 .163** .220** .238** 1
12 .102* .132** .151** .050 .150** -.012 -.027 .159** .154** .207** .259** 1
13 .102* .159** .119** .112* .148** .065 -.107* .106* .050 .171** .159** .272** 1
14 .152** .131** .168** .199** .236** .104* -.039 .169** .140** .204** .163** .190** .218** 1
15 .174** .049 .009 .215** .279** .246** .164** .144** .004 .093* .007 .154** .065 .173** 1
16 .145** -.055 -.014 .247** .194** .277** .222** .019 -.007 -.008 .040 -.024 -.052 .161** .407** 1
17 .090* .113* .072 .155** .175** .164** .057 -.014 .024 .041 .114** .120** .072 .118** .146** .201**
No of Cases: 508
No. of Items: 17
Cronbach’s Reliability Alpha: 0.654
1. Deception 2. Puffery 3. Sexual Appeals 4. Economic growth 5. Standard of living 6. Quality products 7. Decreasing Prices 8. Needless products 9. Clutter 10. Materialisms
11.Undesirable values 12. Harmful Products 13. Regulations 14. Proliferation 15. Good 16. Helpful 17. Believable
General Attitude of College Students Towards Consequences and
Impact of Television Advertising in Pakistan 598

8.6. Validity
Chung-Chuan Yang (2000) used the same instrument in his study about “Taiwanese students’ attitudes
towards and beliefs about advertising” and recommended that outcome obtain from their study
supports that the scales are valid for application in other countries of Asia.

8.7. Descriptive analysis

To find out the consequences and impact of television advertising on college students attitude mean
and standard deviation of each factor was calculated. The results in table-3 show that all the
consequences, impact, opinion about the governing regulations of television advertising and students’
general attitude towards it is the significant one.

Table 3: Descriptive analysis (The Results summary of H1 to H5)

Test Value = 3 95% Confidence

Std.
N Mean Interval
Deviation
t df Sig. (2-tailed)
Deception 508 2.73 1.080 -5.547 507 .000
Puffery 508 1.98 1.057 -21.779 507 .000
Sexual Appeals 508 2.61 1.308 -6.718 507 .000
Ethical Consequence 508 2.4409 .73649 -17.109 507 .000
Economic growth 508 3.68 1.071 14.257 507 .000
Standard of living 508 3.44 1.155 8.486 507 .000
Quality products 508 3.94 1.000 21.161 507 .000
Decreasing Prices 508 3.28 1.270 4.892 507 .000
Economic Consequence 508 3.5817 .68098 19.253 507 .000
Needless products 508 2.58 1.166 -8.140 507 .000
Clutter 508 2.21 1.080 -16.388 507 .000
Materialisms 508 2.30 1.091 -14.398 507 .000
Undesirable values 508 1.96 1.063 -22.032 507 .000
Social Consequence 508 2.2643 .68437 -24.230 507 .000
Harmful Products 508 1.81 1.097 -24.462 507 .000
Regulations 508 2.17 1.075 -17.373 507 .000
Proliferation 508 2.79 1.206 -3.974 507 .000
Feelings about Regulatory 508 2.2559 .78343 -21.407 507 .000
Good 508 3.66 .854 17.456 507 .000
Helpful 508 3.70 .889 17.771 507 .000
Believable 508 2.78 1.048 -4.700 507 .000
General Attitude 508 3.3812 .65581 13.102 507 .000
Note: (Reverse Scale) Note:
a) Respondents’ Negative Feelings: c) Respondents’ Negative Feelings:
Ethical Consequences : Mean value below 3 Economic effect : Mean value below 3
Social Consequence : Mean value below 3 General Attitude: Mean value below 3
Regulatory issues: Mean value below 3
b) Respondents’ Positive Feelings: d) Respondents’ Positive Feelings:
Ethical Consequences: Mean value above 3 Economic effect : Mean value below 3
Social Consequence: Mean value above 3 General Attitude : Mean value below 3
Regulatory issues: Mean value above 3

8.7.1. The Ethical Consequence

In the domain of ethical consequences the results in table-3 show that the respondents agreed that most
of the television advertising is false /misleading, exaggerated informations and contain sexual appeals.
Overall the result indicates that the students have dominating negative attitude towards the ethical
consequences of the television advertising.
599 Jamshed Khan Khattak and Muhammad Aslam Khan

8.7.2. The Economic Consequence

The figures in table-3 also reveal that the college students consider the television advertising to be
helping national economy to grow, raise the standard of living of the public, guarantee the quality
products and promote competition, leading to curtail the prices of product and services. The result
unveils that the students with the positive attitude towards the television advertising with regard to the
economic consequences..

8.7.3. The Social Consequence

In the realm of the social consequences, the college students admitted the television advertising by
convincing people to buy the products which they do not really need and confusing them as well as by
promoting materialism have adverse effects on society, The result in table-3 show that college student
acknowledging the television advertising to be a source of promoting obscene values among the youth.
The findings suggest that the attitude of students towards the television advertising social consequence
is the negative one.

8.7.4. Feelings about Advertising Regulations

The mean score of the respondents in table-3 recommends a bar against the television advertising of
the products which are of harmful nature for the society and the students have asked for more
regulation for the control and proliferation of the television advertising. The overall result suggests that
the students are not satisfied with current regulations by the government to control and monitor the
television advertising effectively

8.7.5. The General Attitude towards Television Advertising

According to results in table-3 the general attitude, the respondents are convinced that the television
advertising is good and helpful. However they disagree on the point that television advertising is
believable. The result suggests that the students’ general attitude is positive towards the television
advertising in general.

