A cross-national study on

children’s purchasing
behavior and parental
response
Presented by

S. Nayak
MBA (2008-10)
 Introduction
Ø Children use various influencing tactics to persuade the
parents to comply with their requests.

Ø family, peers, and media appear to have the greatest impact

on children’s consumer decision-making skills and
behaviour.
Ø peers and the media play a vital role in influencing the
discretionary purchase of the young.

Ø Advertisers are the first to recognize children’s value as

consumers who are capable of making decisions about
spending.
Ø children have become not passive observers, but active
participants in the family purchase decisions. Not only do
children have their “own money” to spend on a variety of
products and services of their choice, they also have
extensive influence on how their parents buy products and
• The tremendous increase in the child influenced sales
volume in most countries can be attributed to several
factors.
• most families have fewer children, thereby increasing
the influence of each child
• working couples can afford to allow their children to
make the choice


• due to constant exposure to media, children learn a

great deal about products/services and are in a
position to convince their parents as to what is
“good” and “bad”

 Influence and persuasion
• Inducing a change in behavior - compliance
• Persuasion - Cialdini (1993,p. 3)
 --- inducing a change in attitude
 --- whereby the source deliberately uses
communication to try and change a target’s
attitude
 -- -attempts to win “the heart and mind” of the
target.
 requires communication (verbal and non-
verbal messages)
 and it seeks attitude change
• influence - (Fazio,1990; Snyder, 1982).
 ---can proceed without communication
 ---and may achieve behavior (external) change
without
 --- gaining attitude (internal) change
 Exchange as a mechanism of need
satisfaction
Ø the main objective of this study is to explore
the demonstrated means of influence used
by the children in the Fiji Islands.
Ø The process of communication plays a vital
role in facilitating the exchange process
Ø In the context of exchange theory, children
receive tangible entities while parents (the
giver) receive intangibles such as
psychological and social values.
Ø The symbolic exchange of both tangible and
intangible entities facilitates social
harmony, tolerance and interdependence
Ø Questionnaire divided into 2 sections
ü if child selected the item, parent’s response and if
parent selected the item, child’s response;
ü The second section of the questionnaire was
designed to identify the demonstrated influence
tactics.


Ø The most common influence tactics used by the

children include: pressure tactics, upward
appeal, exchange tactics, coalition tactics,
ingratiating tactic, rational persuasion,
inspirational appeals, and consultative tactics


Influence tactics used by the
children
 Results
Ø in two-thirds of the situations the child initiate the
purchase decision process which is in the form of
“requests” or “demands”
Ø If it was a polite request, in 51 percent of the situations
parents responded favourably but if it was an
aggressive “demand” the parents in Fiji and the Cook
Island were not unwilling to yield to their children’s
claims
Ø study, most of the parent-initiated sequences involved
an “invitation” for the child to select the product. In
the majority of cases, the child chose a product and
 influnce
• The least preferred tactic among all children was
pressure tactic upward appeal and coalition tactics.
•


• the most frequently used ones were ingratiation,

consultation, rational persuasion and upward appeal.

 Implications for marketing
Ø marketers need to carefully evaluate the value of a product
or service as perceived by both the parent and the child
Ø
Ø The role of parent as the sole decision-maker in household
decision making has changed. Three distinct persons can
play the roles of decision making: the decision-maker, the
buyer and the user. The same person could play all three
roles, or the roles could be played by any combination of
people.
Ø
Ø marketers must decide who in the household plays which
role before they can attempt to affect the household
decision process. The one who has the real “say” in the
buying process needs to be identified and target
marketing strategies appropriately.
Ø
 conclusion
• In about two-thirds of the situations
under study, children became the
initiator of the buying process of
selected products, and in the other
onethird, parents initiated the
process.
• Therefore, international marketers who
collaborate with the locals (in
whatever form) to promote their
products/services must recognize the
children’s influence in purchase
Thank you