European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences

ISSN 1450-2275 Issue 23 (2010)

© EuroJournals, Inc. 2010
http://www.eurojournals.com

Age Influence on Information Processing of TV Advertisement

Messages by the Elementary students

Bahram Ranjbarian
Associate Professor of management, Department of Management
The University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
E-mail: Bahram1 r@yahoo.com

Saeed fathi
Assistant Professor of management, Department of Management
The University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
E-mail: s.fathi ase.ui.ac.ir

Zahra Shekarchizade
M.A Candidate of Business Management, Department of Management
University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
E-mail: Shekarchi_2020@yahoo.com

Abstract
Purpose- This study examines information processing of TV advertisement messages by
the Elementary students in Isfahan. The goal of this study was to investigate the influence
of age on children’s perception about TV advertisements.
Design/ methodology/approach- Sample was drawn from 385 students in 40 schools in
Isfahan.
The students were between 7 to 11 years-of-age. Data were analyzed by SPSS 16.
Finding- the results show that child’s perception about advertisement intent has been
affected by its age only in three dimensions of, “to earn money’’, “To be bought by child’’
and “to entertain’’. Moreover the results indicate that effect child’s age on TV
advertisement likeability is significant, when beautiful persons and beautiful products are
presented. But child’s age has no significant influence on its perception about TV
advertisement truthfulness.
Originality/ value- This paper provides information about child’s perception about
Iranian’s TV advertisement messages. Moreover, it contributes towards better
understanding of children’s perceptual difference in different ages.
Paper type- Research paper

Keywords: TV Advertisement Messages, Information Processing, Intent, Likeability,

Truthfulness.

Introduction
Nowadays, children are an important study group for advertisers and marketers in every part of the
world. They are considered as an important market in their own rights. Indeed, role of children in
household decision making is very considerable and great (Doff, 2004). They are not only influenced
77 European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences - Issue 23 (2010)

easily by advertising, but are skillful at encouraging parents to purchase these products. Because
children have their own money to spend they have enjoyed enormous market potential. An 8 year old
child has all the skills to perform as an independent consumer (Hsieh et al, 2006). They also may
specify 67 percent of their parents’ spending, and they have all of their purchases ahead of them.
(Chan, 2008). Especially Marketers are interested in how effective their advertising is in selling more
products and creating new markets (Curran & Richards, 2000). Advertisers who target children have
three main objectives: (1) searching directly for children as customers, (2) affecting parents indirectly
through “pester power” of children, (3) specifying of the younger generation with positive brand
associations (Paul, 2002). Mass media and advertising can influence on cognitive and children’s social
development in the consumers’ socialization and their ability for information processing. Information
processing is related to both the consumer’s cognitive ability and the complication of information to be
processed (Schiffman& Kanuk, 2003). Consumer socialization refers to the “processes by which
individuals acquire skills, knowledge, and attitudes related to their performance as consumers in the
marketplace” (Mowen, 1993). Primary researches about consumer socialization consistently reveal that
three main socialization agents affect children's consumer behavior. These agents include parents,
peers and mass media- mainly television. Based on these primary studies, parents play the prominent
impressive role until the child reaches adolescence, when peers become the favorable source of
information (Dotson & Hyatt, 2005). Television is the influential way of advertising for children. It is
still a important part of media impact on children which is becoming less integrated and more
fragmented increasingly. Television targets more specialized segments, not the least important of
which are children (Shimp, 2000). Since, television is in the access of children in their homes and there
is restricted control over the observed advertisements, it is considered as an invasive medium. . Most
children spend three to four hours of a day to watch television (Center for Media Education, 2002). A
considerable amount of children's lives is spent on watching advertising. Probably children don't
always pay entire attention to the screen during advertisement breaks since they can turn away or leave
the room, but practically the viewer enjoys the opportunity to observe all the advertisements related to
any program he/she watches (Gunter et al, 2005). Television is increasingly transformed into a primary
source of information and amusement for children. Children obtain most examples for their favorite
advertisements from television. These advertisements may have little or no relevance to their own
lives, but are admired because they are funny and well executed (Duff, 2004). Totally, television is a
strong medium since it can influence viewers' perception of social reality (Gunter et al, 2005).
However, there are many studies about advertising to children, but it seems that there are
limited researches about the relationship between children’s age and their understanding of advertising.
This study attempts to investigate the impact of age on information processing of Iranian TV
advertisement messages by the elementary students in Isfahan

Literature Review
Totally, it is specified that advertising message processing by children is affected by their age. We
have already observed differences in perceiving levels of televised advertising associated with various
age groups. First we explain the main constructs of this study.

