Who’s messing with whose mind?

Regulation of advertising to children is receiving increased attention. We need to distinguish areas where practice needs reform from criticism based on flawed models of how advertising works and from wrongly perceived changes in advertising practice. This paper summarises the criticisms by Nairn and Fine (IJA, 27(3), 2008). It then sets out what seems to be reliable (i.e. the common ground) before raising concerns with other assertions. The argument that children cannot cope with advertising because their rational faculties are not yet developed collapses as it turns out, as Nairn and Fine concede, that the same applies for any age group. Maybe more controls are needed for product placement and/or advertising masquerading as editorial, but neither of these are areas where the rights of, or responsibilities to, children differ from adults. In other words, Nairn and Fine confound their concern for children with their antipathy to certain forms of advertising to all age groups. Nairn and Fine may also be confusing changes in advertising theory with changes in advertising practice. After reviewing other areas of contention, this paper concurs with the final Nairn and Fine recommendation, namely that the advertising industry should review self-regulation in regard to advertising to children.     

Forecasting Advertising Expenditure

The 1980s are proving to be a decade of great uncertainty during which the possession of accurate short-term forecasting techniques can lead to better decision-making. Forecasts of advertising expenditure in total and by medium is an especially important source of information for the advertising industry—advertising agencies, media owners, advertisers—and all others concerned. Furthermore, it is particularly important to unravel the systematic from chance changes in the market as a whole. This paper attempts both to illustrate and to evaluate the ‘naive’ Box-Jenkins method of time series forecasting as related to aggregate advertising expenditures in Britain and West Germany.     

Children's advertising: the ethics of economic socialisation

There is focus upon advertising and children for two broad reasons. First, it is because children are children, and are considered separately. Second, it is because children will become adults. Advertising therefore effects behaviour during childhood and continues to do so into adulthood. Advertising to children rarely receives a good press, and it remains a controversial topic in the wider domain. Is it responsible for poor diet? Does it make children pester their parents? Is there too much of it? And does Christmas have to start in September? Subsequently the issue has evolved to question whether there should be advertising to children, and if so whether it should be regulated. This discussion paper examines arguments for and against children's advertising, and concludes that whilst there are compelling arguments on both sides, advertising to children remains an economic necessity in need of adjustment and regulation.     

An Evaluation of Government and Industry Proposed Restrictions on Television Advertising of Breakfast Cereals to Children

In the United States, both industry and the federal government have worked to establish voluntary guidelines for how firms market food to children and to establish a threshold for the nutritional quality of foods marketed to children. The authors evaluate three US guidelines that deal with television advertising of breakfast cereals, which is both heavily advertised and a common meal item for children. They find that the majority of cereals advertised primarily to children from 2006 to 2008 do not meet any of the current and proposed self-regulatory nutrition guidelines, and that this is generally due to excessive sugar content. Further, children and adolescents are exposed to more advertising for products that do not meet the nutritional guidelines. We evaluate the extent to which each of the guidelines impacts advertising of cereals that are most viewed by children and purchased by households with children. The results provide insight for policy makers concerned with limiting the extent to which children see television advertising and ultimately consume unhealthy breakfast cereals.     

Children's Understanding of TV Advertising: Effects of Age, Gender, and Parental Influence

Parents, consumer organizations, and policy makers are generally concerned about effects of TV advertising directed towards children. These effects might be mediated by children's understanding of TV advertising, that is their ability to distinguish between TV programmes and commercials and their comprehension of advertising intent. In this paper, we investigate children's understanding of TV advertising, using verbal and non-verbal measurements. The sample consists of 153 Dutch children, ranging from 5 to 8 years old, and their parents. The results based on non-verbal measures suggest that most children are able to distinguish commercials from programmes and that they have some insight into advertising intent. The results based on verbal measures are not as conclusive; the percentage of children who show understanding of TV advertising is then substantially lower. Effects of age, gender, and parental influence are assessed using MURALS, a regression analysis technique for categorical and continuous variables, and CHAID, a technique for identifying homogeneous segments on the basis of the relationship between categorical dependent and explanatory variables. The age of a child turns out to have a positive effect. The effects of gender and parent- child interaction are rather small, both for verbal and for non-verbal measures of understanding of TV advertising. A high level of parental control of TV viewing may result in lower understanding of TV advertising. Implications for consumer policy and directions for future research are discussed.     

