27

The Intended and Unintended Effects of Advertising on Children

Moniek Buijzen and Patti M. Valkenburg

Children's Processing of Advertising

The past three decades have witnessed a dramatic commercialization of children's media environment. The financial attractiveness of the youth market, in combination with the growing number of media tools at the marketers' disposal, has led to significant increases in child-directed advertising. This chapter discusses the effects of advertising on children. These effects have often been divided into two general types: intended effects (e.g., children's brand awareness, preferences, and purchase requests) and unintended effects (e.g., materialistic orientations, parent–child conflicts, and unhealthy eating habits). The first part of this chapter will discuss theories of advertising processing. The second part reviews the literature on intended and unintended advertising effects. The third part addresses the factors that may moderate advertising effects, focusing on the role of children's development and parental communication. Finally, we discuss the social significance of the conclusions that emerge from the literature.

Since the turn of the new millennium, advertisers targeting the youth market have rapidly adopted new media technologies including branded websites, online message systems, and “brand placement” in popular computer games. However, as yet most studies have focused on traditional television advertising (i.e., discrete advertisements of standard lengths that appear at predictable intervals in program breaks). Moreover, television viewing is still children's predominant leisure time activity (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010), and most child-directed advertising expenditures focus on television advertising. A recent global study investigating television advertising in 11 countries showed that at peak viewing times, children were confronted with an average of 27 commercials per hour (Kelly et al., 2010). Therefore, this chapter focuses predominantly on the effects of television advertising. In addition, in the theoretical sections, we also include considerations regarding non-traditional advertising practices

The existing child and advertising literature has predominantly focused on the outcomes of advertising exposure, while only sporadic attention has been devoted to the underlying mechanisms of the persuasion process (Austin, 2001; Austin & Johnson, 1997; Buijzen, 2007; Livingstone & Helsper, 2006). To understand how children process advertising, this chapter draws upon the rich theoretical and empirical work on adult persuasion processes. The adult advertising literature encompasses numerous models of persuasion, although most authors agree that persuasion can occur through several processes. The two most widely adopted multiple-process models are the elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1996) and the heuristic systematic model (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; see Chapter 26, this volume). Although those models differ in several respects, they share the fundamental assumption that under some conditions, people process a persuasive message systematically and carefully (referred to as the systematic or central process) and at other times, they rely on simple cues or shortcuts, using low-effort mechanisms to respond to a message (the heuristic or peripheral process). Over the past decade there has been increasing attention toward a third even less elaborate process, characterized by a primacy of automatic, affective, and unconscious reactions: the automatic or experiential process (Meyers-Levy & Malaviya, 1999).

The three persuasion processes are characterized by varying levels of cognitive elaboration in response to a message – that is, the recipients' level of processing of the available information in the immediate persuasion context. Cognitive elaboration, in turn, relates to the recipients' level of attention to and awareness of the message and to their motivation and ability to process the message effortfully. In addition, each of the three persuasion processes comprises different mechanisms that lead to an effect. Thus, although each process may have an intended or unintended effect, the specific mediating mechanisms via which this may occur differ in accordance with the processing route taken. Importantly, children's relatively immature advertising and consumer skills (e.g., advertising literacy, marketplace experience, brand memory, and consumption autonomy) are likely to affect their advertising processing. Before elaborating on the role of development, we first discuss the various processes and their intended and unintended outcomes.

Systematic persuasion processing is based on relatively extensive, deliberate, and effortful cognitive elaboration. For systematic processing to occur, the child must show high attention to and awareness of the message, and be highly motivated and able to process all available information. When children are concerned, it is relevant to distinguish between two levels of systematic processing. At the most elaborate level, critical systematic processing, an awareness of the persuasive nature of the message is involved, with the recipient actively applying the relevant persuasion knowledge or advertising literacy. At a less elaborate level, noncritical systematic processing involves a high awareness of the message or brand, without awareness of its persuasive intent. In the systematic process, persuasion mechanisms leading to attitude change involve active learning mechanisms and formulation of cognitive responses, such as pro- and counterargumentation to message claims and deliberation over the message source. The strength of the effect may depend on, for example, the strength of the persuasive arguments or the credibility of the message source (Petty, Cacioppo, Strathmann, & Priester, 2005).

