children attitude toward tvc in pak

8/9/2019 Children Attitude Toward TVC in Pak

1/7

European Journal of Scientific Research

ISSN 1450-216X Vol.21 No.4 (2008), pp.693-699

EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2008

http://www.eurojournals.com/ejsr.htm

Children Attitude Towards TV Advertisements in Pakistan

Muhammad Shahbaz ShabbirBusiness Department, International Islamic University Islamabad Pakistan

E-mail: [email protected]

Shabana KirmaniInternational Islamic University Islamabad Pakistan

Hafiz Faiz-Ul-Hassan

Quaid-I-Azam University, Pakistan

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore Pakistani childrens attitude toward TV

advertisement, their awareness about add and influence of add on their purchase behaviour.

In Pakistan, most advertising agencies now target children through advertisementespecially when advertising consumer products like childrens toys, chocolates, candy bars,

tooth paste etc. Study shows that Pakistani children are very much aware about TV

commercials features like: truthfulness, annoyingness, taste and influencing characteristics

of the ad. Their behaviour Is also different about advertised and non-advertised brands.

Keywords: Children attitude, Advertising, Consumer Product.

1. IntroductionAdvertising, in all its forms, plays an important role in informing peoples choices of products and

services. We welcome the industrys efforts, channeled through Media Smart to help children

understand and interpret advertising.(Sachiko, 2004)

Children are a key target for advertisers, as brand preferences often remain unchangedthroughout life. Increasingly considered as potential consumers, children have ever-larger allowances

and have a significant influence on their parents spending habits. French advertisers have spent asmuch as 150 million a year on advertising to children under the age of 12 and this figure is rising,

particularly for food advertising.

Childrens segment is now being target by many consumers product companies, because

children are important potential customers as they not only decide about their own buying as they can

influence the buying decisions of their parents. A greater percentage of parents income is spent onpurchase of products only because of childrens influence.

In Pakistan, advertising agencies understand the role of children in buying process of parents

and their own. Most advertising agencies now target children through advertisement. If consumer

products especially when advertising childrens toys, chocolates, candy bars like milk (Nestle, Haleeb),

tooth paste (Colgate, Aqua Fresh)


2/7

Children Attitude Towards TV Advertisements in Pakistan 694

1.1. When are kids watching?

To a large extent, kids are watching when they want. Most kids talked about watching TV:

In the morning before school;

As soon as they get home from school;

During dinner;

While doing their homework;

Weekend morning;

Early evening weekdays;

Early and late evening weekends.Although some parents try to control the amount of TV their kids watch, in reality there seems

to be very little policing . Most kids said that they are allowed to watch whatever they want and thisseems to be the case up until the watershed.

The interaction of Advertising and consumption beyond advertisements, children gain

marketplace information from the products they encounter, advice from friends and relatives, and heir

own consumption experiences. Through consumption, children learn what products are good and bad,

whether advertising claims are truthful, what brands they prefer. For example, until they are

functionally literate, children do not access the written information available through print advertising, packaging, and labels. Children often lack information about price, a primary consideration in adult

decisions.

1.2. Benefits of Childrens Exposure to the Media

Childrens exposure to media and advertising has raised a number of legitimate societal concerns.Television at its worst can expose young children to sex, violence and bad language; it can promote

gender stereotypes and communicate commercial messages that can be interpreted as challenging

parental authority. With Internet access, children may come into contact with racial hatred,

pornography and the risks of unsupervised and anonymous communication with strangers through theuse of chat rooms.

2. ObjectivesThe objectives of this study are as follows:

To study childrens attention towards television commercials

To compare childrens response to different types of television commercials;

To compare childrens response to their favorite commercials and their most dislikedcommercials.

To compare childrens perception of advertised and non-advertised brands.

3. Literature ReviewAttractive Advertisement makes a deep influence on childrens attitudes and behavior, whichespecially leads to purchase behavior as well as purchase request. Children can be categorized into

positive and negative attitudes, while children who have positive attitudes toward advertisement, their

behavior remain consistent with their attitudes and they tend to make purchasing of that particular

product whose advertisement they have seen. Vice versa, children who have negative attitude toward

advertisement they do not take any step to purchase that particular advertised product. Older childrens

negative attitudes is not seen in their purchase behavior, they usually pay less attention to the ad, whichleads to less awareness about the products, not better feeling about ad, therefore due to their negative

attitudes towards the product, sales deteriorates. (Evra, 1990).


