Impact Of Advertisement On Children Behavior

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Marketing is a way to deliver product related information to the customers, both potential and current customers. Typically, advertising is considered as core communication from brand to the people. In 21st century, people are heavily bombarded with the advertisements and other promotional activities to market their products. These market attacks are effectively planned, and enlighten with glamour as per the emotions, needs, wants, and demands of the consumers (Jam, Akhtar, Hijazi, & Khan, 2010). Every now or then marketers are looking for the new practices to indulge consumers to promote their brand and develop brand loyalty. Nowadays marketers are creating new needs through their marketing campaigns instead of just promoting their products. This scenario has worsened the situation and has affected the consumers’ behavior adversely regardless of the age. Due to the intense competition from the marketers consumers’ need are manipulated and consciously or unconsciously, they are forced to behave in a certain desired manner. Marketers target consumers, latent or unconscious needs so that consumers are fascinated and motivated to buy the advertised product. Consumers try their best to get a hold on most of the advertised products even though they may have to compromise on certain other things.

Since the adult market has been developed overtime, there is less probability to build long-term relationship with them. They tend to become brand switchers once they get to know more information about the product. Nowadays marketers are focusing and trying to attract and influence the children by designing ads that are considerably attractive for children and persuasive enough for their emotional attachment with the product (Jam, Akhtar, Hijazi, & Khan, 2010). Marketers advertise to children with the objective to develop strong and long-standing association. Previously children were targeted indirectly, but now marketers are succeeded to target children directly in the advertisements showing children involved with the products so that they can insist on purchasing the specific product for their use. This change in the advertisement strategy has lead to many serious outcomes on children behavior, which is to be discussed in the paper.

Advertisement to children is a widely discussed topic due to children inability to understand the purpose or intent of advertisement. Children’s behavior is subjected to unintended effects of advertisement to the children. It is widely seen as the centre of an increasingly commercialized culture. Food sector has been the most in focus and the problem of obesity is highly associated with unhealthy food advertisement to the children. Advertisement to the children has been affecting the children behavior such as increasing materialistic value in children, violent behavior, and parent-child conflicts. In order to prevent the children from the unintended negative effects of advertisements, many countries have made stricter legislative regulation or in few cases complete ban to all kind of advertisement towards children under a certain age.

Marketers see children as future, as well as current market. They advertise heavily in order to establish brand loyalty. Due to excessive advertisement targeted to children and its exposure to children, a change in behavior is observed. Children’s behavior is manipulated by the advertisement content. Children are unable to interpret the advertisers’ message and are easy to accept advertiser messages as truthful, accurate, and unbiased. Children regard advertisement as another tool to entertain them, and give equal treatment to the children program. Moreover, children below 12 years are unable to comprehend the advertised message. Advertisement to children directly is considered destructive for the development of children personality. Furthermore, regulatory bodies have introduced some regulations, which intent to have strict control on the advertisement content targeted to children. However, their implication is less to non-existent in some cases, especially in developing countries. There is need to conduct research to spot the impacts of advertisement on children and to monitor the regulatory bodies so that they function more appropriately.

Background Information

Advertisement is one of the effective tools of integrated marketing communication to encourage consumers to buy the products. It also has strong linkage with entertainment also and the growth of media has blurred the distinguishing lines between advertisements and entertainment (Moore, 2004). Advertisements featuring products like snacks, toys, confectionaries, cookies and fast food are specifically targeted at children, in order to motivate them to try new brands and buy more. In 1952, Mr. Potato broadcasted first toy advertisement to children. 1n 1962, McDonald’s run its first print advertising campaign and used cartoon-like characters to appeal to children (Figure in appendix) (Duke Libraries: Exhibits: Look Boys and Girls! Advertising to Children in the 20th Century). Table in the appendix shows the timeline of the events that took place in the history of children advertisement. Furthermore, it also shows the change in the marketing strategy for the children over the decades. A strong correlation has been observed between children and television advertisements, which are full of fascination and excitement

