CHAPTER ONE

1.0 Introduction

Competition in the Nigerian consumer market has intensified considerably over the past decade, compelling organisations to continuously redesign their marketing and advertising strategies around the evolving preferences, expectations and digital habits of the customer (Dwivedi et al., 2021). As digital technologies reshape how consumers discover, evaluate and purchase products, businesses increasingly recognise that the customer, rather than the product alone, must sit at the centre of marketing decision-making.

The rapid advancement of information and communication technology (ICT) has been central to this shift, with social media emerging as one of the most transformative forces in the contemporary marketing environment (Li, Larimo & Leonidou, 2023). Platforms that were originally designed to facilitate interpersonal communication and the sharing of personal updates have, over the past decade, evolved into indispensable tools for brand building, direct selling, customer engagement and market intelligence (Kothari, Choudhary, Jain, Singh, Prasad & Vani, 2025). Today, social media marketing sits alongside search-engine marketing and influencer marketing as one of the fastest-growing areas of both marketing practice and academic research, with scholarly attention to the field accelerating markedly from 2020 onward, partly on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, which pushed businesses worldwide to move a much larger share of customer engagement online (Dwivedi et al., 2021).

Globally, social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), Snapchat, WhatsApp, Telegram, Lomotif, Viber, Zoom, Skype and LinkedIn have continued to add users and features at a fast pace, with total worldwide social media identities now numbering in the billions (DataReportal/Kepios, 2024). Nigeria mirrors this global pattern. As at October 2025, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) reported that the country had 142,004,662 active internet subscribers, with broadband penetration reaching an all-time high of 49.89 per cent (NCC, 2025). Within this expanding internet population, Krestel Digital (2025) estimates that Nigeria's social media identities grew by 5.3 per cent to 38.7 million users between 2024 and 2025, with internet users aged 16 and above now active on an average of 7.09 social media platforms every month, up from 5.0 platforms in 2024. WhatsApp remains the most widely used platform among Nigerian internet users, while TikTok recorded the fastest growth of any platform, expanding by 56.9 per cent to reach 37.4 million users in the same period (Krestel Digital, 2025). Notably, Nigeria maintains the world's highest rates of both brand discovery (66.9%) and product research (98.2%) conducted via social media, underscoring just how central these platforms have become to the consumer purchase journey (Krestel Digital, 2025).

All these platforms have helped connect people across different locations, cultures, ethnicities and races, and have fundamentally altered how information, opinions and commercial messages circulate within society. Social media is now one of the most popular modes of social communication in the 21st century. In busy, fast-paced urban settings where people have little time to physically meet up with friends and family, social media helps to bridge that gap: it allows millions of young people to find friends online, chat, share photos and videos, and connect with others who share similar interests and aspirations. For many young people today, visiting a social media platform has become a daily habit that is difficult to give up. This growing centrality of social media in everyday life has, quite naturally, translated into its growing importance as a marketing and advertising channel (Dwivedi et al., 2021).

Unlike traditional mass media, social media platforms allow brands to engage in genuinely two-way, interactive communication with consumers rather than simply broadcasting a one-directional message (Kothari, Choudhary, Jain, Singh, Prasad & Vani, 2025). Having an active presence on the platforms frequented by one's target audience has, therefore, become close to mandatory for marketing-conscious organisations. Beyond the sheer size of the audience that can be reached, social media advertising also tends to be considerably more cost-effective than traditional mass-media options such as television, radio and print, since it allows advertisers to target specific demographic and interest groups directly rather than paying to reach an undifferentiated mass audience (Li, Larimo & Leonidou, 2023).

Social media also helps generate interest in, and build trust around, a brand, which supports long-term brand-equity building. Recent structural-equation-modelling evidence shows that the credibility, perceived authenticity and communicated sustainability commitments of a brand's social media advertising significantly shape consumer perceived value, satisfaction and purchase intentions, and that consumer trust partially mediates the relationship between social media advertising effectiveness and overall consumer behaviour (Kothari, Choudhary, Jain, Singh, Prasad & Vani, 2025). In a related study applying the Technology Acceptance Model to social media advertising, Rana and Arora (2022) found that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, privacy concerns and peer influence all significantly shape consumers' attitude toward social media advertisements, and that this attitude, in turn, influences purchase intention. These findings reinforce the idea that social media enables brands not just to reach consumers, but to build the kind of one-on-one relationship, prompt feedback loop and positive word-of-mouth that ultimately drives brand equity, repeat purchase and market-share growth.