3/7

695 Muhammad Shahbaz Shabbir, Shabana Kirmani and Hafiz Faiz-Ul-Hassan

Television Advertisement is the important tool of diffusing the communication. It plays an

important role in the development of young peoples consumer behavior. (Peter & Olson, 1994)Children use the ad for the sake of getting acquaintance with the new brands and products, how

that particular brand can be used. Children also keep the realities and belief about the products and

show their priorities accordingly. These realities and belief further help them to make purchase or theyask from their parents what is to purchase.(Mcneal & Ji, 1999).It is also examined that older children are less doubtful to make choices, which are not matched

with their attitudes. Children who are 11 or older see the advertisement in order to form an attitude

toward the advertised product. They also have strength to make comparison with various alternatives,

which is considered important for forming consistent attitude.(Kobasigawa 1977; Wartella et al.1979)

Another Study by Austen, Ruble, and Trabasso (1977)describes younger children are more tend

to form an attitude toward the advertised product because message being diffused is not complex innature and decision follows the exposure to the message in ad.

Children age 10 or younger feel difficulty to recall previous stored information and in making

comparative decision (Kobasigawa, 1977). Therefore rather than comparing alternatives and choosing

from its, young children usually prefer to make attitude toward the advertised product and makedecision about purchase based on this. (Wartella et al., 1979)In 1999, John Power conducted the survey for Nickelodeon and found that almost 70% of

children are involved in the automobile shopping process and 75% influence the actual automobile

purchase decision. Children give their views on family purchases and parents encourage them to

participate and give ideas about purchase. So the marketers are very much conscious about this

tendency and measuring its impact on their business and making compatible strategies for this new

factor. (Sabino, 2002)

As the change in media taking palace, children are also expecting the marketing communicationshould also change. For example, more then half of the twins interviewed indicated they want to get

message about product through various mediums such as television, magazines and online and it also

helps them to memorize the product in more better and effective way. (National Twine Study, 2002).Young children are more inclined towards funny and song oriented ads, and while older

children like and pay attention on funny, meaningful ads and ads based on public service

announcements. Younger children are more confident about the advertised product as compared to theolder children. Older children do not rely on the quality of the advertised product. (Chan & McNeal,

2002).From the experimental study of Wartella and Ettema (1974) and in-home observation Ward and

Wackman (1973) it has been found that younger the child, more the impact of perceptual characteristic

of add on the child and able to grab his attention in the effective way. Older children are most

influenced by the content of the advertisement rather then perception.Reiken and Yavas(1990) states that children do not believe many ads claims and they do not

always keep positive attitude towards these ads ,they are aware ,how is to deal with ads clutter, they

remain skeptic about the truthfulness of these ads. They always keep a room about the credibility of

advertised products.

4. Research Methodology4.1. Sampling Procedure

This survey involved 5 Pakistani high schools from different vicinities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad,

The capital. A total of 150 Pakistani children aged 1015 years were selected on the basis of(Kobasigawa, 1977) study. The Convenience sampling method was used according to the convenience

of getting data from the schools of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The questionnaire was also translated

into the Urdu language (domestic language) to bring out better understanding from the children.. Allthe questionnaires distributed were collected with 98.5% response rate.


4/7


4.2. Preparation for measurement

Nine items were used to measure childrens television advertising responses. Seven questions were

formed and adapted from (Rossiter, 1977) scale. Two new questions were included. A 5-point Likert

scale (Likert, 1932), strongly agree to strongly disagree, was used, and factor-analyzed to determine

single dimensions of childrens advertising responses were realized: childrens awareness of TVadvertising.

A study conducted by Noor and Osman (2004) about the childrens awareness of the TV

advertising. Currently researchers tried to find out that Pakistani children have considerable know how

of TV advertisements or not.