Now a day’s children and adolescents are widely exposed to all kinds of advertisement through different communication sources. Young people are exposed to 40,000 advertisements per year on television beside internet, magazine and in school (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2006, p. 2563). Annually the children aged between 2-7 years old and 8-12 years old, experience an average of 13,904 and 30,155 advertisements per years respectively whereas the number for 13-17 years old children is rounded to 28,655 advertisements per year. In term of hours, children aged 2-7 years old face approximately 107 hour; 8-12 years old face approximately 230 hour and 13-17 years old faces approximately 217 hour of television advertisement in a year (Gantz, Schwartz, Angelini, & Rideout, 2007). The advertisers today are recognizing children’ as a huge market for product and services and through advertising to children, their priority is to make them loyal to the products or brand at an early age so that they can become a part of their long-term profit oriented customer in future.

"Media violence can lead to aggressive behavior in youth. Over 1,000 studies confirm this link. It also says that Media violence is especially damaging to young children (under age 8) because they cannot easily tell the difference between real life and fantasy. Violent images on television and in movies may seem real to young children, viewing these images can upset them. Media violence affects children by increasing their fear of becoming victims. It makes them less sensitive to violence and to victims of violence. This increases their appetite for more violence in entertainment and in real life. Media violence often fails to show the consequences of violence. This is especially true of cartoons, toy commercials, and music videos. As a result, children learn that there is few if any repercussion for committing violent acts."(Jam, Akhtar, Hijazi, & Khan, 2010)

In the United States, the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB) established in 1974 by the National Advertising Review Council (NARC) runs a self-regulatory program that includes a prescreening service for advertisers to ensure they complies with the CARU guidelines. The European Union also has framework legislation in place, which sets down minimum provisions on advertising to children for its 27 member states. Norway and Sweden also have legislated broad bans on advertising to children, during child programs any kind of advertising is forbidden in Sweden, Denmark, Austria, and Flemish Belgium. In Greece, there is no advertising for kids’ products from 7 to 22 hour. In USA, restriction to advertisement to children is failed with reference to the First Amendment. In Spain, bans are also considered undemocratic. In Pakistan, situation is no more different from Spain and USA. PEMRA, (Pakistan Electronic Media Regularity Authority) has mentioned rules and laws in its PEMRA rules specifically advertisements directing to children below 12 years. However, no serious effort has been taken to implement those laws strictly, as the marketers are targeting kids for the food marketing especially. Furthermore, children are subject to manipulated advertisement on cable TV as well as on local TV channels.

Literature Review

The literature review will set a solid foundation for further research on the defined research objective by studying the research work of different authors on related topics. It will ensure that no important variable that in the past advertisement had caused an impact on child’s behavior is ignored. The aim of this literature review is to identify the indicators of children’s behavior that had been caused by advertisement.

Recently, children are targeted directly for the advertisement of children related products, where previously parents were advertised directly, and children indirectly (Wilcox, et al., 2004; Paine, Brenkert, Wesisskoff, & Kimmel, 1984). Products advertised were grouped into six categories that included toys, cereals/ breakfast foods, sugared snacks/drinks, fast foods, healthy food/drinks, and other(The Nature of Advertising to Children, 2008). Advertising is not seen as anything more than fun and entertainment and there is a consensus that children under the age of 5 years do not understand the intent of advertising(Young, 2010). As children mature, they develop more information- processing skills Children younger than eight are not capable of information processing strategies. 8–12-yearolds can process the information, but only with the help of cues. At the other extreme, over 12 years old spontaneously respond to information storage and retrieval strategies. They acknowledge that advertising does not always tell the truth and are more likely to express skeptical views toward advertising (Roedder, September 1981;Moore & Lutz, June 2000;Young, 2010). Psychologists have divided the children into three categories, based on their perception cognitive ability. Three to seven years of age is approximately the Perceptual stage wherein the child can distinguish ads from programs based on perceptual features, believes the ads as truthful, funny, and interesting, and holds positive attitudes towards the advertisement. As against this, seven to eleven years of age is the Analytical Stage wherein the child distinguishes ads from programs based on persuasive intent, understands that the ad may have contain a bias and deception and can also hold negative attitudes towards ads. Eleven to Sixteen years of age is the Reflective Stage and here the child understands the persuasive intent of ads along with the specific ad tactics and appeals. The child believes that the ads lie and knows how to spot the specific instances of bias and deception. Concisely, the teens are skeptical towards the claims made in the advertisement (Soni & Upadhyaya, 2007; Calvert, 2008).