Information Processing Advertisement Messages

Consumer information processing is defined as a process through which consumers are exposed to
information, pay attention to it, perceive it, put it in memory and recall it for using in the future
(Mowen, 1993). There are information processing theories about child development. Theories of
cognitive development proposed by Piaget are used by many researchers that state children's current
cognitive stage identifies their ability to perceive advertising (Gunter et al, 2005). All these theories
share a focus on developing skills of children in areas of acquisition, decoding, organization and
78 European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences - Issue 23 (2010)

retrieval of information. It is possible to classify children into three categories according to their
processing skills: limited processors, cued processors and strategic processors (Roedder, 1981).
Piaget (1970) believes that cognitive development proceeds in four stages:
• Sensory-motor intelligence (0-2 years of age): the first stage for development of children is
"sensor motor" and involves period of children's growth from birth to the growth of early
independent thought and simple problem solving about two years of age. Behavior is mainly
motorized during this period (Gunter et al, 2005). Though cognitive growth is observed, the
child does not think conceptually (Katherine Toland& Barbara, 2003).
• Preoperational thought (2 to 7 years): second stage of cognitive development of Piaget is called
"preoperational stage". This period occurs between two and seven years old. Growing of
children's symbolic thoughts is started at this stage but it is still concentrated much on
perceptual properties of stimuli (Ginsburg et al., 1988). This period is identified by language
development. The child's thinking about ideas and objects is poorly arranged and just prominent
features of a stimulus are used to make judgments (Katherine Toland & Barbara, 2003).
According to Piaget, cognitive abilities of children develop quickly during this period, but they
are restricted in several ways too. It appears that preoperational children are "perceptually
bound" to the easily observable aspects of their environment, contrasting concrete operational
children who do not admit perception as reality but are able to think about in a more logical
way.
• Concrete operations (7 to 11 years): during this period the child's ability to utilize logical
thought about concrete problems is developed. After the preoperational period children are able
to reason rationally in problem solving tasks and they can consider two dimensions of the task
simultaneously. Piaget suggests that ability of children in observing more than one dimension
of a task shows their developing rational thought. The child has the ability to think conceptually
and organize ideas in a meaningful way. This period is called "concrete", since children can
usually solve tasks like the liquid task. It's because children are able to see such tasks or
experience them directly. In other words, these tasks are concrete because their components
(e.g. glasses and liquid) exist in the world physically (i.e. they are real or "concrete"
components). According to Piaget, through experience and interacting with materials in the
world children can develop their reasoning abilities.
• Formal operations (11 to 15 years): Piaget (1970) states that children's abstract reasoning is
started at about 11 years as they move in to the formal operational stage of growth. It is called
"formal" operational stage because it contains all aspects of abstract and theoretical reasoning
that can be utilized for any task which is solved by rational thought. In this period the cognitive
structures of children reach to their highest level of growth. Then the child will be able to use
logic for all types of problem, think abstractly and apply all aspects of a stimulus to make
judgments. Although the formal stage is developed from 11 years throughout adulthood,
rational reasoning of teenagers is not as sophisticated as adults' reasoning. However, beginning
of the formal period shows children's potential to think about problems like adults and extend
their reasoning from experience and instruction (see Smith et al., 2003).
Processing skills of children below 7 years is limited and those above 12 years use various
strategies for saving and retrieving of information nearly similar to grown- up individuals (Selman,
1980). The age group between 7 and 12 has the ability to apply oral cues for saving and retrieving of
information.

