ABSTRACT
The effect of advertising on children has always provoked strong feelings and contradictory opinions. This chapter provides insight into the current state of the empirical research on this topic. Consisting of four sections, the first examines some general aspects of children’s consumer behavior. It begins with the question of why children have become an interesting niche market in the past decades. It also discusses the development of children’s brand awareness and their growing influence on family purchases. The second section reviews some important effects of advertising on children. It will concentrate on some important intended (e.g., brand preferences) and unintended effects of advertising (e.g., materialism, parent-child conflict). The third section reviews a number of characteristics of advertising that may increase its effects on children, such as repetition of commercials, celebrity endorsement, and the use of premiums. The final section examines which children are most susceptible to the various effects of advertising. Research has shown, for example, that younger children are more vulnerable to certain advertising effects than older children. This section explains why various subgroups of children differ in their reactions to advertising.