The widespread use of television has leaded the increase in commercial appeals to children, which has grown exponentially with the advent of cable television. It is estimated that advertisers spend more than $12 billion per year to reach the youth market and that children view more than 40,000 commercials each year. Estimates suggest that children spend an average of 4 hours per day watching television (S.Moore, 2004). A recent study found that a majority of all U.S. children have televisions in their bedrooms and have unsupervised access to computers. Hence, children that view advertising content in the absence of parental monitoring and supervision are more prone to the harmful change in behavior(Wilcox, et al., 2004). S.Moore, 2004 relates to the U.S. Department of Education, 2003 that approximately 88% of children between 5 and 14 years old use computers, and 53% have access to the Internet. Advertisers know that their efforts influence child audiences. Product preference develops with repeated exposures to commercial message(Wilcox, et al., 2004). Paine, Brenkert, Weisskoff, & Kimmel, 1984 states that children alone cannot be classified as consumer, as they do not make purchase from their own money, their parents fund the purchase and help them in taking decisions. S.Moore, 2004 refered to McNeal, 1998, recent estimates suggest that children account for approximately $24 billion in direct spending each year, and influence an additional $500 billion in family purchases. Children’s buying behavior is influenced by advertising, however parental control, and peer pressure also counts. Entertainment aspect and endorsements by brand icons definitely play a role in the children’s buying decision process. Furthermore, children cognitive ability develops with the age, which helps them to interpret the commercial message (Priya, Baisya, & Sharma, 2009).

Young children develop affection with heavily promoted product characters appearing on television (Paine, Brenkert, Weisskoff, & Kimmel, 1984). Advertisers use animated characters to promote their products. Animated characters grab the attention of young children even preschoolers could recognize the frequently seen characters and they may relate to it. Three to six year old could relate the character to the socially taboo products. They may like the character, but dislike the product. Preferences are tenuous at best in young children, and are often not related to product recognition and affect because deliberate processing and communication of preference, intention, and choice requires cognitive abilities that may not be present in children until they are school age. The lack of age differences between the two- to three-year- olds and the four- to five-year-olds supports the notion that these abilities probably do not develop until a later age (Neeley & Schumann, 2004).

There are three critical points in the process by which children's television advertising works: (i) the point at which the child develops a desire for the advertised product; (2) the point at which the child requests the product; and (3) the point at which the parent purchases the product (Paine, Brenkert, Weisskoff, & Kimmel, 1984).

Every purchase decision parent’s face requires assessment from several points of view: from the perspective of the family budget, other comparable products, and the interests and needs of various family members. However, when a child initiates a consumer decision by making a request, a new factor is introduced. It increases the number of requests to which they must respond, and it alters the factors relevant to their purchase decisions (Gorn & Goldberg, 1977). Parents are forced to buy the products for their children, which they cannot afford even. Apart from advertisement there are other factors involved which could persuade children especially from low income families to buy the product, however exposure to commercials do have an impact.TV advertising has some unintended consequences for child-viewers(Goldberg & Gorn, 1978) . Buijzen & Valkenburg, (2003) agrees with Williams & Burns, 2000 that advertising exposure may cause to become materialistic as they tend to desire for the advertised products. Younger children more often come into conflict with their parents about advertised products than older children do young children quite often ask, whine, and show anger to persuade their parents. Older children, in contrast, tend to use more sophisticated persuasion techniques, such as negotiation, flattery, and white lies. In case the parents deny the children request, or the advertised product is not up to the expectation then it may cause unhappiness (Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2003; Goldberg & Gorn, 1978). Psychologists may assist parents and older children to consider the influence of advertising in their lives more seriously and to take actions protecting them from unwanted commercial influence (Wilcox, et al., 2004). Current voluntary guidelines for children's advertising prohibit advertisers from explicitly instructing children to request that their parents buy the advertised product(Paine, Brenkert, Weisskoff, & Kimmel, 1984).