4.3. Measuring Childrens Awareness of TV Commercials

9- Questions scale was used to measure the degree of awareness of Childrens Awareness of TV

Commercials. The selected scale focuses on the range of cognitive and affective reactions towards

television advertising in terms of watching of TV, perceived truthfulness of commercials, potential

annoying qualities, and objectivity in describing advertised products, overall liking, and perceivedpersuasive power, believability of characters, and trustworthiness as guidance to product purchases andwants to buy the product after watching TV commercials.

Table 1:

1. Watch: Do you watch TV?

2. Truth: Television commercials tell the truth.

3. Annoy: Most TV commercials are in poor taste and very annoying

4. Good only: Television commercials tell only the good things about a product.

5. Like: I like most television commercials

6. Persuasive: Television commercials try to make people buy things they dont really need.

7. Believe: You can always believe what the people in commercials say or do.

8. Best: The products advertised the most on TV are always the best products to buy.9. Want: After watching TV commercial I want to buy the product advertised.

4.4. Designing the Questionnaires

Every question was given five answers strongly disagree agree neutral disagree strongly

disagree. Children were given self assistance in filling the questionnaire. Entire study was self-

administered.

5. Limitations of the StudyThe limitations of this study can be summarized under two main headings.

The first is related to the cost involved in undertaking the research and the time constraint. Thestudy focuses exclusively on high school children in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Hence the study

represents only part of Pakistan population. We had very limited span of time to conduct a vast

research.

Second, although a convenience sample method was used since then researcher was allowed to

involve few classes from each school or academy and no probability was assigned to any class orstudent for being selected in the sample it was based on only researchers choice.


5/7


Table 2:

Description Frequency Percent

Gender N %

Male 86 55.48

Female 69 44.52Total 155 100

6. Research ResultsThe sample characteristics for the 155 respondents are summarized in table-2.

Table 4 shows that children know that all TV adds do not tell the truth as greater percentage of

respondent children were disagreeing to the claim that TV add tells the truth indicated by the Mean

value of 3.31. This means that children understand the language of advertisement. Similarly Mean

results 2.85 shows in table that children feel the annoying qualities of advertisements and are agreeing

that most TV commercials are of poor taste and very annoying.

As it is a fact that TV advertisements purpose is to increase the sale of the product advertised,thats why it tells only good aspects of the product. Pakistani children are aware of this fact and Mean

results 2.29 are showing the same. About the likeliness of TV advertisements in Pakistan, most of the

children dislike ads. And response about the claim that TV adds influence people to buy the product

they dont need, Mean 3.04 shows that they are neither agree nor disagree with the said statement.

Mean value for believability and always advertised products are best are respectively 3.24 and3.24 which shows children are neither agree nor disagree with said statements. TV Advertisings do

create purchase desire as indicated by mean value which is 2.57.

Reliability analysis was used that is inter-item correlation among the items listed in the Table-1.

Results and findings are summarized in Table-3. According to Guilford (1973) guidelines, for a well-

constructed test, item inter-correlations should be between 0.10 and 0.60 (Rossiter, 1977). The present

findings shows that Rossiters (1977) scale can be applied usually among the Pakistani children whilemeasuring their understanding of TV commercials as inter-item correlation among (truth, annoy),

(truth, persuadable), (annoy, want), (good-only, persuadable), (good-only, best), (good-only, want) are

not significant i.e. all inter-correlations are negative, it means that these items are negatively correlated

with each other. On the other hand (annoy, like), (annoy, believe), (annoy, best), also dont havesignificant inter-Correlation they are not in the range of 0.10 to 0.60 although it is not negative.

Remaining items have significant inter-correlation.

Table 3: Reliability Analysis - Scale (Inter-item Correlation Matrix)

