Children enjoy watching television for long hours and are exposed to numerous television advertisements. The fact that they enjoy greater stake in family buying decision have made marketers attracted towards them. Marketers find it easier to influence children through television advertising. They assimilate the advertising message faster and their minds are not cluttered as adult mind. Parents, generally, hold television advertising to be largely responsible for changing their children's behavior and inculcating in them the desire for products not good for their health and development and converting then into naggers. This study attempts to understand how much television advertising can be held responsible for molding the behavior of children. It studies me correlation between television viewing time and various behavioral effects of television advertising. The results of the study indicate that Indian children watches television on an average for 18.35 hours in a week and more a child is exposed to television advertisements the greater he/she is affected by television advertisements.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AdlerR.P.LesserG.S.MerengoffL.RobertsonT.S.RossiterJ.R.WardS. (1980), Research on the Effects of Television Advertising on Children, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
2.
BuijzenM.ValkenburgP. M. (2003). ‘The unintended effects of television advertising’Communication Research, 30(5), pp. 483–503.
3.
BurdetteH.L.WhitakerR.C. (2005), ‘The National Study of Neighbourhood Safety, outdoor play, television viewing and obesity in preschool children’Pediatrics, 116(3), pp. 657–660.
4.
BurrP. L.BurrR.M. (1977). ‘Parental Responses to Child Marketing’Journal of Advertising Research, 17(6), pp. 17–24.
5.
CrespoC. J.SmithE.TroianoR. P.BarlettS. J.MaceraC. A.AndersonR. E., (2001). ‘Television Watching, Energy Intake and Obesity in US Children: Results from the 3rd NHANES: 1988–1994’Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 155, pp. 360–365.
6.
DensN.PelsmackerP.D.EagleL. (2007). ‘Parental Attitude towards Advertising to Children and Restrictive Mediation of Children's Television Viewing in Belgium’Young Consumers, 8(1), pp. 7–18.
7.
DietzW.GortmakerS. (1985), ‘Do we flatten our children at the TV sets? Obesity and Television Viewing in Children and Adolescents, Pediatrics75, pp. 807–812.
8.
GalstJ. P.WhiteM. A. (1976). ‘The Unhealthy Persuader: The Reinforcing Value of Television and Children's Purchase Influencing Attempts at the Supermarket’Child Development, 47, pp. 1089–1096.
GoldbergM. E (1990). ‘A Quasi-Experiment Assessing the Effectiveness of TV Advertising Directed to Children’Journal of Marketing Research, 27, pp. 445–454.
11.
GortmakerS. L.MustA.SobolA. M.PetersonK.ColditzG.A.DietzW. H. (1996). ‘TV Viewing as a Cause of Increasing Obesity among Children in the US 1986–1990’Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 153, pp. 356–362.
12.
GrossbartS. L.CrosbyL. A. (1984). ‘Understanding Bases of Parental Concern and Reactions to Food Advertising’Journal of Marketing, 48(1), pp. 79–92.
13.
HansenF.NielsenJ.ChristansenP. (2005), ‘Children's Influence upon Family Purchase Decision Making’ Working paper, Copenhagen Business School, Available from WARC, Accessed on 18/2/08.
14.
HerseyJ. C.JordanA. (2007), ‘Reducing Children's TV Time to Reduce the Risk of Child Overweight: The Children's Media Use Study’, Highlight Report, RTI project Number, 8680.006.
15.
JordanA.B.HerseyJ.C.McDivittJ.A.HeitzlerC.D. (2006). ‘Reducing Children's Television Viewing Time: A Qualitative Study of Parents and their Children’Pediatrics, 118(5), pp. 1303–1310.
16.
HeskethK.CrawfordD.SalmonJ., (2006). ‘Children's Television Viewing and Objectively Measured Physical Activity: Association with Family Circumstances’International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical activity, 3(36), pp. 5868–336.
KaurP.SinghR. (2006), ‘Children in Family Purchase Decision Making in India and the West: A Review’, Academy of Marketing Science ReviewVol. 2006, No.8, Available from www.amsreview.org/articles/kaur08-2006.pdf. Accessed on January 2nd, 2007.
19.
KunkelD.WilcoxB. L.CantorJ.PalmerE.LinnS.DowrickP. (2004), ‘Psychological Issues in the Increasing Commercialization of Childhood' Report of the APA task force on advertising and children. Available from http://www.apa.org/releases/childrenads.pdf. Accessed on 15/2/2008.
20.
MittalM. (2008), ‘Television Viewing Habits among Indian Kids’, Indian Journal of Marketing38(7), pp. 22–26.
21.
ReevesB.AtkinC. K. (1979), ‘The Effects of Television Advertising on Mother- Child Interactions at the Grocery Store’ Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for education in Journalism (62nd, August 5–8, 1979, Houston, TX). Available form http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage01/0000019b/80/32/9e/91.pdf. Accessed on 25/2/ 2008.
22.
RobinsonT.N.KillenJ.D.KraemerH.C.WilsonD.M.MathesonD.M.HaskellW.L., (2003). ‘Dance and reducing television viewing to prevent weight gain in African girls: The Stanford GEMS pilot study’Ethnicity and Disease, 13, S1–77.
23.
StonemanZ.BrodyG. H. (1982). ‘The indirect impact of child-oriented advertisements on mother-child interactions’Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2, pp. 369–376.
24.
SpunginP. (2004). ‘Parent Power, Not Pester Power’Young Consumers, 5(3).
WilsonG.WoodK. (2004). ‘The influence of Children on Parental Purchases during supermarket shopping’International Journal of Consumer Studies, 28(4), pp. 329–336.
