Karen Sherrill

Commercial banks have many options when selecting an advertising medium. Where should a bank put its money in order to obtain the highest return? Should this medium change based on the target audience? This paper examines a number of different mediums for bank advertising and analyzes by age and by gender the efficacy of each. The authors administered a survey to over three hundred participants of varying ages asking them if they have seen bank advertisements on television, social media or the internet, billboards, traditional print media, or heard bank advertising on the radio. The survey, then, asks, if so, did it leave a favorable or unfavorable impression. Finally, the participants are asked to rank the mediums in terms of most favored to least favored. The authors find that television is the most effective medium. It reaches the broadest audience and the message is received favorably the largest percent of the time. The results show differences by age groups that can be beneficial to banks that are attempting to increase brand awareness and capture greater market share from particular age groups. For example, social media advertising works better for communicating with the younger age groups than the older age groups, however, it is still neither as effective nor as positively received as television.