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Keywords:
Branding, childrens
consumption,
content analysis,
Christmas
Dr Aron OCass
School of Marketing
& Management,
Griffith University-
Gold Coast,
PMB 50 Gold Coast
Mail Center 9726
Queensland, Australia
Tel: +61 7 5594 8139
Fax: +61 7 5594 8085
E-mail: A.Ocass@
mailbox.gu.edu.au
Dear Santa, do you have my brand?A study of the brand requests,awareness and request styles atChristmas timeReceived (in revised form): 6th August, 2001
Aron OCass
is a senior lecturer at Griffith University in the school of marketing and management.
He has a bachelor of commerce majoring in marketing, a master of business majoring
in marketing and a PhD focusing on consumer behaviour. He has published on topics
such as political marketing, voter choice, consumer brand associations, service choice
behaviour. His publications appear in the European Journal of Marketing, Psychology and
Marketing, Journal of Product & Brand Management, Economic Psychology, Journal of
Services Marketing and Journal of Advertising.
Peter Clarke
has a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Marketing and Human Resource
Management with 1st Class Honours in Marketing. Peter Clarke has delivered papers
on consumer behaviour at Anzmac and World Marketing Congress conferences.
Research interests include consumer behaviour, gift giving and buyer behaviour at
Christmas, and historical or cultural icons as consumption objects.
AbstractThis study examines brand awareness (preferences) and request styles (communicationapproaches) at Christmas of Australian children and adults. The study is founded in the
growing Santa Claus literature that has examined various issues related to gift giving andrequest behaviour at Christmas time. The study is based on the content analysis of 422letters written by children to Santa Claus. The results indicate that children are brand-orientated in their request behaviour, adopt fairly meaningful request strategies and usevisual imagery ie graphics in their communication strategies in their attempts to securetheir requested gifts and specific brands.
INTRODUCTIONChristmas where the gum trees growThere is no frost and there is no snowChristmas in Australias hotCold and frosty is what its notWhen the bloom of the Jacaranda tree is
hereChristmas time is nearTo ride around the bush where its dryTo cart all the presents piled so highA red nosed reindeer would never doSanta should jump on a kangaroo(Sabegal, undated)
These words are from a favourite
Australian Christmas song a
reminder that snow, reindeer, elves and
maybe even Santa Claus seem out of
place in Australia. Yet this Northern
hemisphere myth of Santa, symbolism
and all the Christmas activities are just
as evident at summer time in Australia
as they are in in the norths coldest,
darkest winters. Even more evident is
the transition of this festive season of
sharing and celebrating the birth of
Jesus into the season of giving, and
more often than not, giving and
requesting lots. The new gods of
Christmas now worshipped, are toy
Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 2, 1, 3753 #Henry Stewart Publications 1472-0817 37
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companies and their marketing armies
(elves).
Although Christmas is the
cornerstone of Christianity, it is also the
time of Santa and gift giving (Caplow
and Williamson, 1980). With the
complicity of parents, Santa Claus is theembodiment of a request culture that
endorses and encourages hedonistic
behaviour which contributes to the
socialisation of children into the self-
indulgent consumption associated with
the materialism of Western cultures
(Belk, 1987). Such requests are made
known to Santa either during a visit to
the Santa village located in a shopping
centre or offered as a written wish list to
Santa in a letter.
