Geographic Information (GI) Product Marketing through Advertisements: An Application of Content Analysis

Abstract

Marketing, particularly for new products, heavily depends on advertising. Advertising creates awareness among the potential buyers of the product and also poses the product as a need even if it is a want in reality. This study analyzed contents of 1749 marketing messages of Geographic Information (GI) product advertisements over the period of two decades (1989 to 2008). A tailored methodology was developed based on the approach of Resnick and Stern (1977). The contents analyzed include changing pattern of marketing message in the area of picture and text ratio, relevancy of headline message, sub-headline message and picture to the advertised products, image colour depth, and message media. The use of picture dominated the text in the second half of the study period. A majority of the headline messages were of a direct product descriptive nature while the use of indirect product descriptive type gained momentum lately. The use of sub-headline message was found to be comparatively low. Pictorial elements/images of the products were mirrored in a majority of the marketing messages. Photorealistic image dominated the message having the combination of both image and text. The study also revealed that marketing messages of GIS software products were dominant in the first half while it was GPS/survey product in the second half. No significant relationship was found between various elements of the GI product marketing messages. Based on the above findings, the likely future trends of GI product marketing messages were predicted.