Children's Perception of TV Advertisement Messages

Originally children have a restricted concept of television advertising. Firstly, it can't be distinguished
from the surrounding programs, since both of them combine in a montage of sounds and images. Some
researchers indicate lack of distinction between children's visual attention at the time of watching
programs and advertisements (Ward & Wackman, 1973). Children's understanding of advertisements is
79 European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences - Issue 23 (2010)

dependent on their realization that there is a source which creates television advertisements deliberately
and also they should know that this source tries to convince its audience to buy (Young, 1990).
Information processing of TV advertisement message is affected by children’s perception of
advertising intent, advertising truthful and advertising likable.
Blosser and Roberts (1985) believe that there are five categories of advertising intent including:
(1) providing information: in age group between 7 and 11 children suppose that the primary role of
advertising is to notify, to introduce new products to prospective customers and to offer details about
existing products (Duff,2004). The information represented by advertising is placed in to two
categories – commercial information and educational information- that both of them are related to
products and services. (2) Teaching: the category of educational information arises from children’s
perception that advertising often educate the view in some manner (Lawlor & Prothero, 2008).
Moschis (1985) suggests three fundamental mechanisms in children's consumer learning: (a) purposive
training (b) consideration of behaviors (c) positive reinforcement. With respect to learning about
advertising in the form of critical watching, instruction is represented through schools or the media
(Brown, 1991; Roberts, Christenson, Gibson, Mooser, & Goldberg, 1980). (3) Entertainment: almost
all children are getting familiar with this element through advertisements that make them laugh. All of
the children spoke of having desired advertisements that they enjoyed while some children talked about
discussing desired ads with their friends (Lawlor & Prothero, 2008). Advertising value was dependent
on perceived levels of amusement, informativeness, and irritation (Wang et al, 2002). (4) Selling:
advertisements try to sell products; express either the sources’ goal to sell or the expectation of the
receiver to purchase a featured product. In fact, making money is the aim of advertisements and
indicates that the result of selling will lead to profit growth (Lisa Anne, 1994). Children are aware that
media vehicles which carry advertisements gain financially from the advertisements (Panwar and
Agnihotri, 2006). (5) Persuasion: individuals are persuaded, convinced or get to do something by
advertisements. This suggests that advertising includes compulsion or manipulation. Most studies that
consider children's perception of advertising intent have overwhelmingly focused on intent in terms of
commercial purpose of advertising, namely its informative and persuasive aspects of it (Oates et al.,
2002).
Most researches confirm the conclusion that children's perception of advertising intent becomes
increasingly advanced by age (Lisa Anne, 1994). By seven and eight years of age children become
aware of advertising’s persuasive intent, over and above its informational intent (Preston, 2005).
From the above discussion, the following hypothesis can be proposed:
H1: Child’s perception of TV advertisement intent is affected by its age.
Television advertisement includes many pictures, endorser, music, words and sounds and all
these are presented to increase attractiveness of products. Using of celebrities in children's advertising
has generally been studied with reference to cartoon characters and the danger related to obscure
boundaries between advertisements and programs (Kunkel, 1988b).
Lawlor and Prothero (2003) have found out that children consider celebrity endorsers as
powerful factors in persuasiveness of an advertisement. Probably children are more affected by
attractiveness of models or celebrities related to a brand. Instead, advertising will be successful when a
child does not encode full details of an advertisement but remembers a picture, a logo, a jingle, or a
motto. For this reason, determining of central and incidental issues in an advertisement is difficult.
Likeability is a function of all these elements and individual properties of a child. Furthermore, cartoon
advertisements may be generally more unforgettable than noncartoon ones, but this impact is relied on
whether advertisements are placed in a cartoon or non cartoon program. Using cartoon characters in
TV advertisements can hinder the commercial message in children's memory only if, it had been
adjacent with a cartoon program (Gunter, Baluch, Duffy, & Furnham, 2002).
80 European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences - Issue 23 (2010)