SANTA, CHILDREN, PARENTS AND
SOCIALISED REQUEST BEHAVIOUR
The participation in request behaviour
associated with (the tradition and myth
of) Christmas is an important
socialisation process where adults teach
children to become consumers. Bahn
(1986) describes socialisation as a
process of attending to and knowing
objects by, means of the senses, while
Mochis (1985) argues that this process
relies on the primary involvement of
parents and the family in general. Thisprocess is important because it helps to
develop preferences for purchasing and
consuming certain products over others
and may extend to brand preferences,
and both parental and marketplace
information contributes to a childs
brand awareness, familiarity or
knowledge. Children are increasingly
participating in family decision
processes (McNeal, 1992) and becoming
important marketplace participants
through a number of contemporary
social factors such as increasing
household affluence, growing
independence allowed to children and
greater consumer socialisation
(Lackman and Lanasa, 1993; McNeal,
1992). If there is previous experience or
exposure, Phelps and Hoy (1996)
suggest that either childrens or adults
attitudes toward familiar brands have a
strong relationship with a positive
purchase request, purchase decision or
both. This dominance of some brands
over others at Christmas time has
important social and marketing
implications.In the area of childrens decision
making, Bahn (1986) maintains that
older children make judgments on
multiple attributes while younger
children discriminate on one or maybe
two attributes. Research into childrens
consumer activities as early as the 1960s
has indicated that children influence
purchase decisions in the general
categories of confectionery, snacks,
cereal and soft drinks (Ward and
Wackman, 1968). Increases in the range
of product available to children has
occurred, however, because licensing
arrangements are moving brands
targeted at children into product
categories of apparel or juveniles
merchandise (Miller, 1990) and there
has been a growth in products and
brands now targeted at children. Thus, a
broadening of what might be termed
childrens product categories is being
seen. Children are becoming more
orientated toward fashion with popular
character motifs (Haynes et al., 1993),rock paraphernalia (Otnes et al., 1994b)
and sports icons. They also have a
strong influence in the purchase
decisions for shoes and video games
(McNeal, 1992). In Australia, the
Christmas period accounts for about 60
per cent of the A$2.2bn annual sales in a
leisure market which consists of
product categories such as traditional
toys, clothing, confectionery,
audiovisual, books, stationery, sports,
furniture and accessories (Meegan,
1993). Although the traditional toys and
clothing still dominate, audiovisual,
sports and furniture are indicative of the
increased range of products that appeal
to children. Moreover, children are
turning to contemporary products such
as audiovisual equipment, electronics
and computer-based games that account
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for approximately 20 per cent of the
Australian toy market (Vowles, 1996)
and, in general, Australian children
aged 14 to 17 own high-tech products in
comparable percentages to Australian
adults (Schiffman et al., 2001). Children
now have an opportunity to expresstheir preferences in an increasingly
expanding range of products and while
request behaviour is not the sole
domain of children, it is accentuated at
Christmas time and adults are placed
under enormous pressure to deliver the
goods (the right brand).
CHILDREN AND BRANDS
Hite and Hite (1995) argue that children
use product attributes to judge and
create preferences for brands of
products. They also express their
preferences in personal purchases
(McNeal, 1992) or request others to
make purchase for them (Ward and
Wackman, 1968). John and Sujan (1990)
have indicated that children categorise
products through visual cues of shape,
package, colour and size. Generally,
younger children cannot read and they
often use brand names or symbols as
attributes (Ward et al., 1977) or packages
as brand cues (Hite and Hite, 1995).
According to Percy and Rossiter (1992)such visual images are often enough to
stimulate a response by children to a
brand and use non-product attributes to
identify differences in brands. Children
appear to know the value and use of
brands to nominate their preferences
across a wide range of products. It has
been argued that children over the age
of two appear to have the capacity to
recognise, classify and evaluate brand
or product alternatives (Macklin, 1994)
that satisfy their own desires and
openly express these preferences
through letters written to Santa.
Toy brands have extended into
product areas not previously considered
as a childrens domain (Miller, 1990;
Haynes et al., 1993; Otnes et al., 1994b).
Children, however, often become highly
familiar with nationally advertised
brands at an early age (Hite and Hite,
1995; Reda, 1995). Therefore, requesting
a brand is not necessarily a restriction to
the product category of toys but a
continuation of that brand across other
product categories that a child seeks to
own or consume. According to Miller(1990), childrens recognition and
knowledge of brands is such that they
know one brand name can cover
requests as diverse as cereal, soft drinks
and confectionery to household linen,
toiletries and magazines. Children may
understand the concept of brand
extension (Hite and Hite, 1995) and they
should be able to nominate multiple
requests for a brand name over a
number of categories to display a
multiple brand-orientation in their
request behaviour. Children may be
brand aware and parental
encouragement in requesting and
acquiring product and brand
knowledge may be prominent at
Christmas and communication in this
period should cover such aspects.
REQUESTS WRITTEN BY CHILDREN AS
COMMUNICATION
Similar semantic phrases that cover
logical and affective appeals as well as
position formation appear in both oraland written approaches to
communication phraseology. For
example, written lists can omit words or
phrases to allow greater effect, with the
sender sorting statements into some
perceived order or grouping (Erftmier
and Dyson, 1986). Young children often
write about animals or people, but they
prefer to write in the non-narrative
format of lists, short notes, signs and
labels (Shook et al., 1989). Such
communication approaches allow key
words, phrases and concepts to be
sorted into a perceived order or
grouping for stronger effect, and can be
re-read and checked by them (Wetton,
1996). Weiss and Sachs (1991) indicated
that boys generally followed the
strategy type of rules, fair play and
reason, while girls used a format of
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Dear Santa, do you have my brand?
