Childrens Advertisements

spacecoyote

I am doing a marketing project based around ethics, etc in advertising to children. i will be carrying out a focus group with a group of girls aged 10-12 to get their reactions to adverts and would like to know if anyone has opinions or knowledge as to what are the current popular trends or products which influence this group, or of any particular adverts which you have noticed that seem to have stuck in their minds. Any input will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

whiskeyman

I'll take a long shot and say............. toys!
Oh, and dont forget sweets / sugary foods.

Most of these will contain cartoon characters or situations where "cool" kids are consuming the product.

Best thing to do is remember what influenced YOU when you were that age.
When your Mum pushed you around in the trolley around the supermarket as she did the weekly shop, what made you throw a tantrum as you demanded brand X cereal??
Products and trends may change, but ways to influence rarely do

Cabaal

whiskeyman wrote:

I'll take a long shot and say............. toys!
Oh, and dont forget sweets / sugary foods.

Most of these will contain cartoon characters or situations where "cool" kids are consuming the product.

That basically sums it up,

leftofcentre

I would add the influence of celebs, espically pop bands.

chicken_food

I was actually reading up on some research regarding this exact topic in the DIT library yesterday.
In a research undertaken in dec 04- they basically showed 4 ads to kids all with the same product in it. They showed all three ads to the kids in random order and tried to find out which one influenced the childrem more. Kids ages ranged from 4 upwards
1.They had a kid a year older than tester in the ad. (red packaging)
2.They had a super hero doing the same as the kid (blue packaging)
3. They had an adult doing the same as the kid ((green)
4.They had a cartoon character doing the same ( orange)
Keep in mind the colours of the packaging was rotated,so it wasnt a case of favourite colour


They found that out of over 700 kids across the country. An overwhelming (sp) majority of kids went for.......can you guess which one??









In order (cant remember exact percentages
No 1-was kid a year older than tester
No 2-was cartoon
No 3-adult
No 4-super hero
I was shocked by it-i wouldnt have thought the older kid would have that much influence. It was 60odd percent of kids went straight for no1. 18% or so went for no 2. Give or take a few percent

whiskeyman

chicken_food wrote:

In order (cant remember exact percentages
No 1-was kid a year older than tester
No 2-was cartoon
No 3-adult
No 4-super hero
I was shocked by it-i wouldnt have thought the older kid would have that much influence. It was 60odd percent of kids went straight for no1. 18% or so went for no 2. Give or take a few percent

The elder kid would probably be seen as a member of a peer group.
One of our basic social needs is one of acceptance, thus giving the reason why a slightly older kid wins out.

spacecoyote

thanks guys. i had the general areas of interest, toys, sweets etc. I was wondering if anyone knew of any specific ads at the moment that children are influenced by, eg. Cheese Strings ads with the boy and girl rapping?

oh and thanks for the research tit-bit chicken-food, quite interesting

whiskeyman

Watch TV yourself and see.
Get up early and watch Saturday morning tv... on ITV / RTE.
A wealth of info there... and some cartoons too!

There really is sooo many of them tbh.

jrey1981

Not sure if this will help, but there was a very good article by Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian a while back - search the archives on their website...

I just got a book called Born To Buy about the effects of ads on kids which is looking quite good - it is by Juliet B. Schor and is on Amazon.co.uk