Heuristic persuasion processing is characterized by a moderate level of cognitive elaboration. Compared to the systematic process, the recipient uses merely moderate to low levels of message attention and awareness, and a low motivation and ability to process the message. Within the heuristic process, the recipient looks for an easy way to form an overall evaluation of the product or brand and thus relies on relatively simple and low-effort decision strategies. Therefore, consumer defenses are less likely to affect this type of processing, when compared to systematic processing (Livingstone & Helsper, 2006). The mechanisms leading to persuasion involve relatively passive learning and information retrieval mechanisms, such as social learning and consumer cultivation (Shrum, Burroughs, & Rindfleisch, 2005). The outcome of the heuristic process may depend on simple heuristic cues, such as number of persuasive arguments, source attractiveness, and product symbolism. Current marketing practices, particularly those aimed at children, rely heavily on this type of processing, given the increased focus on emotion- and entertainment-based strategies in persuasive messages rather than information and rational argumentation.

Finally, in automatic persuasion processing, advertising exposure leads to attitude change without explicit attention to or awareness of the persuasive communication (Meyers-Levy & Malaviya, 1999): Recipient motivation and ability to process are not required. Consumer defenses are unlikely to be activated, because recipients are often unaware that they are being targeted. Highly embedded and stealth forms of marketing rely on this type of processing. Explicit recall of the persuasive message and the advertised product or brand will be low, yet implicit brand memory and attitude changes can be detected, for example through implicit recognition and association tests (Owen, Lewis, Auty, & Buijzen, 2010; Yang & Roskos-Ewoldson, 2007).

In the automatic persuasion process, persuasion occurs through implicit and affect-based learning mechanisms, such as evaluative conditioning (i.e., pairing a brand with affectively laden stimuli such as celebrity endorsers or pleasant pictures) and affect transfer (i.e., the positive affect associated with the media experience transfers to the brand). In this process, brand exposure leads to more fluent processing when the brand is encountered again. This facilitated processing fluency leads to a sense of familiarity that may, in turn, be misconstrued as a beneficial quality, resulting in positive affect toward the brand. The strength and direction of the effect within the automatic process can be determined by, for example, exposure duration and the valence of the message. For example, the positive affect associated with an entertaining advergame (i.e., a custom-built online game designed to promote a brand) becomes transferred to the brand (i.e., brand attitude change) outside conscious awareness.

Advertising Processing and Advertising Effects

Systematic, heuristic, and automatic persuasion processing may each lead to intended and unintended effects. However, the strength and endurance of the effect may differ according to the processing route taken. For example, recent literature on attitude formation suggests that different levels of processing may result in different types of attitudes, which in turn affect different types of consumer decisions. Specifically, lower levels of processing are more likely to result in implicit attitude formation, which plays a more important role in spontaneous and impulsive consumer behavior. Systematically formed attitudes are likely to be more explicit and predict more conscious and deliberate consumer decisions (Petty, Fazio, & Briñol, 2009). Unfortunately the variables revealing the persuasion process and its particular outcome, such as implicit versus explicit measures, have largely been ignored in the research literature on children and advertising. Yet the few studies that have recently begun to explore this domain suggest that the mechanisms of adult persuasion also apply to children, for example revealing processing fluency mechanisms among young children (Auty & Lewis, 2004; Owen et al., 2010).

Intended Advertising Effects

Intended effects include the effects of advertising as anticipated by advertisers, marketers, and manufacturers of children's products. They may wish, for example, to influence children's brand awareness, brand preferences, and purchase requests. Intended effects have received ample research attention, mostly from marketing researchers driven by the question as to how to target the child market in the most effective way. Unfortunately, most of the commercial studies are usually not available to the academic world. A literature search in the major social science databases shows that approximately 50 academic studies have been published on the intended effects of advertising on children. These studies can be roughly divided into three categories: studies on (1) cognitive effects (i.e., brand awareness), (2) affective effects (i.e., brand attitudes and preferences), and (3) behavioral effects (i.e., purchase requests to parents and consumption).

Cognitive Effects

Brand awareness is one's active and passive knowledge of a particular brand. Research on the brand awareness of young children has focused on two aspects of brand awareness: brand recognition and brand recall. Both brand recognition and recall have usually been operationalized by showing children a series of brand logos, brand characters, or commercials. In the case of brand recall, children were asked to name the specific brand when cued by the stimulus. In the case of brand recognition, they were invited to choose from a number of available visual options.