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statements or questions. This gender
effect indicates that boys use the art of
reason, while girls simply expect the
request to be honoured. Although there
are differences between oral and written
communications, children appear able
to adapt their communication strategyto different situations such as a visit or a
letter to Santa at Christmas.
HYPOTHESIS FORMATION
Given the lack of research on brand
identification and request behaviours of
Australian children at Christmas, there
is a need to combine the request items,
phraseology and illustrative content to
help understand how children express
their desires. Younger children do not
have the access to purchase products
directly and television advertising
encourages request behaviour in this
group through familiar messages such
as ask mom to get one (Kunkel and
Roberts, 1991). Hite and Hite (1995)
argue, however, that children appear to
be able to recognise and rely on brand
name and package cues to nominate
their preferences. Both boys and girls
brand knowledge seems to be alike
because they generally have similar
exposure to a number of different and
varied sources of information, learningand entertainment (McNeal, 1992).
Caron and Ward (1975) suggest
television is the major source of
information for childrens request
choices and children also accompany
adults to shopping centres (McNeal,
1992) and because of such exposure
children know and use brands to
express their wishes precisely. The
similarities in exposure to products and
brands as well as the encouragement of
unrestricted request activities at
Christmas for boys and girls suggest:
H1: There will not be a significant
difference between the number of
brands requested by boys and girls
when children write letters to Santa.
Otnes et al. (1994a) refer to politeness as
a socially accepted form of ingratiation
and an integral part of any request
strategy. Erftmier and Dyson (1986)
infer politeness is an essential
component in written communication
and also a form of friendship or
solidarity in the affective appeals viawritten and verbal approaches, If
politeness is a socialised trait, then:
H2: There will not be a significant
difference between the politeness of
girls gift request strategy and boys
gift request strategy.
Weiss and Sachs (1991) suggest boys
oral strategy is based upon rules, fair
play and reason which means they seek
the why challenge of direct statements
and do not use an indirect request
communication style. On the other
hand, girls expect any requests to be
honoured through simple, yet indirect
requests. Such views suggest that girls
should be less direct in the way they
write requests and therefore:
H3: The letters girls write for
themselves will contain
significantly more indirect request
strategies than letters boys write for
themselves.
Since lists and pictures constitutes a
form of written communication and
children generally have similar
exposure to information or learning,
expectations are that:
H4: There will not be a significant
difference between the numbers of
illustrations contained in girls and
boys letters to Santa.
RESEARCH METHOD
Some adults may want to know what
their children desire as Christmas gifts
and persuade children to write a letter
to Santa, that openly describes,
identifies or requests the gifts they
desire . The letters seemingly act as a
surrogate request to parents and
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generally are considered to be a written
expression of intent, behaviour and
intrinsic values that openly express
feelings within the broad topic of
Christmas wishes (Richardson and
Simpson, 1982). The awareness and
knowledge of brands and gifts togetherwith semantic phrase and illustrations
are identifiable and measurable within
the content analysis research method.
Content analysis is an acceptable
research method used to evaluate the
content of recorded information (Kolbe
and Burnett, 1991; Zickmund, 1994).
Content analysis is an unobtrusive
method that negates biased responses
and is used to gauge behavioural or
affective consumer responses (Kolbe
and Burnett, 1991; Malhotra et al., 1996).
It has also been used in a variety of
research contexts, such as television
commercials (Olney et al., 1991) and
printed advertisements (Belk and
Pollay, 1985). Importantly, letters to
Santa Claus have previously been used
as a source of data for content analysis
(Caron and Ward, 1975; Richardson and
Simpson, 1982; Downs, 1983; Otnes
et al., 1994a,b).
THE STUDY
A convenience sample of letters writtento Santa was obtained from a national
retailer in the run-up to Christmas. The
retailer enjoys a high level of patronage
across its outlets and encourages adults
and children to post a letter to Santa in
the Christmas village precinct of its
stores. These letters reflect the
importance of the request tradition and
are a suitable source of data. Individual
stores within the retail chain forwarded
convenience samples of letters received,
and they constitute an adequate sample
for the study. Following similar
procedures and recommendations
adopted by Otnes et al. (1994) and
Richardson and Simpson (1982), a
number of letters were excluded
some because they were generated by
keyboard and their true authorship
could not be satisfactorily established
and others because they were only
scribble drawings or illegible scrawl.