Villani & M.D. 2001 gave the historical analysis of Dietz and Strasburger’s review (1991) which demonstrated the multiple effects of television on child and adolescent cognition and behavior; the topics ranging from cognitive development, to obesity, to aggressive behavior and violence, drug use, suicide, sexual activity. According to the National Television Violence Study 1994-1997, it was estimated that young people view 10,000 acts of violence per year, with 61% of shows containing violence of some kind. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has recently issued a detailed report arguing that growing health problems such as childhood obesity and poor diets can be linked to the advertising of high fat, high sugar foods aimed at this young audience (Center for Science in the Public Interest, 2003). Food advertising on television dominated by breakfast cereals, confectionary, savory snacks, soft drinks, and fast-food restaurants; advertising for staples and fresh foods is in decline. It is unethical to conduct an experiment and cause the obesity deliberately among the children(Livingstone, 2005).

Children must acquire at least two key information-processing skills in order to evaluate the advertisement. First, they must be able to distinguish between commercial and non-commercial content. Second, they must be able to recognize advertising’s persuasive intent and use this knowledge to interpret selling messages television commercials have become increasingly focused on entertainment and image creation. Critics assert that it is unfair to advertise to children, as they lack the cognitive skills and life experiences needed to resist persuasive claims. Supporters, on the other hand, have argued that children’s vulnerabilities are often overstated and that by providing product information advertising helps parents and children to make choices that are more informed (S.Moore, 2004).

Related Definitions

Kotler, Wong, Saunders, & Armstrong (2005, p. 719) defines the advertisement as "Advertisement is a paid form of non-personal communication and promotion of ideas, goods, services by an identified sponsor." Quinn & Ruth (2002, p. 17-18) define the children advertisement "Children Advertisement is that kind of paid commercial message which is delivered to the children during their television Programs or some time delivered according to the direction of broadcaster during or after any other television program".

Child’s Behavior: The study will be focused specifically change in behavior of children due to the advertisement in terms of violence, submissiveness, influence on spending of family, parent-children relationship. It will be measured through children, and parent’s response in survey.

Cognitive ability: it is the measure of process of acquiring knowledge by using reasoning, intuition, or perception. It is assumed that cognitive ability of a child develops with the age so this will be measured through age. Cognitive ability will help the children to perceive the message in advertisement; it can affect the child’s behavior positively or negatively.

Authoritative parental control: it is the strong monitoring and supervision of parents to children specifically when they are exposed to advertisement. It can affect the perceived message of the advertisement. It will be measured through children and parents response in survey.

Enhancement of knowledge of children: it is the increase in knowledge of children due to advertisement content. It will affect the child’s behavior in positive manner. It will be measured through children, and parent’s response in survey.

Frequency of commercials: it is the number of advertisement, a child view in a day. It will affect negatively in case of violent content. It will have positive affect in case of informative content. It will be measured through children, and parent’s response in survey.

Endorsement of brand characters: it is the use of animated characters in the advertisement to gain the attention of children, thus increasing the sale of products. It will negatively affect parent-children relationship, and it will increase the influence of children on family purchase. It will be measured through children, and parent’s response in survey.