A Dual-Step and Dual-Process Model of Advertising Effects: Implications for Reducing the Negative Impact of Advertising on Children's Consumption Behaviour

Children are important targets of advertising campaigns from companies. However, children have been found to be particularly vulnerable to negative effects of advertising, and protecting children from these effects is an important task of consumer policy. Two important aspects have to be considered in this task. First, advertising affects judgements and behaviour not only during ad exposure but also in delayed consumption and purchase contexts. Second, advertising operates largely at an implicit level—during ad exposure as well as in consumption decisions. The current article introduces a dual-step (ad exposure vs. purchase/consumption) and dual-process (implicit vs. explicit) model of advertising effects on children. The model is based on a review of implicit advertising effects and implicit mechanisms of self-control. It implies that consumer policies intending to prevent undesired advertising effects should support interventions that strengthen advertising and purchasing literacy and, in addition, implicit self-control mechanisms in children. As self-control in consumption decisions is largely relevant for, and learned during, shopping and consumption, such interventions should focus on educating parents or other primary caregivers because they are the most likely persons to accompany children in such situations and have a great influence on children's implicit learning.     

Advertising and Children

Abstract

This article reviews the debate regarding the issue of growing obesity in society in terms of issues and possible policy options. The issue is most focused on children though having obvious ramifications for adults in many economies around the world. Policy solutions such as advertising bans or taxes that have been proposed in several countries seem to be based on insufficient evidence—i.e., there is no empirical evidence to substantiate the claimed causal effect between marketing communication practices directed at children and nutrition. These solutions, if enacted in policy, could be both inequitable and ineffective. While the study is couched and framed from a New Zealand context, nonetheless it serves to illuminate issues and policies of wider relevance.     

International Advertising Expenditure Trends

From the early 1990s, marketing literature began to feature a number of articles suggesting that integrated marketing communications (IMC) would have a major impact on advertising as we know it, and on client—advertising agency relationships. A counter-view appeared at that time in the literature suggesting that IMC was nothing more than co-ordinated promotion and that many companies had been doing ‘it’ for some considerable time. More recent articles have lamented that the concept has not been embraced by marketing communications specialists and that implementation has proven difficult. A common definition of IMC—and how it differs from traditional advertising, both in philosophy and in implementation—has not evolved despite considerable academic discussion on the subject. This paper reviews the most comprehensive definitions of IMC and the competing paradigms—‘new’ versus ‘nothing new’—and summarises the results of a recent two-part study that compares the perceptions of clients with those of senior ad agency personnel in New Zealand regarding how and in what ways IMC is developing there.     

Tobacco Advertising and Children

This paper expresses the results of an investigation of the influence of tobacco advertising on children's smoking. The investigation examined the existing body of evidence and literature on the subject including data obtained from empirical research carried out by the Children's Research Unit in London. Despite the speculation regarding the possible role of advertising in juvenile smoking, no evidence was found to link juvenile smoking initiation with tobacco advertising. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that smoking initiation is more dependent on family smoking behaviour and peer pressures. These factors emerged consistently as the major influences in smoking initiation throughout the literature and the range of countries investigated regardless of the extent of tobacco advertising permitted in each country. Advertising is not as influential as is often supposed. Psychological filter systems are employed by the consumer, who selects only that information which is of relevance or interest to him. Widespread awareness of the tobacco-health issue means that an additional barrier is formed in the case of cigarette advertisements. There is no evidence that tobacco advertising influences non-smokers (either children or adults) to take up smoking.     

