engleski

Marketing communication towards children

As a result of children’s growing market power, advertising and marketing to children has risen dramatically in recent years. Nowadays, children and teenagers have a major impact on family purchases and are one of the fastest growing market segments in the world. Marketing communication towards children is still insufficiently scientifically explored and the aim of this article is to give an overlook of the current literature regarding psychological development of children as consumers and the way they process marketing communication messages. New marketing communication techniques towards children are presented, as well as the marketing communication messages’ effect on children behavior. In the end, the role of family and institutions in protecting the children from harmful marketing communication influence is discussed. In order to see how marketing communication affects perceptions of very young children in Croatia, focus group was held with kindergarten children aged 3-7 years. Since the children at this age express themselves most easily by drawing, they were given a task to draw a "commercial" or their view of advertising. Children's drawings were analyzed by a child psychologist. On the sample of 18 children (aged 3-7 years) one experiment and one brand recognition test were taken to prove the impact of marketing communication on their product choice. On-line survey was also conducted to examine the attitudes of parents and their children towards the impact of marketing communication on their buying decisions. Research was conducted through a questionnaire on a sample of 137 parents of children under 16 years old.

marketing communication, children, advertising, consumer behavior

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