Entertainment aspect of advertisement: It is interest and involvement level of children in the advertisement, which enables them to develop bond and associate with it. It will be measured through children, and parent’s response in survey.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Authoritative parental control

Enhancement of knowledge

Intervening Variable

Endorsement of brand characters

Child’s Behavior

Frequency of commercials

Entertainment aspect of advertisement

Age

Independent variable Moderating Variable Dependent Variable

Ho: There is a significance difference among the children, with regard to their age to interpret the advertiser’s message

H1: There is no significant difference among the children, with regard to their age to interpret the advertiser’s message

Marketers target the children in the advertisement of the products in order to catch their attention to the advertised product. Products are promoted to all the children in the similar fashion irrespective of their age. Children comprehend the advertised message, based on their thinking capabilities, and knowledge. Children’s aptitude may or may not differ with regard to their age.

Ho: There is a significant relationship between frequency of commercials and the change in child’s behavior

H1: There is no significant relationship between frequency of commercials and the change in child’s behavior

Advertisements are repeated frequently so that its target audience is able to recall the advertised product, and could retain the advertised message. Children may or may not notice the advertised content, and get influence by the product, when they are subject to the advertised message constantly. Repetition of the advertisement may or may not compel children to understand the advertised message.

Ho: Parent-Children relationship has been affected by the advertisement content and the children programs

H1: Parent-Children relationship has not affected by the advertisement content and the children programs

Any third party involved in the relationship of two can affect the relationship of two either positively or negatively. Similarly, parent-children relationship may or may not affect by the marketer. However, there are chances that their bond is further developed or in other circumstances, it may get worse at times.

Ho: Monitoring the children when they are exposed to advertisement content has affected the child’s behavior

H1: Monitoring the children when they are exposed to advertisement content has not affected the child’s behavior

Supervision of the children, either through parental control or through governmental restriction on the advertised content may or may not affect children’s behavior. Strict monitoring on the children content on television channels may or may not affect the child’s behavior.

Methodology

Research mainly follows two broad approaches; the qualitative approach and the quantitative approach. Both the methods represent different strategies for analysis and increase the reliability of research. Diverse method of study is used to conduct to conduct this research. In other words, this study was conducted using a mixed approach where qualitative and quantitative study was done. For the qualitative part, various articles were selected related to the research. Qualitative research is applied to get information and understanding about behaviors and characteristic of children by employing unbiased and flexible data collection method and statistical tool. Quantitative analysis was done using the data from parents and children.

The nature of the study is hypothesis testing as hypothesis formation is done to find out which variable, which influence the children behavior. The fundamental aim is to recognize the co-relation between dependent variable and independent variables, and to find out which variable is more important in affecting the child’s behavior. Then the aim of the research is to find out the factor that is more significant in affecting child’s behavior when there is exposure to television. This study is an inferential study as it aims at study the impact of advertisement on children behavior in Pakistan; however, information was collected from a small sample of the children in Lahore. The results of the population were deduced from the sample population.

The research was conducted in natural settings as it aims to study the impact of advertisement of children with no interference. Hence, the study is non-contrived; it did not manipulate any setting daily routine of parents, and children to conduct the research. The unit of analysis is individual, children. Child’s behavior is analyzed from the information collected from children itself, and from their parents through a survey. For this study, the data collection procedure was cross sectional because data collection was done once from the questionnaires and analyzed with the help of coding of questionnaires and data analysis software.

Both primary and secondary data is collected for the purpose to find out the relationship among the variables. However, factors affecting dependent variable is analyzed by using primary data mainly. Primary data is collected from conducting from two types questionnaire survey; one from child itself and the other from the parent of same child. Both questionnaires are attached in the appendix. Secondary data is retrieved from various internet resources for variable identification and literature review. Sample size is 175 parents and 175 children. Secondary data collection was longitudinal; however, primary data collection was cross-sectional. Effect of a factor on child’s behavior was observed in some secondary sources across the countries and in some sources across different periods. Reference period of research is three four months stated from the month of September 2012 until the April 2013. Mainly the primary data is collected from "The Educator" (Mumtaz Campus) school of Pakistan through survey questionnaires. Similarly, questionnaires were sent to the parents of same young children, which were selected in an institute. Approximately 125 children and 125 parents were investigated in the educational institute for the study on the impact of children’s behavior. 50 children and 50 parents were selected randomly in the convenience stores, supermarkets, and hypermarkets with the purpose to collect information for the research. To check the understanding of questionnaire a pre testing was done in the neighborhood. The results were satisfactory that children could easily read and understand the concepts asked in questionnaire. Due to unavailability of any standard questionnaire by the authorized researcher, questionnaires were designed specifically as per Pakistani context to tap the real impact of advertisement on children. On the other hand, secondary data sources used are academics online journals such as JStor, and Science Direct.

