THE AFFECTION OF DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS ON
MEDIA CHOICE
A Case about Chinese Miniature Automobile Consumers
Dao-ping Chen
School of Economy and Business Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing, P.R. China
School of Economics and Management, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, P.R. China
Wei Liu
School of Economy and Business Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing, P.R. China
Keywords: Miniature automobile consumers, demographic characteristics, media choice, optimal scaling regression.
Abstract: This paper explores the media choice of Chinese miniature automobile consumers in obtaining purchasing
information about miniature automobile. A worldwide survey involved a majority of Chinese areas was
conducted. The survey focused on consumers' demographic characteristics and media choice. The result of
the survey shows that consumers chiefly choose newspaper, TV or automobile exhibitions as the media to
obtain purchasing information about miniature automobile. Then, based on optimal scaling regression
analysis of statistics, the influences of demographic characteristics on media choice were studied. The study
finds that consumers' demographic characteristics significantly affect their media choice. In detail,
consumers' living city, occupation and education are three most important characteristics that affect the
media choice of consumers.
1 INTRODUCTION
Consumers can obtain purchasing information from
various media such as newspaper, TV, magazine, or
Internet. Many scholars studied the consumers
'
media choice behaviour (Wei and Pan, 1999, Hung,
Gu, and Tse, 2005, Geist, 2004, Ducoffe, 1996,
Yoon and Kim, 2001, Milsom, 2003). These studies
found that consumers which are from different
countries or purchase different products have
different choice to media in obtaining purchasing
information.
There are many factors influencing consumers'
media choice. Demographic characteristics, such as
age, education, occupation, and income, are
generally regarded as important factors affected the
media choice of consumers (Westbrook and Fornell,
1979, Andreasen and Ralchford, 1976, Schaninger
and Sciglimpagiia, 1981, Newman and Staelin, 1973,
Chiteji and Stafford, 1999, Claxton, Fry, and Portis,
1974). This study has the main objective of
empirically determining the affection of
demographic characteristics on media choice of
Chinese miniature automobile consumers.
2 QUESTIONNAIRE AND
RESPONSE
Newspaper, magazine, TV, Internet, and automobile
exhibition are selected as the resources from which
Chinese consumers get purchasing information about
miniature automobile. Gender, living city,
occupation, education, age, and monthly household
income are used to describe demographic
characteristics. Gender has two levels (1=male,
2=female), living city four levels (1=big city, 2=city
of middling size, 3=county seat, 4=villages and
towns), occupation seven levels (1=government
servant, 2=employee of national enterprise,
3=employee of private enterprise, 4=employer of
individual enterprise or partnership enterprise,
5=farmer, 6=professional (lawyer, accountant,
teacher, doctor, athlete, reporter etc.), 7=other),
433
Chen D. and Liu W. (2008).
THE AFFECTION OF DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS ON MEDIA CHOICE - A Case about Chinese Miniature Automobile Consumers.
In Proceedings of the International Conference on e-Business, pages 433-436
DOI: 10.5220/0001906504330436
Copyright
c
 SciTePress

education six levels (1=junior high school or below,
2=senior high school, 3=technical secondary school,
4=junior college, 5=college or university,
6=graduate student), age seven levels (1=18-21years,
2=22-25, 3=26-29, 4=30-34, 5=35-39, 6=40-59,
7=60 or above 60 years), and monthly household
income four levels (1=less than ￥2 000, 2=￥2 000
to less than ￥5 000, 3=￥5 000 to less than ￥8 000,
4=more than ￥8 000).
The data used in this study are obtained from a
large survey sponsored by an automobile group
company in China. 2 630 questionnaires are sent 263
dealers of the automobile group through mails,
commencing in December 2003, at three month
intervals. A dealer selected is responsible for 10
questionnaires. The objects of the survey are
consumers who visit the shop of dealers and have
intention to purchase miniature automobile. The
survey areas involve 31 provinces, municipalities
and autonomous regions of Chinese Mainland. A
total of 2 623 usable responses are received, yielding
a response rate of 99%. 280 questionnaires in 2 623
are discarded because they are not perfectly filled.
The remaining 2 343 questionnaires are used for the
final analysis. All data are processed by SPSS 15.0.