Another feature that has been considered in relation to the attractiveness of brands to children is
whether brands are promoted on screen by other children. This feature, however, has been found to
improve tendency to the advertisement though not constantly for the advertised brand (Loughlin &
Desmond, 1981).
There are important differences related to age in children while paying attention to advertising.
Seven to nine year old children process advertisements through the peripheral route, demonstrating
memory for features like jingles and mottos but little understanding of the principal message is
illustrated. Ten to twelve year old children paid more attention to the central message of
advertisements and revealed greater knowledge about the product (Gunter et al, 2005). Such perceptual
differences of advertisements in relation the age are the prime concerns about advertising for children
(Katherine Toland& Barbara, 2003).
Based on the above discussion, we propose that:
H2: Child’s perception of TV advertisement likeability is affected by its age.
Advertisers apply five misleading methods in order to improve their brands that are:
Exaggeration: it is total concern about misleading methods which advertisers utilize.
Exaggeration is often used at the expense of brand information (Bandyopadhyay, Kindra, & Sharp,
2001). (2) Fantasy: it is one of the most common methods in advertising that may cause to misleading
of a young audience. Most advertisements apply emotional and indirect appeals to psychological states
(Rajecki et al., 1994). (3) Appeals: according to Kunkel and Gantz (1992) three pitches are usually
used in advertising related to children including fun/happiness, taste/flavor/smell and product
performance. (4) Celebrities: using celebrities is prevalent in advertising. In children's advertising, the
"celebrities" are often animated figures from famous cartoons. (5) Metaphor: it is commonly used as a
linguistic tool in advertising in which properties of one object are transmitted to another (Pawlowski,
Badzinski, & Mitchell, 1998). According to Young, (1990) children can understand metaphors if the
meaning of the metaphor is within the child's experiences and additional information is given to
facilitate interpretation
The use of these misleading techniques makes a high level of suspicion about the
trustworthiness of advertisement. So, product category and brand status could be the factors that
change children's confidence in accuracy of an advertisement (Duff, 2004). Perceived truthfulness of
advertising is different among various ages. Older children are less likely to understand truthfulness of
television commercials comparing to younger children. As children get older, they gain more negative
beliefs about the truthfulness (Chan, 2008).
On the basis of this discussion, the following is proposed:
H3: Child’s perception about truthfulness of TV advertisement is affected by its age

Method
Data Collection
The aim of this study was to investigate children’s perception of television advertising. The sample
was selected from elementary students in 40 schools in Isfahan during October- January 2009. A total
of 385 students were recruited by random selection. The sample consisted of 165 girls (43%) and 220
boys (57%). in addition, 157 of participants are in grades 1 and 2 and 225 of them are in grades 3 to 5.
Information was obtained through survey questionnaires and individual interviews. The researcher read
out questions and possible answers for students of grades 1 and 2. Respondents in grades 3 to 5
answered to the questioners by themselves. Researchers assured participants that their responses were
nameless. The students were aged between 7 and 11 years-of-age with a mean of 9. Cluster random
sampling method was applied in this research.
81 European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences - Issue 23 (2010)

Measures
The questionnaire consisted of four parts. The first part included demographic and socio-economic
questions. In this section, we asked about the age, gender, class, financial source of the family and
family status to describe the sample characteristic. In the second part, 7 items were used to evaluate
children’s perception of intent. All items in this part were measured on a three point rating scale from
‘disagree” (1) to “agree” (3). In the third part, children’s perception about truthfulness of television
advertising messages was measured by the question of “In your opinion, how often TV advertisements
tell the truth?” A three-point scale was used ranging from “never” (1) to “always” (3). At last,
children’s perception of TV advertisements likeability was examined. It was measured with 11 items.
All variables in this section were measured by three-point scales ranging from (1) “disagree” to (3)
“agree”.
A pilot sample of 30 was conducted to estimate the sample size. The, reliability of
questionnaire was calculated by means of Cronbach's alpha for which 0.80 % is obtained which shows
that applied questionnaire enjoys the necessary reliability.

Results
Data were analyzed by SPSS software (SPSS Inc, V16). To test the first hypothesis, we measured
child’s age influence on its perception of the advertising intent by testing for the differences between
the means using one way ANOVA. Table I summarizes the results. There are seven categories of
advertising intent including: entertainment, buy (by children, by parents), persuasion, and information,
fill in the gaps between programs and earn money. The results indicate that there is a significant
positive relationship between child’s age and its perception of the intent to earn money at the 0.05
confidence level (F=4.891, p< 0.05).
In other words, elder children are more likely to perceive that TV advertisements meant to earn
money. Moreover, child’s age could has significant effect on its perception of the intent to entertain
(F= 3.319, p< 0.05). As shown in table II, children of age between 10 and 11 in compared to those with
7 years of age are more likely be entertained by TV advertisements. In other words, child’s age has a
significant influence on its perception about advertisement intent to persuade children to buy products.
This means that within studied group, younger children were more likely to be persuaded to buy
products. But, the effect of child’s age on its perception of other intents was not significant.