Both brand recognition and recall are important when making purchase decisions. For a decision for a particular brand in the retail environment, only recognition is necessary because the various alternatives are alongside one another on the shelf. For a decision to be made in another context, recall is necessary, because the various alternatives are not available at that time. In order to be able to function as a consumer, a child must therefore be capable of both brand recognition and recall. The relation between advertising and children's brand awareness has been studied in two ways. There is correlational research, in which the relationship between the frequency that children watch television and their brand awareness is determined. In addition, there is experimental research, in which children are shown one or more commercials for a particular brand, after which their brand awareness is determined.

The correlational studies investigating brand recognition all found that children who watched a great deal of television could recognize more brand logos and/or brand characters (Derscheid, Kwon, & Fang, 1996; Fischer, Schwartz, Richards, Goldstein, & Rojas, 1991; Valkenburg & Buijzen, 2005). However, the correlational research on the brand recall of children has come up with less clear results. In a study by Ward, Wackman, and Wartella (1977), children of 4 to 12 years of age were asked to name as many brands as possible from a particular product group. Although most products that were named were those that were advertised a lot on television, the relation between watching television and brand recall was not significant. However, with older teenagers, from 15 to 18 years of age, a positive relation was found (Ward & Wackman, 1971).

The experimental studies yielded similar patterns of results. As in the case of the correlational studies, in all experiments exposure to commercials had a considerable effect on the brand recognition of the children. In a study by Macklin (1983); for example, 4- and 5-year-old children were shown three commercials, one of which was for a cereal brand. After seeing just one commercial, 61% of the 4-year-olds and 65% of the 5-year-olds could recognize the cereal brand. However, the experimental studies also revealed that the brand recall of young children was affected less by advertising than their brand recognition. However, this does not seem to hold for adolescents. A study by Dubow (1995), among 13- to 17-year-olds demonstrated that television advertising has a large effect on both the brand recognition and brand recall of adolescents, even greater than its effect on adults.

In conclusion, both the correlational research and experimental research on brand awareness shows that the influence of advertising on the brand recall of young children is smaller than its influence on their brand recognition. However, among adolescents, advertising exposure affects both brand recognition and recall. An explanation for this finding is that recall memory requires greater cognitive efforts than recognition memory (Siegler, 1998). Recalling something requires a mental journey to a particular information unit in memory and then, in a second step, an evaluation of whether the activated information unit is the correct one. In the case of recognition memory, only the second step is necessary. Most recall tasks, particularly those in which children have to come up with the brand name themselves, are probably too difficult for young children, whose memory abilities have not yet fully developed. Perhaps so difficult that advertising has little or no effect on their brand recall. An explanation for the finding that advertising does affect the brand recall of adolescents, is that older children possess better strategies to aid their memory, and have more brand-related knowledge and experience.

Affective Effects

This type of research focuses on the question of whether advertising can influence brand attitudes and preferences. Attitudes in general and brand attitudes in particular, are difficult to influence, in any case more difficult than brand awareness (Petty et al., 2009). Even the youngest of children have distinct ideas on what they like and dislike (Valkenburg, 2004). Their attitudes towards brands are determined by many factors, including their gender, cognitive level, temperament, media preferences, and their susceptibility to peer influence (Moschis, 1987). All these factors determine their selective exposure and attention to media content and advertising, and, as a result, the effects of these media contents. If children are not interested in the content of a commercial, it is unlikely that their brand attitudes and preferences will be influenced by it.

The research literature on affective effects of advertising can also be divided into correlational and experimental studies. Atkin (1975) was one of the first to find in a correlational study that exposure to advertising was not enough on its own to influence the brand preferences of children. He asked 755 children how often they had seen a certain commercial for a Snoopy pencil sharpener. He also asked them whether they liked the commercial and pencil sharpener. Initially he found a significant relationship between the number of times that children had seen the commercial and their attitude towards the pencil sharpener. That significant relationship, however, disappeared once Atkin controlled for children's attitude towards the commercial. This means that children's liking of the commercial moderated the relation between exposure frequency and attitude toward the product. Other correlational research confirmed that the brand preferences of children are heavily influenced by their preference for the specific commercial (Derbaix & Bree, 1997; Moore & Lutz, 2000).