Attitudinal change in children: An insight from three decade of advertising campaigns in India

Abstract

Exposure to advertisement is considered to be the primary source of indulgence and distraction for children. Past studies have treated children as both empowered and vulnerable. Empowered because after a certain age children become mature enough to understand the difference between entertainment and persuasion, but before reaching that stage children are extremely naïve. This paper aims to explore the changes in childrens’ attitude towards frequent changes in advertising campaigns with reference to a popular product of a famous chocolate multinational brand in India. Four focus groups comprising of 22 children of both the genders between the age group of 8–14 years participated in the study. Selective advertisement from a period of three decades (1983–2016) were chosen and shown to the children in a birthday party and their responses were collected. Congruency Theory of Social Psychology was applied for the analysis of the excerpts. The findings reveals that frequent changes in advertising campaigns create confusion in the minds of the children. The entertainment and empathy towards the advertisement were reduced considerably when the advertisement execution shifted from children to adults.     

International advertising: Developmental and implementational issues

This paper reports on a study which investigated the international advertising practices of a sample of major advertising spending multinationals, and the rationales behind their policies. The objective was to obtain insights into the efficacy of international advertising standardization options. When the rationales behind the international advertising practices of the sampled companies were examined, it was found that the executives concerned brought a wide‐ranging agenda to the decision‐making process and that factors beyond the specific benefits of standardization influenced their policies. As regards their actual policies, the practice of some form of standardization was found to be widespread, but the practice of total standardization was rare. As such, the data indicate that standardization is a flexible option, with many possible variants, i.e. it can be adapted to circumstances and is not an either/or policy. The paper concludes that the focus on whether or not multinationals should practice international advertising is misplaced, if only because, just as at the local or national level, there will be good and bad international advertising. Accordingly, more emphasis should be placed on reviewing issues relating to how to improve the quality of international advertising campaigns.     

Consumer processing of foreign advertisements: roles of country-of-origin perceptions,consumer ethnocentrism,and country attitude

This paper reports the findings of a study that examined the impact of consumers’ three cross-national individual difference variables — country-of-origin perceptions, consumer ethnocentrism, and country attitudes — on their responses and attitudes toward foreign advertisements and advertised products. A model of consumer processing of international advertising has been proposed that consolidates a dual-element thesis comprising research on consumer processing of advertising, and several streams of research on cross-national individual difference variables. Empirical analysis of the hypothetical model through structural equation modeling yields supportive results: positive effects of consumers’ country attitudes on their responses to the creative presentation of international advertising, and positive effects of consumers’ country-of-origin perceptions on their responses to the buying proposal of international advertising. However, the hypothesized negative effects of consumer ethnocentrism on their responses to international advertising was not confirmed. The study contributes to our understanding of cross-national individual difference variables that precede and determine consumers’ attitudes toward foreign advertisements. It has practical implications for standardization versus localization of international advertising strategy.     

The effects of commercial advertising on children

This paper examines recent published research into the effects of advertising on children in the light of public concern. It states a series of hypotheses on which much public criticism appears to be based and demonstrates that they are not supported by the evidence of researchers into child psychology and advertising. It argues that undesirable and anti-social behaviour by children is not the result of some simple stimulus-response mechanism. Up till now, no serious study has been able to prove a direct and exclusive link between advertising and juvenile purchasing or other forms of behaviour. However, a number of studies have shown that the most important influences on a wide range of children's attitudes and behaviour are parental, family, peer-group and other social factors. This paper first appeared in Commercial Communications, January 1999, and we are grateful to the author for permission to reprint.     

Does food advertising influence children’s food choices? A critical review of some of the recent literature

Food advertising to children is an issue that is at the centre of debate and the purpose of this paper is to critically examine the claims and the evidence. Several issues are examined: the child’s understanding of advertising, the content of advertising to children; food choices in families, children’s food choice and behaviour, and the effect of advertising on food choice. Major conclusions are the following: that children understand the function of advertising from the age of 8–9 years, although there are limitations on how effectively they apply this knowledge; that the content of advertising to children has remained relatively unchanged for 25 years; that children play an active role in food choice in families; that children’s dietary preferences and habits are well-established before advertising is understood; and that advertising’s role in children’s food choices and preferences is multi-factorial and complex.     