Letters requesting single items as a
shared gift (for example, a trampoline
for a sister and brother) caused
difficulty in identifying a singular
recipient. The current study alsoexcluded the non-committed request
style that sought plenty of toys,
surprises or something nice. Also,
specific requests by children for gifts of
pets, or gifts to their pets; requests by
children for gifts for parents; requests
by parents for gifts for themselves;
requests for conspicuous consumption
items like a million dollars, travel,
boats or cars, which are not realistic
gifts for a child; and requests for boy
friends or calendar pin-ups were
excluded.
Otnes et al. (1994b) excluded letters
written by adults because they were
considered to hold an adults view. The
present study also identifies that letters
containing such statements as I am
three years old and mummy is writing
this letter for me are written entirely by
adults, and as such, are an adult view
irrespective of whether the letter is or is
not dictated or influenced by the child.
Finally, exclusion of the letters that
combine efforts of both adult andchildren in writing the letter to Santa,
which could be categorised as
partnership letters, were undertaken
because there is difficulty in assessing
the instigator of the letter.
The final sample of letters was
categorised via five specific
characteristics. The first was the gender
of the child, second the authorship of
the letter and the third was the
aggregated brand request styles. The
other two concern the use of semantic
phrases and illustrations. The number of
categories and the ease of
implementation influence any approach
to establishing intercoder reliability and
agreement (Krippendorf, 1980; Perrault
and Leigh, 1989). A simple approach to
intercoder reliability requires fewer
categories, and therefore less
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opportunity for error. The authorship
construct developed for this study is
narrow with two elementary categories
and the disagreement between judges
was minimal. Any disagreement about
authorship of a particular letter negated
the use of that letter. All other categorieswere adequately summarised through
previous construct guides and the
coding process is explained in the
following paragraphs.
Child authors were identified through
such statements such as I am five years
old and writing to ask for . . .. A further
indication of child authorship was the
handwriting script that is currently
taught to children and is noticeably
different from previous generations
writing styles. Children also tend to
write in different colours and use
pencils or crayons rather than blue or
black pens. They also form larger
figures and write in an erratic style.
Therefore, a childs letter is readily
identifiable as being solely written by a
child. For letters authored by adults, it is
noticeable that the continuity of these
letters is mature in expression, the letter
formation uniform and the writing
script is different. Such letters are easily
identifiable as being solely written by
adults.The second construct of brand request
style qualifies the manner in which
brands are requested. The concept of
branding identifies, defines and
reinforces those unique characteristics
and differences within product
categories and therefore a specific name
identified the request as a brand. A baby
doll, for example, is a generic requestwithin a category of baby dolls, but a
NewBorn baby doll is a specific doll
within that doll category and therefore a
brand. Branded requests also included
store brands such as K Mart; sports
team names such as Broncos (an
Australian Rugby League team), CDs
such as Spice Girls and low profile
brands that may be catalogue promoted
items. Confirmation of brand names
was through an examination of store
shelves and catalogue searches. One
author has 17 years experience in the
toy and gift industry with an additional
12 years in Christmas retail operations
and subsequently coded each request by
allocation of a unique brand
identification number or recorded as a
generic gift request.
This study uses the same categories to
describe the construct of brand request
styles as Otnes et al. (1994b) where they
identified five brand request styles.
Table 1 provides the descriptions and
examples of the coding for the brandrequest style construct.
