ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the changing landscape of young consumer behaviour by drawing together the historical viewpoints and contemporary perspectives on this issue and in doing so sheds light on what this consumer group consumes, how it consumes and why it does so. Young consumers are active from the stage of need recognition right to the state of post-purchase evaluation. One of the marketing literature areas that has been used to uncover the discourses of historical issues about children's consumption behaviour is their socialisation and a good number of papers have been written on this, such as the seminal papers of Ward and John. The common argument is that children in certain countries have very limited access to global marketplace information, operate under autocratic parental guidance and hence have very little or no control over their consumption issues. Young consumers are becoming more powerful in the purchase act of many market offerings.