The population of this research is all the children under twelve years and their parents in Pakistan and the working population is all the children studying in the grade two, grade three, grade four, grade five, and grade six in different schools of Pakistan and the parents of those children. Planned sample is 125 boys and girls studying in the "The Educators, Mumtaz Campus." They were selected randomly for filling the survey questionnaires. The questionnaire was also translated into the Urdu language (domestic language) to bring out better understanding from the children. Educational institute "The Educators, Mumtaz Campus" was selected on convenience basis, and considered as an opportunity to gather the information from the majority of sample population in less time. Fifty children and their parents were selected randomly in different marketplaces. The Convenience sampling method was used according to the convenience of getting data from the school and shopping malls. Inferential statistics is used as the values measured in a sample to estimate the values that would be measured in a population. After the collection of the required data from survey questionnaires, a regression analysis is used to summarize and analyze the collected data. Regression is conducted to check the relationship between the variables. The extent of correlation between dependent and independent variable and the most influencing factors affecting the child’s behavior through advertisement in Pakistan is identified. Graphs and tables are also used to represent the results. For further analyses of data, Stata (statistical software) is used to evaluate data with other functions. The results generated from the statistical software are interpreted for analysis.

Figure ( ProQuest K-12: History Happenings: Advertising to Kids )

Event Date

Event Title

Event Description

!950s_small_square

1st Jan, 1948

The television enters most American homes

With most American homes having a television, advertising begins through sponsored TV programs. There are no commercials like we know them today at this point. Advertising on TV is targeted to adults and children, because there is no children's programs, all shows we made to appeal to the whole family.

Joe_small_square

1st Jan, 1970

Concern with Cigarette Ads

Parents had issues with Cigarette companies like this one, Camel, using cartoon characters to advertise their product, because they worried that it was trying to target kids.

Caru_small_square

1st Jan, 1974

Children's Advertising Review Unit Formed

The Children's Advertising Review Unit is formed to regulate advertisements targeted to children.

Advergame_small_square

1st Jan, 2000

Advergames

In the late 90s till today, Children are marketed to in the form of advergames, like this one where you can play a game using M&Ms. Advergames are a combination of a game and an advertisement. Ideal for marketers, because it allows for much more exposure to the brand than commercials do.

Time span Dates:

Time span Title:

Time span Description:

1st Jan, 1900

to

31st Dec, 1909

Early 1900s

In the early 1900s, companies created stories for children that included their product. Children were also advertised to though sponsored radio shows, and through school, where principals served as an endorsement.

1st Jan, 1910

to

31st Dec, 1919

Advertising in 1910

Companies started to hold contests to encourage children to use their product. One example is the Winchester Rifle Company, which held shooting contests for kids.

1st Jan, 1920

to

31st Dec, 1929

The 1920s

Children could join loyalty clubs for various companies. They would receive prizes and a higher status the more they consumed the product.

1st Jan, 1950

to

31st Dec, 1959

Mid- Century advertisements

Besides the use of TV commercials to advertise to children, food product companies created cookbooks teaching children how to cook using their product, and toy and bike ads were featured on the back of comic books.

1st Jan, 1960

to

31st Dec, 1969

The 60s

We start to see 30 second commercials like they are today. Interest in marketing to children grows.

1st Jan, 1970

to

31st Dec, 1979

The 70s

Concern with children being exposed to advertisements grows.

1st Jan, 1998

to

16th Jan, 2012

The age of advertising on the internet

Advertiser target children through the internet. Using social media sites, and advergames.

Table (timelines: the-history-of-advertising-to-children)