Truth AnnoyGood

OnlyLike Persuasive Believe Best

Purchase

Desire

TRUTH 1.0000

ANNOY -0.521 1.0000

GOOD ONLY 0.1335 0.2810 1.0000

LIKE 0.4084 0.0040 0.1515 1.0000

PERSUADABLE -0.1501 0.1054 - 0.056 0.0368 1.0000

BELIEVE 0.3592 0.0780 0.0953 0.3330 0.1049 1.0000

BEST 0.1956 0.0968 -0.006 0.1775 0.0759 0.2190 1.0000

WANT 0.1722 0.0044 -.0742 0.1354 0.0902 0.2616 0.2951 1.0000

N of Cases= 148.0

Reliability coefficient 8 items

Alpha= 0.6567 Standardized item alpha = 0.6703


6/7


Table 4: Results

Watch Truth Annoy Good Only Like Persuasive Believe Best Purchase Desire

N

Valid 155 153 153 153 155 154 155 154 155

Missing 0 2 2 2 0 1 0 1 0Mean 1.00 3.31 2.85 2.29 3.22 3.04 3.24 3.24 2.57

St. eviation 0 1.13 1.40 1.26 1.37 1.28 1.28 1.25 1.23

7. ConclusionData shows that Children are very much aware of TV advertisements in Pakistan and advertising has a

impact on their purchase behaviors. We also got that they evaluate and compare the different productsTV Advertisements. TV advertisements influence childrens behavior about brand advertised. As

childrens behavior change it also changes their buying pattern and this is the purpose behind the

advertisements. As children are very much aware of TV advertisements and they know good and bad

aspects of them. Marketer should understand the childrens psychic before launching anyadvertisement. Children also know the degree of truthfulness in add. So for the advertisers its very

important to realize that children are not ignorant from the content of their campaigns, and whiledeveloping their campaigns they must address the issues with a professional approach. It is also clear

that advertisement can be a good effective media to convey the required message in child segments if

they are created professionally. Lastly advertisers can not rely only on comic and colors in children

related advertisements, they do need to focus on the content of the advertisements, they must avoid

over promising in their advertisement campaigns.


7/7


References[1] Austin,V.D., Ruble, E. and Trabasso, T(1977), Recall and order effects in childrens moral

judgments, Journal of Child Development, 48,60-4.

[2] Chan, K. & McNeal, J. (2002). Childrens perceptions of television advertising in urban

China.International Journal of Advertising and Marketing to Children, 3, 6979.[3] Donna, S. (2002), Changing families, changing kids Advertising & Marketing to Children

OctoberDecember 2002

[4] Evra, V.J. (1990) Television and child development, children youth and family consortium.Electric Clearinghouse.

[5] Guilford, Joy P., and Fruchter, Benjamin (1973), Fundamental Statistics in Psychology and

Education, McGraw-Hill Book Company.

[6] Kobasigawa,A.(1977) Retrieval Strategies in the Development of Memory, in Perspective on

the Development of Memory and Cognition, R.V. Kail and J.W.Hagen, eds. Hills dale, NJ:

Erlbaum[7] Likert, R (1932) A technique for the Measurment of Attitudes Archives of Psychology 140-

55.[8] McNeal, J.U. & Ji. M.F. (1999) Chinese children as consumers: an analysis of their new

product information sources. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 16,4, 345365.

[9] National Tween Study (2002) Sponsored by Nickelodeon Magazine.

[10] Noor, H, & Osman, M, (2004)Malaysian childrens attitudes towards television advertising.Journal of Young Consumers: Insight and Ideas of Responsible Marketers 5. P41-51

[11] Peter, J.P. & Olson, J.C. (1994) Understanding Consumer Behaviour. United States of

America: Irwin, Inc.

[12] Rieken, G. & Yavas, U. (1990). Children's general, product and brand specific attitudes towardstelevision commercials: implications for public policy and advertising strategy. International

Journal of Advertising, 9, 136148.

[13] Rossiter, J.R. (1977) Reliability of a short test measuring childrens attitudes toward TVcommercials. Journal of Consumer Research, pp. 179184.

[14] Sachiko, M (2004).Children and Media. Journal of Young Consumers: Insight and Ideas of

Responsible Marketers 6. P37-43

[15] Wartella, E. & Ettema, J.S. (1974) A cognitive developmental study of childrens attention to

television Commercials. Journal of Communication Research,1, 4469.[16] Ward, S. & Wackman, D.B. (1973) Childrens information processing of television advertising.

In. P. Clarke (ed.), New Models for Communication Research (pp. 119146). Beverly Hills:

Sage.

[17] Wartella, E., and Alexander, A (1979), The Young child as consumer, in Children

Communication:Media and Development of Thought ,Speech, and

Understanding,E.Wartella,ed.Beverl Hills,CA:Sage Publications.

children attitude toward tvc in pak

Documents