A number of correlational studies did find positive relations between children's exposure to advertising and their attitudes toward commercials and brands. For example, a recent study on Australian children's food attitudes and preferences showed that commercial TV viewing was associated with more positive attitudes toward junk food (Dixon, Scully, Wakefield, White, & Crawford, 2007). A possible explanation why some studies do find a direct relation between advertising exposure and attitudes is the strategy to include product symbolism in advertising. By depicting desirable symbolic values and appeals in commercials, such as fun, social status, attractiveness, and energy, advertising creates the impression that the advertised products are associated with those values (Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2000). The finding that children who watch more advertising hold more positive attitudes toward advertised products, could be explained by a longer-term consumer cultivation effect, in which higher exposure frequency leads to ideas and attitudes that are more similar to the values represented in advertising (Shrum et al., 2005).

The effect of advertising on children's brand attitude has also been investigated in various experimental studies. Some studies focused on sweets, ice cream, or cereals, others on toys and yet others on personal care products, such as anti-acne products or lipstick. Most studies showed children one or more commercials and then asked them how much they liked the advertised product. In a study by Gorn and Goldberg (1977) boys of 8 to 10 years of age were shown a cartoon. The study consisted of four experimental groups. In the first group, one commercial for a new brand of toy was shown during the cartoon. In two other groups, either two or three commercials were shown during the cartoon. A control group was not shown any commercials. The brand attitude of the boys who had seen the commercial was significantly more positive than that of those who had not seen the commercial. It made no difference whether the boys had seen the commercial once, twice, or three times. In the short-term, repetition therefore did not have any effect on the brand attitude of children.

Gorn and Florsheim (1985) showed seventy 9- and 10-year-old girls a video of 20 minutes with an interview with Steven Spielberg. During the video, half of the girls were shown two commercials of a lipstick brand and two commercials of a brand of diet drink. A preliminary investigation had revealed that the girls were interested in lipstick but not in diet drinks. The study found that the lipstick commercial had a positive effect on the girls' attitude towards lipstick, whilst the diet drink commercials had no effect on their attitude towards diet drinks. This study also confirms that a commercial has an effect on the brand attitude only if children have some degree of interest in the product or brand.

In conclusion, the various studies show that advertising can indeed affect children's brand attitudes though it does not necessarily have to happen. When a small effect is found at the aggregate level (for all children together), there may be a larger, smaller, or even no effect at all within certain subgroups. The research also shows that the brand attitude and preferences of children are determined by many factors, including the gender and age of the child, the familiarity with the brand, the interest in the advertised brand or product, and the child's liking of the commercial.

Behavioral Effects

Most studies into behavioral effects have focused on children's purchase requests. Because children usually do not typically have the financial means to purchase products themselves, advertisers are most interested in the influence they exert on their parents' purchases. The correlational studies that have investigated the relation between advertising exposure and purchase request behavior have all demonstrated that children who often watch commercial television ask their parents for products more often (e.g., Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2003b; Pine & Nash, 2002; Robertson, Ward, Gatignon, & Klees, 1989). In a study investigating children's Christmas wishes, we found that children who watched commercial television more often had more advertised products on their wish list. The brands most heavily advertised in the holiday season appeared on their wish lists most often (Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2000).

Several experimental studies have focused on behavioral advertising effects. Brody, Stoneman, Lane, and Sanders (1981) investigated the impact of advertising exposure on children's purchase requests. In the experimental group, 3- to 5-year-olds and their mothers were shown a cartoon with commercials for food products, while a control group watched the cartoon without the commercials. After viewing the cartoon, the mother and child went supermarket shopping. Children who had watched the cartoon with the commercials made significantly more purchase requests than children who had not seen the commercials. In a quasi-experiment among 475 Canadian 9- to 12-year-olds, Goldberg (1990) compared the household purchase of cereals among English- and French-speaking children. The English-speaking children, who were more likely to watch the US networks broadcasting most cereal advertising, mentioned significantly more advertised brands than the French-speaking children, who watched the low-advertising French-language networks.

In a more recent experiment, Auty and Lewis (2004) showed 6- to 7- and 11- to 12-year-olds a scene from the movie Home Alone. In both age groups, half of the children watched the scene with a brand placement for Pepsi Cola, while the other half watched the same scene without the brand placement. After watching the fragment, the children were offered to take a drink. They could choose from a tray with cans of Pepsi and Coca Cola. In the group of children who had seen the Pepsi brand placement, 62% took a can of Pepsi, while in the control group only 42% chose Pepsi. This significant effect held for both the younger and the older children.

