Relationship Between Internet Advertising And Purchase Intention Of University Students In Kenya

The Internet is fast emerging as an important advertising medium in Kenya. The enhanced ICT infrastructure in Kenya has raised the volume of Internet users, thereby prompting interest in the growth of businesses on the Internet with estimates projecting spending on Internet advertising to increase. Despite the growth, minimal empirical research has been undertaken to explore the relationship between Internet advertising and purchase intention in Kenya with many studies having been conducted in other contexts other than Kenya‟s. This study sought to address this gap by adopting a cross sectional survey design with university students in Kenya as the target population. The study was based on the theory of planned behaviour, which describes behavior intention to be a function of attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. A pilot test on the survey instrument used to collect data on Internet advertising, attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and purchase intention was conducted with Cronbach‟s alpha statistic returning a value of 0.854. A sample size of 383 subjects from a population of 153,591 university students was picked using both proportional and random sampling techniques. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to test for relationships among variables with the independent sample t – test analysis used to determine attitudinal differences among male and female respondents. Results showed Internet advertising had a significant and positive relationship with attitude towards Internet advertising. The study established interactivity, credibility, entertainment and irritation as significant Internet advertising factors that had an association with attitude towards Internet advertising in both the unified model that included both male and female respondents and the female only model. Whereas interactivity, credibility and entertainment had a positive association in both models, irritation had a negative association with attitude towards Internet advertising. The male only model had interactivity and infomativeness as the main significant Internet advertising factors and both had a positive relationship with attitude towards Internet advertising.