Examining the role of advertising on the behaviour of co-operative bank consumers

Even though the central role of advertising in consumer behaviour is well-documented, pertinent research on financial advertising is limited for both investor-owned companies and co-operatives. This becomes especially important in today's turbulent financial times. To this end, the study investigated the effect of advertising on the selection and perceived loyalty of Cypriot consumers of financial co-operatives, prior and during the financial crisis and the restructuring of the island's banking industry. The findings suggest that advertising has a marginal role in the said decision-making stages but essentially provide insights that open a window of opportunity for financial advertisers to develop effective advertisements. It is proposed that during the crisis, corporate and informational advertising should mainly be employed and such advertisements should communicate the service elements that, as a result of the increased perceived risk evoked by the crisis, have become salient. These service dimensions relate for the selection stage to reliability factors, and for the cementing of loyalty to solvency and process factors associated with relationship building.