In conclusion, most correlational and experimental studies investigating the behavioral effects of advertising observed significant relations between advertising exposure and children's requests for advertised products and brands. In addition, several studies have investigated the impact of advertising on children's food consumption patterns. Because these studies have mostly been driven by concerns about the increasing prevalence of overweight and obese children, we discuss their findings in the following section.

Unintended Advertising Effects

Research into the unintended effects of advertising focuses on the secondary, often undesired, side effects of advertising exposure. The literature has included looking at the question of whether advertising (1) increases materialistic orientations, (2) stimulates family conflicts, (3) decreases life satisfaction, and (4) causes overweight and obesity.

Materialistic Orientations

First, a number of researchers have suggested that advertising makes children materialistic. According to these authors, advertising enhances materialism because it is designed to arouse desires for products that would not otherwise be salient. Advertising propagates the ideology that possessions are important and that desirable qualities – such as beauty, success, and happiness – can be obtained only by acquiring material possessions (Pollay, 1986).

Several studies have examined whether this is indeed the case. In the correlational studies that have been carried out, materialism has been investigated by asking children to respond to various statements, such as “It is true than money can make you happy” and: “It is my dream to be able to have expensive things.” With one exception (Ward & Wackman, 1971), all correlational studies found positive relationships between the viewing frequency of commercial television and the materialistic attitude of children and adolescents. In a recent longitudinal study in which 452 Dutch children between 8 and 12 years of age were surveyed twice with a one-year interval, we found that the causal direction pointed from advertising to materialism and not the other way around (Opree, Buijzen, Valkenburg, & Van Reijmersdal, 2010). The experimental studies, too, have shown that advertising has an effect on the materialistic attitudes of children (Goldberg & Gorn, 1978; Greenberg & Brand, 1993).

Parent–Child Conflict

Second, a number of authors have suggested that advertising contributes to conflicts between parents and children. The underlying idea here is that advertising encourages children to ask for the advertised product. Because parents naturally do not want to comply with all these product requests, they have to say “no” to their children more often. As a result, the chance of conflicts between the parent and child increases.

The question of whether advertising exposure increases the number of product requests has already been discussed. This is an intended advertising effect, and research shows that this effect exists. But do these increased product requests lead to more parent–child conflicts? The relationship between purchase requests and family conflict has been investigated in five correlational studies. These studies all found a significant and high positive correlation between the number of purchase requests and parent–child conflicts (Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2003a).

An experiment conducted by Goldberg and Gorn (1978) also suggests that advertising can stimulate parent–child conflict. In this study, half of a group of 4- and 5-year-olds was shown a children's program in which a commercial for an appealing toy was inserted. The other half of the children was not shown this commercial. At the end, all children were asked whether they preferred to have a tennis ball or the advertised toy. It was added that their mothers preferred them to have the tennis ball. Children who had seen the commercial went against the wishes of their mothers more often (45.8%) than those children who had not seen the commercial (21.3%).

Decreased Life Satisfaction

Third, some researchers believe that advertising makes children less satisfied with their lives. Various hypotheses have been put forward for this claim. The first derives from the social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954). It is assumed that advertising paints a world for children full of beautiful people and desirable products. If children watch too many commercials and compare them to their own situation, the contrast between the two worlds can make them unhappy. The few studies that investigated this hypothesis have focused on the effect of beautiful models in magazines on the self-perception of teenage girls and female students. These studies have produced mixed results. An experiment by Richins (1991) found that female students after seeing a printed advertisement with a beautiful female model felt less good about themselves. In a study by Martin and Kennedy (1993), conducted among girls of 9 to 18 years of age, no influence was found of advertising on the way the girls perceived their own looks. See Chapter 15 for a more detailed discussion of media and body image.

Another hypothesis about the relation between advertising exposure and decreased life satisfaction involves materialism as a mediating factor. It is generally assumed that advertising-induced materialism results in decreased life satisfaction, because materialistic people are assumed to be less satisfied with their lives. Materialistic people consider objects as an important means to gain happiness. When the products fail to yield the promised state of happiness, unhappiness will follow. As described above, there is evidence for a relation between advertising exposure and materialism. However, although the relation between materialism and life dissatisfaction has been established among adults (Wright & Larsen, 1993), it has as yet not been found among children. In conclusion, the research into the relation between advertising and life satisfaction is too scarce and scattered to draw decisive conclusions.