3 RESULTS
3.1 The Media Choice of Chinese
Consumers
The result of the media choice by Chinese miniature
automobile consumers is shown in able 1. The
percentage of the media choice breakdown in
descending order is as follows: newspaper (42.1%),
TV (36.8%), automobile exhibition (23.9%), Internet
(20.2%), and magazine (12.0%).The percentage of
newspaper is higher than that of TV, which shows
that it is more possible for consumers to obtain
advertising information from newspaper than from
TV although Chinese families almost have TV.
Though Internet has had a rapid development in
China in recent years, it is early for Internet to be
regard as a main medium of consumers for obtaining
automotive advertising information. It appears
surprising that the percentage of magazine, as an
important traditional medium, is only 12.0%, which
may be because Chinese miniature automobile
consumers are not known as chief target of
magazine.
Table 1: Media choice by consumers (N=2 343).
Information
sources
Frequency Percent
(%)
Newspaper
Magazine
TV
Internet
Automobile
exhibition
986
281
863
474
559
42.1
12.0
36.8
20.2
23.9
3.2 The Influence of Demographic
Characteristics on the Media
Choice
We conducted optimal scaling regression analysis.
Newspaper, TV, Internet, automobile exhibition, or
magazine is dependent variables and gender, living
city, occupation, education, age and monthly
household income are independent variables. The
regression result is shown in table 2.
3.2.1 Newspaper
From table 2, we know that the regression model is
statistically significant at the 0.01 level (F=3.210,
Sig.<0.01). Of six demographic characteristics, four
characteristics, living city (F=29.476, Sig.<0.01),
occupation (F=5.929, Sig.<0.01), monthly household
income (F=7.693, Sig.=0.006<0.01), and age
(F=2.901, Sig.=0.021<0.05) have a significant
influence on dependent variable newspaper. Living
city (62.2%) is the most important characteristics,
followed by monthly household income (20.0%),
occupation (8.2%), and age (5.3%). Gender and
education have not significant affection on
dependent variable newspaper.
3.2.2 Magazine
The result of ANOVA shows that the regression
model on magazine has statistical significance at the
0.01 level (F=2.600, Sig.<0.01). From table 2, we
can see that occupation (F=11.032, Sig.<0.01),
education (F=19.720, Sig.<0.01) and age (F=4.858,
Sig.<0.01) produce significant influence on
dependent variable magazine. The three
demographic characteristics breakdown in
descending order of importance are as follows:
education (55.6%), occupation (32.7%), age
(11.6%).
From table 2, we can know that gender, living city
and monthly household income have not significant
affection on choice of consumers on magazine.
ICE-B 2008 - International Conference on e-Business
434

Table 2: Results of Regressions of Consumer Characteristics on Media Choice (N=2 343).
Media Characteristics ANOVA Beta df F Sig. Importance
Newspaper Gender
F(16, 2 326)
=3.210
Sig.=0.000
.022 1 1.063 .303 .015
Living city
.114 2 29.476 .000 .622
Occupation
-.054 6 5.929 .000 .082
Education
-.018 2 .625 .536 .028
Age
.036 4 2.901 .021 .053
Income
-.059 1 7.693 .006 .200
Magazine Gender
F(19, 2 323)
=2.600
Sig.=0.000
.033 1 2.405 .121 .013
Living city
-.020 2 .825 .438 -.024
Occupation
.071 6 11.032 .000 .327
Education
-.101 5 19.720 .000 .556
Age
.046 3 4.858 .002 .116
Income
-.008 2 .144 .866 .012
TV Gender
F(15, 2 327)
=2.108
Sig.=0.008
-.028 1 1.799 .180 .078
Living city
-.078 1 13.747 .000 .416
Occupation
.050 6 5.416 .000 .153
Education
-.066 4 9.063 .000 .200
Age
.027 2 1.721 .179 .071
Income
.032 1 2.345 .126 .081
Internet Gender
F(23, 2 319)
=16.133
Sig.=0.000
.011 1 .311 .577 -.004
Living city
.053 2 6.917 .001 .060
Occupation
.161 6 52.029 .000 .331
Education
-.221 5 91.927 .000 .524
Age
.084 6 18.557 .000 .062
Income
-.047 3 5.598 .001 .027
Automobile Gender
F(16, 2 326)
=2.479
Sig.=0.001
-.049 1 5.413 .020 .187
exhibition Living city
.052 2 5.700 .003 .228
Occupation
.060 6 8.227 .000 .264
Education
-.054 4 6.099 .000 .228
Age
.014 1 .473 .492 .026
Income
.047 2 4.972 .007 .068
3.2.3 TV
The result of ANOVA of regression model on TV
shows that the model is statistically significant at the
0.01 level (F=2.108, Sig.=0.008). Living city
(F=13.747, Sig.<0.001), occupation (F=5.416,
Sig.<0.001) and education (F=9.063, Sig.<0.001)
produce significant influence on dependent variable
TV. The three characteristics are put in descending
order of importance as follows: living city (41.6%),
education (20.0%), and occupation (15.3%).