Consumer perception is central to understanding how this process plays out. Applying the concept of sensory perception to the domain of marketing, consumer perception can be understood as the process by which individuals sense, organise and interpret marketing stimuli – including advertisements, packaging, price and word-of-mouth – to arrive at a meaningful, evaluative picture of a brand or product (Nalindah, Chan, Tresna & Barkah, 2022). Because this perception, more than the objective attributes of the product itself, tends to drive the eventual purchase decision, marketers use consumer-perception theory both to diagnose how existing customers view their brand and to design advertising strategies intended to retain current customers while attracting new ones.

A growing body of recent literature has examined the specific factors that shape consumer perception and, ultimately, online purchase decisions. Studying online retail contexts, Qalati, Vela, Li, Dakhan, Thuy and Merani (2021) found that perceived service quality, website quality and vendor reputation jointly shape purchase intention, with trust and perceived risk acting as important mediating and moderating variables. In a similar vein, Harrigan, Feddema, Wang, Harrigan and Diot (2021) demonstrated that trust – built through perceived usefulness and peer communication – is a strong predictor of online purchase intention, while Alrawad, Lutfi, Almaiah and Elshaer (2023) confirmed that perceived risk continues to weigh heavily on consumers' willingness to transact online, even as digital payment systems have become more secure and familiar. Within a specifically social-media-driven context, Nyagadza, Mazuruse, Simango, Chikazhe, Tsokota and Macheka (2023) showed that electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) generated on social media significantly shapes consumers' purchase intentions for the products being discussed. Taken together, these studies confirm that consumers' perception of the price, features, quality, durability and overall “class” of a product does not form in a vacuum: it is actively shaped by the volume, credibility and social visibility of the advertising and word-of-mouth that consumers encounter on social media, and this perception, in turn, helps determine whether advertising exposure eventually converts into an actual purchase.

2.0 Statement of the Problem

The rapid growth in the number of Nigerians with active internet and social media access translates into a growing likelihood that the average Nigerian internet user is regularly exposed to online advertisements for goods and services – exposure that plays a key role in shaping the perception and purchase decisions of online shoppers. As at October 2025, the Nigerian Communications Commission recorded 142,004,662 active internet subscribers in the country, with broadband penetration climbing to an all-time high of 49.89 per cent, up from 45.5 per cent at the start of 2024 (NCC, 2025; DataReportal/Kepios, 2024). Within this expanding pool of internet users, Nigeria already records the world's highest rates of brand discovery (66.9%) and product research (98.2%) via social media (Krestel Digital, 2025), signalling that Nigerian consumers – and students in particular – are unusually reliant on social media as a source of product information ahead of purchase.

Online goods marketers have responded to this shift by directing an increasing share of their promotional budgets into social media advertising, in order to build awareness and drive purchase among a highly connected, digitally native consumer base (Li, Larimo & Leonidou, 2023). Yet evidence from recent Nigerian studies suggests that heavy exposure, and even high awareness, do not automatically translate into favourable attitudes or actual purchase behaviour among student consumers. For example, Michael (2023), studying university students in South East Nigeria, found that while social media tools such as Facebook and WhatsApp meaningfully influenced students' buying behaviour, the extent of that influence varied considerably by platform and by product category. Similarly, Adebayo and Ogunleye (2021) found that social media advertising significantly shaped impulse-buying behaviour among Nigerian students, while Akinola and Ibukun (2021) showed that the perceived credibility of the advertising source was a critical determinant of whether Facebook advertising translated into an actual consumer response among Polytechnic Ibadan students. These mixed, context-dependent findings suggest that the relationship between exposure, perception and purchase decision for online goods and services among Nigerian university students remains insufficiently understood, and that findings from one institution or platform cannot simply be assumed to generalise to another.

It therefore becomes imperative to interrogate, in a focused and contemporary way, how exposure to online advertising on social media shapes the awareness, attention, perception and eventual purchase decisions of a specific, digitally engaged student population. This study intends to examine the role of social media as a platform for marketing and advertising, and the attitudes of students towards online goods and services, using Covenant University students as a case study.

3.0 Objectives of the Study

The main objective of the study is to examine the role of social media as a platform for marketing and advertising, and the attitudes of students towards online goods and services. Specifically, the study sought to:

1. examine consumers' level of exposure to online advertisements;

2. ascertain consumers' awareness level of goods and services advertised online;

3. explore the extent of consumers' attention towards online goods and services advertisements;

4. explore consumers' perception (price, features, quality, durability, class) of online-advertised goods and services; and

5. determine what relationship exists between perception (price, features, quality, durability and class) and purchase decision regarding online-advertised goods and services.

4.0 Research Questions

1. What is the level of consumers' exposure to online advertising?

2. To what extent are consumers aware of goods and services advertised online?

3. To what extent do consumers pay attention to online advertisements?

4. What is consumers' perception (price, features, quality, durability, class) of goods and services?

5. What relationship exists between perception (price, features, quality, durability, class) and purchase decision of goods and services?