Overweight and Obesity

Finally, advertising is often named as one of the possible causes for the increasing prevalence of overweight and obese children. Critics hold advertising responsible for the problem of childhood obesity because of its abundant promotion of unhealthy food, that is products containing relatively high proportions of fat, sugar, and salt (Matthews, Cowburn, Rayner, Longfield, & Powell, 2004). Many studies have shown that exposure to food advertising leads to less healthy dietary patterns among children. In a household-diary study among 234 parents of children aged 4 to 12, in which we compared children's media use with their consumption behavior during four days, we found that children's exposure to food advertising was associated not only with their consumption of advertised brands (e.g., Lay's chips) but also with their consumption of the unhealthy advertised product categories (e.g., savory snacks in general) (Buijzen, Schuurman, & Bomhof, 2008b).

Most researchers also agree that exposure to advertising does increase the chance of being overweight (McGinnis, Gootman, & Kraak, 2006). However, the observed relations are often relatively small, especially when compared to other influences such as parental dietary patterns. In addition, it is often difficult to disentangle the specific role of advertising from other factors associated with television viewing. In the diary-survey study described above (Buijzen, Schuurman, & Bomhof, 2008a), we distinguished between advertising exposure and general television viewing behavior and investigated three alternative explanations for the relation between children's television viewing behavior and their weight status: (a) the advertising effects hypothesis (i.e., advertising exposure stimulates intake of energy-dense food products), (b) the eating while viewing hypothesis (i.e., television viewing is linked to total food intake), and (c) the activity displacement hypothesis (i.e., television viewing replaces more energy-demanding leisure activities). Our analyses showed that children's food advertising exposure and television viewing time were both associated with an unbalanced diet. In addition, television-viewing time was related negatively to outdoor playing time. However, recent longitudinal research suggests that in the long-term, advertising exposure is the most important predictor for being overweight and for obesity, lending the most convincing support for the advertising effects hypothesis (Goris, Petersen, Stamatakis, & Veerman, 2009; Zimmerman & Bell, 2010).

In conclusion, the literature shows that exposure to advertising has intended and unintended effects on children. However, these effects are not uniform and vary in strength for different types of children. Several moderating influences have been investigated, including individual and social factors. In the following sections we will focus on the factors that have received most attention in the academic debate: the role of development and the role of parents and caretakers.

The Role of Development

It is generally assumed that younger children are more susceptible to the effects of advertising than older children and adults, because young children lack the skills, knowledge, and experience to critically evaluate advertising. It is also assumed that when children have obtained the necessary cognitive and information-processing skills, they become less susceptible to advertising effects (cf. Kunkel et al., 2004). Indeed, there is rather convincing evidence that such “advertising literacy” develops with age (Rozendaal, Buijzen, & Valkenburg, 2010). Remarkably, reviews of the advertising effects literature that have systematically investigated the role of development have not found conclusive evidence that age affects the strength of advertising effects (Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2003a; Livingstone & Helsper, 2006). Moreover, recent studies on the role of advertising literacy have found that even when children possess the knowledge and skills to critically process an advertising message, they can still be persuaded by it (Livingstone & Helsper, 2006; Mallinckrodt & Mizerski, 2007; Rozendaal, Buijzen, & Valkenburg, 2009).

These findings call into question the alleged moderating role of (literacy) development. A plausible explanation is provided by current insights that advertising effectiveness is not only determined by the cognitive and systematic responses to a message, but also, and perhaps more importantly, by less elaborate processing mechanisms – that is heuristic or automatic processes. As described at the beginning of this chapter, children can process advertising in several different ways. Applying advertising literacy (e.g., recognizing the source and the intent of a commercial) as a defense against persuasion requires high-level critical systematic processing. However, as we will argue in the following section, children are more likely to process advertising in less elaborate ways.

It is conceivable that development does not determine the extent to which children are influenced by advertising, but affects how they are influenced. Children's relatively immature advertising and consumer skills (e.g., advertising literacy, marketplace experience, brand memory, and consumption autonomy) are likely to affect their processing of advertising messages. For example, when children are not yet able to recognize the commercial nature and persuasive intent of an advertising message, they will be less likely to process this message on the most elaborate level – that is, critical systematic processing. In addition, rational and critical systematic processing requires domain-specific knowledge which children often still lack.

The most important changes in advertising and consumer skills take place between infancy and early adolescence. Based on theories of consumer development and more general frameworks of children's cognitive, social, and personality development, four phases in the development of children's advertising processing can be distinguished: preschool (younger than 5-years-old), early elementary school (6 to 9 years), later elementary school (10 to 12 years), and adolescence (13 years and older). Within each phase, children accumulate consumer- and advertising-related skills and experience (John, 1999; Valkenburg & Cantor, 2001).