Table I: The ANOVA result of age and Child’s perception of TV advertisement intent

df F Sig Mean
Between Groups within Groups
To entertain 4 380 3.319 0.011 2.4208
To be bought by parents 4 380 0.778 0.540 2.1558
To be bought by child 4 380 2.845 0.024 2.3688
To persuade 4 380 1.843 0.120 1.4442
To inform 4 380 1.449 0.217 2.5299
To fill gaps between programs 4 380 1.317 0.263 2.4182
To earn money 4 380 4.891 0.001 2.3870
82 European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences - Issue 23 (2010)
Table II: The Multiple comparisons result of age and Child’s perception of TV advertisement intent

Upper Bound Lower Bound sig Mean Difference Dependent variable age(i) age(j)
(i-j)
-0.2259 -0.7572 0.000 -0.49165 To entertain 7 10
-0.0006 -0.5427 0.049 -0.27169 11
-0.0567 -0.6168 0.019 -0.33671 To be bought by child 7 9
0.6168 0.0567 0.042 0.28981 9 10
0.5690 0.0106 0.001 0.46720 9 11
-0.1527 -0.6564 0.002 -0.40458 To earn money 7 8
-0.1546 -0.6632 0.002 -0.40891 7 9
-0.1654 -0.6691 0.001 -0.41723 7 10
-0.2662 -0.7801 0.001 -0.52318 7 11

Table III summarizes the result of age influence analysis on respondents’ perceptions likeability
of TV advertisements. As shown, child’s age could have significant effect on its perception about
attractive beautiful person in advertisements (F=3.109, p< 0.05). As shown in table IV, children of age
between 7 and 8 in compared to those with 10 years of age are more likely to perceive attractive
advertisements using beautiful persons. This means that within studied group Younger children like
beautiful person in TV advertisement more than elder children.
Moreover, the influence of child’s age on its perception about attractive products in likeable
advertisements was significant (F=5.246, p< 0.05). This means that within studied group younger
children are more likely to perceive that products presented in likeable advertisements are good
products. In other words, children with 7 and 8 years of age like TV advertisements which present
beautiful products more than 11 years old children.
Moreover, the effect of child’s age on its perception about other items that presented to enhance
the advertisement attractiveness was not significant. This clearly shows that effect of child’s age on its
perception about likeability of advertisement is accepted only on two dimensions of using beautiful
persons and presenting beautiful products for younger children.

Table III: The ANOVA result of age and Child’s perception about likeability of TV advertisement

df F Sig Mean
Between within
Groups Groups
Celebrity endorser 4 380 0.628 0.643 2.5974
Music 4 380 0.511 0.728 2.4364
Song 4 380 0.251 0.909 2.5818
Family 4 380 0.865 0.485 2.2597
Like advertised product 4 380 0.336 0.853 2.6545
Your friend 4 380 1.787 0.131 2.4987
Classmate 4 380 1.337 0.256 2.6286
cartoon characters 4 380 1.635 0.165 2.7922
Beautiful product 4 380 5.246 0.000 2.2597
Beautiful persons 4 380 3.109 0.015 1.9636
Famous company 4 380 0.717 0.581 2.3610
83 European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences - Issue 23 (2010)

Table IV: The Multiple comparisons result of age and Child’s perception about likeability of TV
advertisement

Upper Bound Lower Bound sig Mean Difference(i-j) Dependent variable age (i) age(j)
0.6656 0.0975 0.009 0.38153 Beautiful persons 7 10
0.6882 0.1219 0.005 0.40506 8 10
0.5905 0.0126 0.041 0.30154 8 11
0.6166 0.0683 0.014 0.34244 Beautiful product 7 9
0.8463 0.2924 0.000 0.56937 7 11
0.7760 0.2238 0.000 0.49991 8 11