8.8. Correlation Analysis of Variables

Table 4: Correlation Matrix of Variables

General Attitude Ethical Economic Social Regulatory

General Attitude 1
Ethical .140** 1
Economic .452** .043 1
Social .087 .301** .052 1
Regulatory .184** .306** .169** .374** 1
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

The result of the correlation coefficients in table-4 show a significant correlation among all the
independent variables and the general attitude of the students towards the television advertising
However the correlation between the social consequences and the general attitude of students towards
the television advertising is insignificant.
The results in table-4 indicate that there exists a positive correlation between the ethical
consequences and the general attitude of students towards the television advertising. The results also
reveal that more the ethical television advertising, more positive the attitude of students towards the
advertising. Hence it supports the H1
The correlation coefficient between the economic consequences of television advertising and
the general attitude of students towards the television advertising, as indicated in table-4, is quite
significant. We can draw the inference that the more positive is the economic consequence of the
General Attitude of College Students Towards Consequences and
Impact of Television Advertising in Pakistan 600

television advertising the more positive is the attitude of the students towards advertising. We accept
H2.
The only insignificant value of the correlation coefficient in table-4 is between the social
consequences of the television advertising and the general attitude of students towards the television
advertising. As a result we can infer that a social consequence of the television advertising and the
general attitude of the students towards television have no significant correlation and, therefore, we
reject H3.
The result in table-4 shows a significant correlation between the feelings about the television
advertising regulations and the general attitude of students towards television advertising. We can infer
that more the government regulations to control the television advertising the more positive the general
attitude of the students towards advertising. Hence accept H4.

8.9. Regression Analysis

Table 5: Model Summary

Model
R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate
1 .474a .225 .219 .57962
a. Predictors: (Constant), Regulatory, Economic, Ethical, Social

Table 6: ANOVA

Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Regression 49.068 4 12.267 36.513 .000a
1 Residual 168.989 503 .336
Total 218.057 507
a. Predictors: (Constant), Regulatory, Economic, Ethical, Social
b. Dependent Variable: General Attitude

The results in table-5 and 6 indicate that the independent variables significantly explain 22.5%
of the variation in the general attitude of the college students towards the television advertising.
The results in table.7 show that the ethical consequences and the economic impact significantly
predict the general attitude of the students towards the television advertising. However the social
consequences and feelings about the advertising regulation do not significantly predict the general
attitude of the students towards the television advertising.

Table 7: Coefficients

Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients

Model
B Std. Error Beta t Sig.
1 (Constant) 1.512 .169 8.924 .000
Ethical .085 .038 .096 2.268 .024
Economic .419 .038 .435 10.911 .000
Social .006 .041 .006 .140 .888
Regulatory .066 .037 .079 1.792 .074
a. Dependent Variable: General Attitude
The following regression equation expresses the relationship among the ethical consequence,
the economic impact and the general attitude of the students towards the television advertising in
Pakistan.
GA = 1.512 + 0.435(EC) + 0.096(ETC)
GA: General Attitude of the college students towards the television advertising
601 Jamshed Khan Khattak and Muhammad Aslam Khan

EC: Economic consequence of the television advertising

ETC: Ethical consequence of the television advertising

9. Conclusion and Recommendations

This research study is an endeavor to secure adequate evidence on the consequences of the television
advertising and their relationship to the general attitude of the college students it. The results of the
research clearly reveal that most of the respondents feel that the ongoing television advertising is
unethical because of its deceiving, exaggerating nature for and putting more emphasis on the sex
appeals. At the same time majority of the respondents consider the television advertising to be an
important tool for the economic growth, improvement of standard of living, guaranteeing the quality
products and an effective means to curtail prices. The results of the study show very significant
negative feelings of the respondent about the social consequences of the current television advertising.
The television advertising is considered to be the sole source which convinces the people to buy the
products that they no more need, confuse the people by creating clutter effect, promotes materialism
and inculcate obscene values in the youth populace of Pakistan. The results of the study also depict that
the college students demand lexical changes by the regulatory authorities with the view to controlling
the television advertising. The results show an overall, positive, general attitude of the college students
towards the television advertising.
Also, the results of the study highlight the technique as to how to assess and evaluate the
ethical, economic and social consequences of the television advertising on the part of the marketers and
the regulatory authorities before they launch any campaign. The growing ethical, social and regulatory
concern of the college students as indicated in the results of the study invites attention of the marketers
and the regulatory authorities like to avoid any disruption in the positive, general attitude towards the
television advertising.

10. Limitations
The limitations have been associated with this research study identified. One limitation of the study
relates to the college students and it limits the generalization of the results. The respondents themselves
are also a source of limitation because of their being non-serious and other personal factors associated
to the students might influence the responses. The focus of the study however was limited to the
television advertising, the consequences and the attitude towards the print advertising may differ,
however.
Despite these limitations, the results of this study have highlighted some important
consequences of the television advertising and bring to light the need for the future research. The study
also have contributed important information about the consequences of the television advertising and
the general attitude towards it as it have not been explored by the scholars in Pakistan, so for.
General Attitude of College Students Towards Consequences and
Impact of Television Advertising in Pakistan 602

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