5.0 Hypotheses

The following hypotheses were tested at the 0.05 level of significance:

H1: Consumers' exposure to online advertising significantly influences awareness of goods and services advertised online.

H2: Attention to online advertisements significantly influences perception (price, features, quality, durability and class) of different goods and services.

H3: Consumers' perception (price, features, quality, durability and class) of smartphones significantly influences purchase decision of goods and services.

6.0 Scope of the Study

This study on the role of social media as a platform for marketing and advertising, and the attitudes of students towards online goods and services, is set to be carried out among Covenant University students. Covenant University was purposively selected because its student population is drawn from a demographic – young, urban, largely smartphone-owning Nigerian undergraduates – that closely mirrors the profile of the heaviest social media and online-shopping users nationally (Krestel Digital, 2025), making it a suitable setting in which to examine the questions this study raises.

7.0 Justification of the Study

The relevance of this study is centred on assisting advertising practitioners, marketers and online vendors to make better-informed decisions about embracing social media advertising, by showing empirically how such advertising shapes the level of consumers' perception and purchase decisions with respect to online goods and services. Given that recent evidence shows Nigerian consumers already lead the world in social-media-driven brand discovery and product research (Krestel Digital, 2025), yet local studies continue to report inconsistent links between advertising exposure and actual purchase behaviour among Nigerian students (Michael, 2023; Adebayo & Ogunleye, 2021; Akinola & Ibukun, 2021), there is a clear and current need for the updated, context-specific evidence this study seeks to provide. The findings are also expected to be of value to university administrators and student-facing businesses seeking to understand how a highly social-media-literate student population evaluates and responds to online advertising.

REFERENCES

Adebayo, O. A., & Ogunleye, A. J. (2021). The influence of social media advertising on impulse buying behaviour of students in Nigeria. International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology, 10(2), 1534–1545.

Akinola, A., & Ibukun, O. (2021). The role of perceived credibility in the effectiveness of Facebook advertising among Polytechnic Ibadan students. International Journal of Advertising and Marketing, 12(2).

Alrawad, M., Lutfi, A., Almaiah, M. A., & Elshaer, I. A. (2023). Examining the influence of trust and perceived risk on customers’ intention to use NFC mobile payment system. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 9(2), 100070. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joitmc.2023.100070

DataReportal/Kepios. (2024). Digital 2024: Nigeria. DataReportal. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2024-nigeria

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Harrigan, M., Feddema, K., Wang, S., Harrigan, P., & Diot, E. (2021). How trust leads to online purchase intention founded in perceived usefulness and peer communication. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 20(5), 1297–1312. https://doi.org/10.1002/cb.1936

Kothari, H., Choudhary, A., Jain, A., Singh, S., Prasad, K. D. V., & Vani, U. K. (2025). Impact of social media advertising on consumer behavior: Role of credibility, perceived authenticity, and sustainability. Frontiers in Communication, 10, Article 1595796. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2025.1595796

Krestel Digital. (2025). Social media statistics in Nigeria [2025 data report]. https://kresteldigital.com/resources/social-media-statistics-in-nigeria-2025-data-report/

Li, F., Larimo, J., & Leonidou, L. C. (2023). Social media in marketing research: Theoretical bases, methodological aspects, and thematic focus. Psychology & Marketing, 40(1), 124–145. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21746

Michael, U. (2023). Social media tools and consumer buying behaviour of selected university students in the South East region of Nigeria [Undergraduate project report]. Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. https://repository.mouau.edu.ng

Nalindah, V., Chan, A., Tresna, P. W., & Barkah, C. S. (2022). Effect of consumer perception on the purchase decision of children’s football clothing products: Case study on Shopee at Yuro Sport Store. KINERJA, 26(1), 82–97.

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Nyagadza, B., Mazuruse, G., Simango, K., Chikazhe, L., Tsokota, T., & Macheka, L. (2023). Examining the influence of social media eWOM on consumers’ purchase intentions of commercialised indigenous fruits (IFs) products in FMCGs retailers. Sustainable Technology and Entrepreneurship, 2(3), 100040. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stae.2023.100040

Qalati, S. A., Vela, E. G., Li, W., Dakhan, S. A., Hong Thuy, T. T., & Merani, S. H. (2021). Effects of perceived service quality, website quality, and reputation on purchase intention: The mediating and moderating roles of trust and perceived risk in online shopping. Cogent Business and Management, 8(1), 1869363. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2020.1869363

Rana, M., & Arora, N. (2022). Decoding the social media advertising influence on consumer attitude and intention. Vision. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/09722629221099588

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