Table V summarizes the analysis of age influence on respondents’ perceptions about

truthfulness of TV advertisements. The results indicate that effect of child’s age on its perception of
TV advertisement’s truthfulness is not significant (F= 0.5, p> 0.05). This means that change of child’s
age, does not necessarily always translates to change of its perception about truthfulness of TV
advertisements

Table V: The ANOVA result of age and Child’s perception about TV advertisement truthfulness

df F Sig Mean
Between within
Groups Groups
To entertain 4 380 0.5 0.736 1.9636

Discussion and Conclusion

Advertising to children considered as an important marketing tactic and television is the predominant
media for advertising to children. The goal of present study was to investigate the influence of child’s
age on its perception about TV advertisements. One of the dimensions of present study was to
investigate whether child’s age affect on its perception about TV advertisements intent. The effect of
child’s age on its perception of advertisements intent has been shown in numerous studies. Much
research findings support that age is the major variable mediating children’s cognitive processing of
commercial content (Doubleday & Droege, 1993). According to Wartella (1980), majority of children
between the ages of about 5-9 find"selling" as advertisements intent. As children develop beyond early
elementary school, they have fuller perception of persuasive intent. Indeed, children perceive that basic
intent of advertisements is to inform about the products and also to persuade them to buy such
products. Results of this study indicate that there are not any differentiations on the basis of age in
child’s perception of intent of advertisements in general. Moreover, the results show that most children
know that media gain money from the advertisements. This result confirms research outcomes of
Panwar & Agnihotry (2006). On the other hand, results indicate that numerous children watch
advertisements to be entertained. This finding has been shown in numerous studies such as Randrup
and Lac (2000) and Gunter et al, (2005).
Child’s perception of the advertisement’s intent to persuade children to buy products
considered in some of the previous studies as, Blosser and Roberts (1985), Martin (1997) and Lawlor
& Prothero (2008). Our findings demonstrated that child’s age influence on its perception of the intent
to persuade children to buy products. TV advertisements persuade younger children to buy things for
themselves. In general, we believe the perceptions of Iranian children about TV advertisement intent
are affected by their parent’s opinions. So, marketers and ads makers should play important role to
make parent’s judgments about TV advertisements intent more positive.
Second, the influence of age on child’s perception about likeability of TV advertisement has
been investigated. Chan (2008) believe majority of children like TV advertisements. Research show
that Music, song, celebrity endorser and slogans emerge as elements which create likeability towards
84 European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences - Issue 23 (2010)

advertisements. But, some of the celebrity endorsers in advertisements have a negative influence on
children's perceptions of the advertised brand because the children did not like them (chan, 2002).
On the other hand, children with five years of age, differentiate advertisements from other
programs (Wartella & Ettema, 1974). As children get older, they show perceptual variations with
regard to changes in music, sound effects, color, and action. The results of our study shows that using
beautiful person in advertisement makes them more likeable for younger children and also
advertisements which present beautiful products are more likeable for younger children. It seems that
in Iran, as a developing country, family social class and income are most important items that should
be considered as influencing factors about likeability of advertisements. Moreover, gender is another
item that should be traced on their perception. Third, the influence of age on child’s perception about
truthfulness perception of TV advertisements has been investigated. According to previous studies
(Condry, 1989; Gunter &Furnham, 1998; chan, 2001& 2008) child’s age influence on perception about
truthfulness of advertisements. But, our study didn’t confirm these results. In this study, we found that
there is no a relation between age and child’s perception about truthfulness of advertisements. We
believed, other variables such as child's experiences, Family communication, gender and family
income level, should be investigated for this differentiation.

Limitation of the Study

The primary limitation of present study is related to the generalization of the results. Since the sample
was drawn from only primary students in Isfahan city at a point of time, this will limit the results to be
generalized to other consumer groups. On the other hand, this study surveyed exclusively child’s
perception about TV advertisement and other media has not been included. Another limitation to our
study is the data itself. The data gathering instrument was questionnaire and interviews to assess
child’s perception about TV advertisements, whereas, observation techniques probably provide more
accurate data.

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