The branded requests were coded
Table 1 Examples of request style coding
Request style Examples
Brand-obsessed Requested one gift only, eg a Design-a-Mug brand(Mentions only one brand and no other gifts) Requested three gifts only, eg each branded Space
JamSingularly branded(One brand mentioned along with other non-
branded gifts)
Requested two gifts, eg one for the brandBananas, the other unbranded
Requested four gifts, eg one for Barbie, the rest
unbrandedBrand majority(One brand is mentioned more than other
brands)
Requested four gifts, eg two for Barbie and oneeach for Bananas and Sky Dancer
Requested 12 gifts, eg three branded Nike, onebranded Sony and the rest unbranded
Pluralistic(Two or more brands mentioned equally) Requested seven gifts, eg one branded request
each for Barbie, Fashion Avenue and PollyPocket, the others unbranded
No brand mentioned Generic requests only such as a teddy bear, a doll ora truck
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into the five categories as developed by
Otnes et al. (1994b) and then combined
to form the aggregated brand request
construct that addresses request
behaviours in this study. The creation of
this summary set of data allows the
retention of the authorship construct,but aggregates the brand request
construct to three unique, generic
categories that indicate the brand
request styles at Christmas. The brand-
fixated (brand-obsessed) and singularly
branded categories nominate only one
brand. These became a general category
of one brand. The brand dominant
(brand majority) and brand plural styles
request more than one brand and attract
the grouping name of many brands. The
no brand mentioned category retains
that name.
Table 2 offers descriptions of selected
communication strategy constructs,
meanings and statement types taken
from Otnes (1994a) and concentrates on
communication and socialisation issues
of politeness, direct and indirect (or
compound) request strategies.
When children write they use
illustrations in the form of cutouts,
stickers or drawings to express their
ideas and thoughts, hence the final area
of interest is the use of illustrations. Inline with content analysis procedures
(Krippendorf, 1980), these illustrative
forms determined three categories of
product, Christmas or closure signature
illustrations. Product illustrations
included branded and unbranded
drawings, cutouts, stickers or
commercial stationery such as
Thousand and One Dalmatians
notepaper, and Christmas illustrations
included individual images or collages
of Christmas or family themes. The
third illustration theme is the closing
signature, which was simply noughtsand crosses or the words hugs and
kisses.
The data are quantitative and
qualitative in line with a content
analysis where judgment variables
transpose to nominal data and
appropriate analysis was via chi-square.
Other data such as numbers of presents
and brands requested is quantitative in
nature and analysis via t-test was
conducted. Further, chi-square and
t-tests are analytical procedures in line
with those used in other content
analysis of letters to Santa
(eg Richardson and Simpson, 1982;
Robinson and Morris, 1986; Fisher-
Thompson, 1993; Otnes et al., 1994a,b)
and were also adopted in this study. In
total 422 childrens letters in this study
were suitable for analysis of which 173
were written by boys and 249 by girls.
RESULTS AND FINDINGS
H1: There will not be a significant
difference between the number ofbrands requested by boys and girls
when children write letters to
Santa.
Hypothesis 1 (H1) was related
specifically to brand awareness
differences between boys and girls. In
Table 2 Communication strategy construct and statement types
Persuasive strategy Description Statement types
1 Politeness Socially accepted forms ofingratiation
How are youPlease (unaccompanied by request)Thank you
2 Direct requests Appeals that blatantly statedthe desire for an item
I wantBring me/get me/send me
3 Compound requests Indirect requests accompaniedby qualifiers
I would likePlease bring me/get me/send meCan I have/Can you get meWill you get me/bring me/send me
Source: Otnes et al., 1994a
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Figure 1 Joel is certain about the gender
appropriateness of one brand and this
letter reinforces the view that the child
who requested the gift, or brand,
assigned the gender appropriateness of
the toy or gift request. This letter is also
an example of a singularly brandedrequest style strategy. Figure 2 provides
an example of letters that examine
gender and generic unbranded present
and specific branded requests.
The results indicate that in the 422
child-authored letters, children
requested 44.8 per cent (787) of the
presents for Christmas as branded
products. In comparison, Otnes et al.
(1994b) reported that 56 per cent (1,278)
of 2,475 gift requests were for specific
brand names. The average number of
gifts requested by boys was 3.9 whilegirls requested an average of 4.3 gifts
per letter, with no significant difference
between the number of gifts requested
by boys and girls when they write
letters to Santa requesting presents
(t 1.17 d.f. 411.15 p 0.243).
Figure 1: Gender appropriateness of requests
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Similarly, a t-test between boys and girls
at the brand level also indicated no
statistical difference (t 0.07
d.f. 390.46 p 0.942), with both boys
and girls requesting 1.9 branded gifts
per letter. Therefore H1 is supported in
that there was no significant difference
between the number of brands
requested by boys and girls when
children write letters to Santa. Table 3
indicates the patterns of request by
children and their brand orientations.
Perusal of the letters in the study also
identified that letters to Santa written by
children often indicate preferred
choices. For example, Figure 2 indicates
that not all requests will be successful
and a strategy of identifying priority
requests is important.