When Companies Don't Make the Ad: A Multimethod Inquiry Into the Differential Effectiveness of Consumer-Generated Advertising

This four-part multimethod investigation into the under researched yet increasingly prevalent phenomenon of consumer-generated advertising (CGA) establishes a performance advantage over traditional advertising and suggests a rationale for this differential. CGAs benefit from heightened consumer engagement and increased trustworthiness. CGAs also garner perceived quality advantages that are linked to consumers lowering their expectations and using different evaluation criteria to judge the ad. The ad creator—a personalized, identifiable, and relatable entity in the case of CGAs—plays a central role in anchoring and shaping ad reactions. The impact of the “consumer-made” characteristic—the fact that CGAs are made not by companies but by independent people—is powerful and stands strong in the face of commercial motives, and presents paradigmatic implications for advertising practice and research.     

The Impact of Advertising on Markets

This paper is a preliminary report of research being carried out into the influence of advertising in five major areas of consumer expenditure. In each case it tests the proposition that changes in advertising cause changes in consumption, employing Box—Jenkins techniques to determine the existence of causality using quarterly data during the period 1963 to 1978. No market showed advertising to have any effect upon its size.     

Trends in Total Advertising Expenditure in 29 Countries, 1970–1980

There is a growing body of national studies identifying reasons for ‘juvenile smoking initiation’ that is, the conditions, motivations and precipitating circumstances associated with children starting to smoke. In contrast, there has been a lack of systematic cross-national research to compare juvenile smoking initiation in a similar manner in countries with different values, levels of economic development, political systems and social stratification. Controlling for all of these factors is a daunting task indeed for any researcher. However, considering that one common remedy has been proposed to combat juvenile smoking, namely, to ban or severely restrict tobacco advertising, it was highly desirable to compare countries which differ significantly in terms of public policies towards tobacco advertising, in order to determine the relative impact of tobacco advertising on why juveniles start smoking. To this end, the tobacco industry's international information organization (INFOTAB) commissioned the Children's Research Unit to investigate a variety of personal, social and cultural factors—including advertising—bearing on juvenile smoking initiation in a sample of countries selected for their different systems regulating tobacco product advertising.     

Japanese popular art as text advertising's clues to understanding the consumer

We must be concerned with our choices of methodology when we are trying to understand a culture. Art, because it is a way of expressing collective values and norms, is available for researchers attempting to gain an understanding of a culture. Thus art becomes text — conveying a message regarding the culture. Japanese art is used to assist in the understanding of the often surprising phenomenon of a greater than expected use of sex and violence in Japanese advertising and other popular visual art forms. It is posited that, consistent with what is reflected in the woodblock printings of the Tokugawa period, there is still a frustration with the restrictive political and social system, that is reflected in present day popular visual arts and advertising.     

A comparison of parents' and children's knowledge of brands and advertising slogans in the United States: implications for consumer socialization

Research in the area of consumer socialization suggests that parents act in an agent–learner relationship with their preadolescent children and have the greatest influence on their young children's purchase behaviour. The present study examines this assumption in light of changes in family roles and composition, media exposure and marketing efforts aimed at children. A cognitive recognition test of advertising slogans drawn from recent television commercials is used to determine knowledge levels of a sample of preadolescent children and their parents. Results suggest that children, beginning at age nine, have as much knowledge of advertising slogans as do their parents, even in product categories targeted at adults.     

Advertising Standardization

The use of standardized international advertising by multinational corporations has long been a dominant topic in the advertising literature. To date, however, no study has comprehensively investigated the extent to which standardization of advertising may be occurring in practice. This paper examines the practices of a sample of US—based multinationals with respect to advertising and reports a relatively high degree of standardization across a range of advertising decision variables. Several hypotheses regarding relationships among advertising variables and between advertising variables and potential moderating variables (as suggested by the literature) are evaluated.