Up until the age of 5, children view advertising primarily as entertainment and are generally unaware of its persuasive intent. They have a limited ability to take a perspective other than their own, which inhibits their understanding of advertisers' intentions (Moses & Baldwin, 2005). In addition, preschoolers lack the necessary information-processing abilities (i.e., explicit memory storage and retrieval) and market-related experience to process a persuasive message elaborately (John, 1999). This renders systematic processing – and even heuristic processing – less likely. Preschoolers are therefore more likely to be influenced via the automatic process. Positive feelings evoked during exposure to attractive animated characters, bright colors, and lively music transfer to the advertised products and can help shape young children's brand attitudes without their knowledge (Moore & Rideout, 2007).

As children enter early elementary school, important changes take place in consumer development. Children become increasingly capable of perspective taking and contingent thought, and develop a basic understanding of advertising's selling intent. In addition, they become able to evaluate products and brands in more than one dimension. These increased abilities may result in more elaborate processing of persuasive communication. However, more elaborate processing does not necessarily involve critical processing in terms of counterargumentation and source derogation. Further, as their information-processing skills are not yet fully developed, early elementary school children are unlikely to spontaneously apply their persuasion knowledge as a defense during exposure to persuasive messages (Buijzen, 2007). Finally, children in this phase have been shown to be easily swayed by simple heuristic cues, such as favorite television characters, premiums, and physical aspects of product packaging (Calvert, 2008).

During later elementary school, children's cognitive and social abilities continue to evolve. Children become capable of abstract thought and reasoning and are able to see things within a broader perspective. They acquire the abilities and experience to process persuasive communication on a more elaborate level. They are able to evaluate advertising systematically and critically and to come to consumer decisions by carefully evaluating different aspects of advertised products and brands. In addition, on account of a growing financial independence and autonomy in making those consumer decisions, they are also more motivated to process messages elaborately. However, whilst they possess the abilities and motivations required for systematic processing, children in this age group still require prompts or cues to activate critical elaboration (John, 1999). Further, as peer influence becomes more important, late elementary school children become increasingly sensitive to heuristic cues, such as peer popularity and status appeal.

Finally, in adolescence, children's cognitive processing capacities reach adult-like levels and they become capable of processing advertising at the most elaborate level (Pechmann, Levine, Loughlin, & Leslie, 2005). Additionally, due to the development of hypothetical-deductive reasoning skills they become more critical and skeptical towards the surrounding world, including the commercial environment. However, despite these more mature cognitive skills, they are still in the midst of identity development, which may have important implications for the processing of commercial messages. In the early stages of identity development, self-presentation and conformity to the peer group or subculture are extremely important. In combination with a high degree of self-consciousness and social anxiety, this may result in a greater susceptibility to consumer symbolism, such as brand-related social status, image, and physical attractiveness.

In summary, it can be argued that young children are particularly sensitive to less elaborate processing mechanisms. Developmental changes characterizing childhood are likely to inhibit the motivation and ability to process persuasive messages systematically. It is therefore important to take children's developmental level into consideration when predicting how persuasive messages affect their processing of advertising. It is, however, uncertain whether and how this affects their susceptibility to advertising effects. Until recently, the advertising effects literature suggests that children's developmental level does not necessarily moderate the intended and unintended effects of advertising on children.

The Role of Parents and Caretakers

Parental communication is often considered the most effective tool in the management of advertising influence on children. The family context not only influences how children use the media and the messages they get from them, but also how literate they become as media users. Parents and caretakers have a wide range of communication strategies at their disposal to increase children's defenses against advertising effects, which can be grouped according to (1) the object of the communication and (2) the style of communication (Buijzen, 2009). First, parental communication strategies may apply either to the advertising messages or to the consumer-related attitudes and behaviors of the child (e.g., materialistic orientations, purchase requests, consumption behavior). Put in terms of advertising effects, advertising-related communication concerns the independent variable, while consumption-related communication relates to the dependent variable or outcome of advertising exposure.

Second, for both types of strategies two communication styles can be distinguished. A conformity-oriented communication style is aimed at obedience and conformity, and stresses control, rules, and restrictions, whereas a conversation-oriented communication style emphasizes open and critical family discussion (Ritchie & Fitzpatrick, 1990). Taken together, the various communication objects and styles result in four types of parental communication strategies: (1) conformity-oriented advertising communication, (2) conversation-oriented advertising communication, (3) conformity-oriented consumer communication, and (4) conversation-oriented consumer communication.