H2: There will not be a significant
difference between the politeness of
girls gift request strategy and boys
gift request strategy.
Hypothesis 2 (H2) suggested that there
is no significant difference between the
politeness of boys and girls gift request
strategy when children write the letters.
Traits of politeness in both verbal and
written strategies cover the affective
appeals of friendship and simple pleas,
Figure 2: Example of preferred choice
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as well as the buddy style of written
strategy. The politeness concept
includes three elementary phrases of
how are you; please; and thank you
in both verbal and written
communications strategies. In Figure 3
Milindee asks Santa how are you? and
uses the word please.
Apart from requests for gifts, a single
letter may contain direct, indirect and
polite elements as semantic phrases as
well as Christmas, product and
signature graphics and Table 4 presents
the distribution of request strategies and
illustrations by authorship of letters.
The use of politeness as a major
communications strategy occurred in
116 or 27.5 per cent of letters written bychildren and indicates children did not
embrace a politeness strategy. There
was an expectation that both boys and
girls will embrace politeness similarly.
Within the children authorship
category, 36 boys and 80 girls used a
politeness strategy and the results
indicate a statistical difference in favour
of girls (chi-square 6.71, d.f. p , 0.01).
The hypothesis that there is no
significant difference between the
politeness of girls and boys is not
supported. By comparison, Otnes et al.
(1994) reported 36 boys and 57 girls
used politeness elements in their letters
and the difference approached
statistical significance.
H3: The letters girls write for themselves
will contain significantly more
indirect request strategies than
letters boys write for themselves.
Hypothesis 3 (H3) suggests the letters
girls write for themselves contain
significantly more indirect request
strategies than letters boys write for
themselves. Use of indirect statements is
evident in 75.6 per cent of the letters, of
which there were 115 (66.5 per cent)
boys and 204 (81.9 per cent) girls. The
difference between boys and girls use
of indirect phrases is significant (chi-
square 13.05, p , 0.01) and does not
support Otnes et al. (1994) who reported
no significant difference between the
number of girls and boys using indirect
requests.The findings show children act more
in line with the nominal verbal
communication strategies (Weiss and
Sachs, 1991) that attribute the use of
challenge or reason to boys and the
simple expectation of having requests
honoured to girls. Overall, girls use a
request format of statements offered in
the simple expectation of having
requests honoured. The communication
strategy construct places questionstyle
statements like Will you bring me, can
I have or please bring me as indirect
requests. The letter from Melissa (Figure
4) not only illustrates the use of the
indirect phrase, I would like, it also
demonstrates the polite use ofplease
and the understanding that a choice
from presents is expected.
On the other hand, boys follow the
Table 3 Patterns of requests by gender of authors
Request style Boy Girl Total (%)
Brand obsessed 32 33 65 15.4Only one brand and no other gifts mentioned
Singularly branded 26 53 79 18.7One brand mentioned along with other non-
branded giftsBrand majority 20 32 52 12.3
One brand mentioned more than other brandsPluralistic 47 60 107 25.4
Two or more brands mentioned equallyNo brand mentioned 48 71 119 28.2Total 173 249 422Percentage 41.0 59.0 100.0
46 Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 2, 1, 3753 #Henry Stewart Publications 1472-0817
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strategy of rules, fair play and
predominantly use the art of reason and
direct challenge. Their communication
consists of indirect strategies but also
direct phrases like I want or bring me.
Figure 5 shows Toms use of the strong
phrase I want and does not use any
element of politeness.
Additionally, there is an observation
about the use of direct phrases in letters
that if girls use more indirect strategies
than boys do, then boys should be
expected to make more use of direct
strategies than girls. Only 22 boys and
19 girls letters made use of direct
statement phrases such as I want or
Figure 3: Politeness concept illustrated
Table 4 Distribution of requests strategies by gender
Author Politeness Indirect requests
Boys 36 115Girls 80 204Significance of difference chi-squared 6.71, p , 0.01 chi-squared 13.05, p , 0.001
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Figure 4: Indirect communication girl
Figure 5: Direct communication boy
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bring me, and there is no significant
difference between girls and boys
usage of direct phrases. One possibility
for minimal use of direct statements is
that there is no immediate response or
clarification of meaning as there is in
speech and children understand thedifferences. Support is found for H3,
however, because letters that girls write
for themselves contain significantly
more indirect requests than do boys
letters.