Moreover, from table 2 we can know that gender,
age and monthly household income have not
significant affection on dependent variable TV.
3.2.4 Internet
The result of ANOVA of regression model on
Internet shows that the model is statistically
significant at the 0.01 level (F=16.133, Sig.<0.001).
From table 2, we can see that living city (F=6.917,
Sig.=0.001), occupation (F=52.029, Sig.<0.001),
education (F=91.927, Sig.<0.001), age (F=18.557,
Sig.<0.001) and monthly household income
(F=5.598, Sig.=0.001) produce significant influence
on dependent variable Internet Owing to table 3, we
can know that education (52.4%) is the most
important of the five characteristics, followed by
occupation (33.1%), age (6.2%), living city (6.0%)
and monthly household income (2.7%). Gender is
only characteristic which is not statistically
significant in this case of Internet.
3.2.5 Automobile Exhibition
The result of ANOVA of regression model shows
that the model on automobile exhibition is
statistically significant at the 0.01 level (F=2.479,
Sig.<0.01). From table 2, we can see that consumers
'
gender (F=5.413, Sig.=0.020<0.05), living city
(F=5.700, Sig.=0.003<0.01), occupation (F=8.227,
THE AFFECTION OF DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS ON MEDIA CHOICE - A Case About Chinese
Miniature Automobile Consumers
435

Sig.<0.001), education (F=6.009, Sig.<0.001) and
monthly household income (F=4.972, Sig.=0.007
<0.01) produce significant influence on their choice
on automobile exhibition. The five characteristics
are ranked in descending order of importance as
follows: occupation (26.4%), education (22.8%),
living city (22.8%), gender (18.7%), and monthly
household income (6.8%). Age has not significant
impact on dependent variable automobile exhibition.
4 SUMMARY AND
CONCLUSIONS
The study focuses on the media choice of Chinese
consumers in obtaining purchasing information
about miniature automobile and on the influence of
their demographic characteristics on the media
choice. The results show that Chinese consumers
mainly choose newspaper, TV, and automobile
exhibitions to obtain purchasing information about
miniature automobile. Chinese consumers appear not
to prefer magazine to gain advertising information
about miniature automobile.
The study finds that the demographic
characteristics of Chinese consumers produce a
significant impact at the 0.01 level on whether
consumers select newspaper, magazine, TV,
Internet, or automobile exhibition as a medium of
obtaining purchasing information. Of all six
characteristics variable, living city, occupation and
education are the three most important
characteristics which affect the media choice.
Gender has not significant influence on almost all
media choice of consumers.
The results provide substantial implications for
miniature automobile manufacturers which face
advertisement decision. If an automaker intends to
select a medium from various media for advertising,
newspaper or TV should first be considered. Another
implication derivable from this study is that
manufacturers should conduct a classification on
consumers according to their living city, occupation
or education characteristics. Manufacturers should
integrate several media to publish advertising
information suitable for the consumer categories. For
example, if they consider to use newspaper, TV or
Internet for advertising, automakers should chiefly
focus on the appeals of consumers living in the city
of middling size, or individual-enterprise or
partnership-enterprise employer doing pioneering
work or consumers with a low education level in
advertising design of Chinese miniature automobile.
This study is somewhat limited in the sense that
the sample is confined to consumers entering the
shop of dealer and having intention to purchase
miniature automobile, therefore, our results are only
a first step toward understanding Chinese miniature
automobile consumers. A more comprehensive
survey that focuses on all consumers of automobile
in China should be conducted in the future. If so, a
more representative sample could be obtained. By
the new sample, a contrast could be done on the
media choice between consumers of miniature
automobile and consumers of other automobile
categories.
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