H4: There will not be a significant
difference between the numbers of
illustrations contained in girls and
boys letters to Santa.
When children write, they not onlyuse lists but also use illustrations in the
form of cutouts, stickers or drawings as
an examination method to express their
ideas and thoughts. Of the 181 letters to
Santa that contain illustrations 42.9 per
cent of the letters were written by
children and there is no significant
difference between boys and girls
overall use of illustrations, as indicated
in Table 5. The analysis indicates no
significant difference between boys and
girls use of Christmas illustrations,
however, boys use product illustrationsmore (chi-square 5.64, p, 0.05).
Signature graphics also represents an
affective appeal of friendship and an
element of girls socialisation, and the
results indicate girls use this illustrative
format more than boys do (chi-square
18.05, p , 0.001). Despite the differences
within the illustration construct, H4 is
supported because there is not a
significant difference between the
overall numbers of illustrations
contained in girls and boys letters to
Santa.
DISCUSSION
Christmas is many things to many
people and the one aspect that mustinterest academic and general
practitioners of marketing is the impact
of brand names on request behaviour of
children. Brand requests are a
component of the overall gift request
behaviour and the purpose of this
research is to examine childrens brand
identification and request styles at
Christmas together with their written
forms of communication. Past studies
have focused on very subjective,
product category-based constructs thatmake longitudinal comparisons
untenable and the category definitions
are problematic because of the use of
different criteria to describe categories.
As an example, Richardson and
Simpson (1982) delineate specific
categories of machines (models of work
and construction equipment such as
caterpillars), race cars and vehicles
(representations of vehicles for carrying
people or goods, eg cars, trucks). There
is also a category for depots (places to
store vehicles, eg garages, airports,space stations etc.). On the other hand
Fisher-Thompson (1993), categorises
these machines, race cars, vehicles and
depots under the singular category of
toy vehicles and includes other items
such as trains and planes. Fisher-
Thompson (1993), however, places farm
equipment and barns in the category of
farm and zoo animals, while Richardson
and Simpson (1982) indicate toy animals
consist of representational animals and
Table 5 Distribution of illustrations
Illustration element Boy Girl Significance of difference
Christmas illustrations 43 65 N.S.D.Signature graphics 14 58 chi-square 18.05, df. 1, p, 0.001Product illustrations 17 10 chi-square 5.64, df. 1, p , 0.05
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makes no mention of farm machinery
and farm storage toys.
Ultimately, a specific product or
category could emerge, fade or fail as it
moves through the product life cycle.
Fisher-Thompson (1993) included
categories of furnishings, clothing andaccessories, computer and videos that
are not included in, or available to
earlier studies (Richardson and
Simpson, 1982; Robinson and Morris,
1986). The nature of brands is such that,
while they are subject to similar cyclical
changes, they are a unique entity and
identifier of specific products within
categories. As an example, the Star Wars
brand encompasses not just figures,
space ships and space stations but is
now a recognised brand in diverse
categories such as confectionery,
stationery, household linen and
computer games, whereas the Barbie
brand extends to magazines and a pop
group. There is a multitude of
subcategories within the broader
category of toys, which are also a
subcategory of Christmas requests.
Therefore, brands are important and
any research that seeks information on
brand awareness and the prevalence of
brand usage within the domain of
childrens products is valuable.The rationale behind this stance is
that a specific product or brand name
request may not span time or location.
What constituted a popular toy, or
brand, in 1985 in America is not
necessarily available in 2000 in Australia
but the notion of using numbers of
brand requests and the request strategy
style remain immutable. The availability
of particular brands in the marketplace
at a given time will not affect the brand
request theme of single brand, multiple
brands and non-branded requests
which are elements that are readily
observable and measurable within in
the Christmas request category and
thereby, enable comparisons in the
future.
This study has focused on important
issues relating to marketing of toys and
the findings contribute to the
understanding of brand request
behaviour of adults and children at
Christmas. It is quite illuminating to see
the clarity with which children can
identify specific brands and the method
of manipulating the brands in theirwritten letters. Australian children are
not unlike the American children that
Otnes et al. (1994) indicated, have a
strong awareness of the diversity of
brand name goods available to them
and the knowledge to use brand names
and brand extensions in their request
behaviour. Because children have a
predisposition toward toys and their
brands they possess the capability to
practise either differentiation between
brands or understand that brands can
appear in different forms or categories.
Children can clearly identify their
preferred brand of toy and appear to
understand the importance of explicitly
requesting such brand names via clearly
articulated request strategies.
LIMITATIONS
As is often the case with consumer
research there are limitations, and while
this study posed questions concerning
the brand awareness and request styles
of children and provided some answersto them, it does have some limitations
that must be clearly expressed. This
study is consistent with previous
content analysis of letters written to
Santa where the scope of analysis is
limited to variables concerning the
gender, requests and authorship content
of the letters. Children of different ages
would clearly have different brand
experience levels which affect their
brand nomination or usage, however, as
in previous studies of this type, the age
of the child is rarely cited in letters and
absence of an age variable limited the
scope of this study. Children may
request different presents from different
family members, as well as from Santa,
and make use of a number of semantic
phrases and request strategies.
Therefore, the request behaviour
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exhibited in this study is representative
only of that population of children who
write letters to Santa in Australia and
are not generalisable outside the
Australian Christmas period.
IMPLICATIONSThis study shows there is a difference
between boys and girls request
behaviour and infers a low brand
awareness and usage by adults in their
request behaviour. The trend in
marketing to children has seen their role
move from one of demanders or
influencers to important decision
makers. Since brand owners seek
growth of their brands in other product
categories via brand extensions, that
brand leaves the exclusive domain of
the childrens market and moves into an
adult-dominated market. If adults do
not recognise, approve or trust the
brand, then how can the brand transfer
successfully to other categories without
additional costs in the establishment of
a position and image in this adult realm.
Therefore, brand owners and
advertisers of childrens brands must
encourage adults to form a positive
attitude toward the brand by use of a
different promotional mix.
FUTURE RESEARCH
While this study has identified key
issues relating to the brand awareness
and request styles of children in letters
to Santa, it also raises many related
questions in need of future research
which could be directed to understand
what brands mean to children and to
adults. Ideally, research could move
from a childrens request focus to
encompass assessment of parents
attitude toward Christmas and the
relationship with giving popular brand
names as gifts to their children. In a
similar vein, the relevance of giving
both gifts and brands may also affect the
appeal of brand as gifts and the usage of
information sources by adults merits
attention.
The authors investigated the use of
written semantic phrases and some
related socialisation issues evident in
letters to Santa and suggest that other
issues could address how parents
communicate with their children about
requests and the relationship between
this communication and a parentsevaluation of brands or use of
information sources. Similarly, parents
give gifts for different reasons and
examination of the connection between
these motives or roles and a parents
attitude toward Christmas is
appropriate.
Research could also focus on learning
and memory issues in Christmas gift
request behaviour by adults and
children, eg on the extent to which
childrens requests are born from a
long-term desire for the brand or are
contingent on promotional activities as
Christmas draws closer.
Comparisons of the Christmas studies
indicate boys made more requests in
one study, girls in the other. Otnes et al.
(1994b) suggest childrens exposure to
the environment around them and their
understanding of the relative financial
wellbeing of their parents may reflect in
numbers of presents requested, and in
the use of brands. Therefore, a time
series study could prove valuable inidentifying any variations of behaviour
as the same population grows and
qualify possible external factors that
may influence Christmas request
behaviour. Similarly, a cross-national or
multicultural study would seek to
qualify cultural differences, while a
study that addresses segmentation by
cultural background would provide an
understanding of request behaviours in
minority groups.
CONCLUSION
This study demonstrates that Australian
children do not just request brands as
gifts but requesting no brands is a
feature of childrens request behaviour
that probably reflects the tradition of
requesting teddies, trucks or dollies
along with those semantic phrases and
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expressions that are bound in the
Christmas wish list. Further, these
young and budding consumers appear
to be savvy to the importance of
identifying clearly their desired brands
because they are highly brand aware
and understand that many brands exist,and different toy variants exist within a
common brand name. Importantly, they
seem to learn how to be successful
through request strategies as
Robinson and Morris (1986) indicate,
children overtly request half of the gifts
that are given at Christmas. The focus
on brand names within the context of
Christmas indicates that toy
manufacturers and retailers who
heavily promote not only their toys at
Christmas, but also the Christmas myth
and symbolism of giving their toys as
gifts are gaining a competitive
advantage. Perhaps many marketers
and toy companies are getting their own
Christmas wishes answered, via these
budding, young, articulate, brand
savvy, mini consumers.
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