A conformity-oriented advertising communication strategy involves sheltering children from advertising by reducing their exposure to it, for instance by restricting children's viewing of commercial television networks. This type of strategy has also been labeled as restrictive mediation in previous research (Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2005). A conversation-oriented advertising strategy, or active mediation, includes making deliberate comments and judgments about advertising and actively explaining its nature and selling intent. Some parents use both types of strategies, trying to shelter their children from advertising, yet at the same time explaining the intent of advertising and clarifying their motivations for the restrictions.

Further, a conformity-oriented consumer communication strategy may involve rule-making and restrictions regarding children's consumer attitudes and behavior, including their purchase requests and consumption behavior. A conversation-oriented consumer communication strategy emphasizes children's individual ideas and opinions and is aimed at increasing children's consumption autonomy. Parents using this strategy engage in active consumer education, focusing on the development of the child into a critical consumer. They may teach their children, for instance, to compare and evaluate products. These families center on open discussion between parents and children and value children's input and opinions when making family consumer decisions. Finally, similar to advertising-related strategies, parents can also use a combined consumer communication style, applying certain rules and restrictions regarding consumer matters, yet also explaining the motivations behind these rules.

In the past years, we have conducted several studies investigating and comparing the role of the various parental communication strategies. Our findings show that conversation-oriented communication strategies are generally more successful in reducing advertising effects than conformity-oriented strategies (Buijzen, 2009; Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2005). Most Western societies have become increasingly commercialized, and exposure to commercial messages is almost impossible to avoid. It is therefore important that children learn how to cope with those commercial temptations. However, conversation-oriented strategies are not always most successful in reducing advertising effects. Specifically, the effectiveness of the strategies may depend on the age of the child and on the type of effect that needs to be reduced.

When countering the intended yet undesired effects of advertising, such as excessive purchase request behavior, conversation-oriented advertising communication can be a successful strategy. In an experiment among 272 5- to 9-year-olds, we investigated the effectiveness of comments administered during children's exposure to commercials (Buijzen & Mens, 2007). Children were assigned to one of four conditions and received different types of comments while they were watching a compilation of six commercials for toys. The first group of children received factual comments about the commercials, including facts about the persuasive and selling intent of the commercials. The second group of children received evaluative comments, involving negative evaluations of the commercials and the products advertised. The third group received a combination of factual and evaluative comments, while the fourth group just watched the commercials, without any comments.

After viewing the commercials, the children completed a questionnaire measuring several intended effects of the commercials. Our findings showed that the combined comments were most effective in reducing these effects. Children who had heard both factual explanation and a negative evaluation were less positive about the advertised toys and showed lower intentions to ask their parents to purchase them. However, this effect did not hold for the youngest children. Among the 5- and 6-year-olds, none of the comments were effective in reducing the effects of the commercials. A possible explanation is that these children had not yet developed the necessary information-processing skills to process and apply the comments as a defense against the persuasive influence. These findings support the idea that reducing young children's exposure may sometimes be the only effective way to counteract negative effects of advertising.

Liking and requesting advertised products are intended and relatively direct effects of advertising. Yet unintended and longer-term advertising effects, such as materialistic orientations, can also be countered by parental communication strategies. Several of our studies have shown that in families that are characterized by conversation-oriented communication styles, applying both to advertising and more general consumer matters, children are less receptive to the impact of advertising on materialism than in low conversation-oriented and in conformity-oriented families (Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2005). In general, conformity-oriented advertising communication is the least effective strategy. A possible explanation is that in reality these policies do not lead to sufficient reductions in children's advertising exposure. As argued above, in our consumer society it is often unfeasible to avoid children being exposed to advertising. Even when restricted at home, children can be exposed directly in other contexts, but also indirectly via friends and relatives.

In our diary-survey study on the impact of food advertising on children's consumption behavior, we also found that conversation-oriented strategies were most successful in reducing the effect of advertising on children's consumption of unhealthy advertised food, particularly those related to advertising (Buijzen, 2009). The relation between advertising exposure and energy-dense food consumption disappeared for children whose parents actively discussed the nature and intent of advertising.

In addition, however, this study yielded more insights regarding conformity-oriented communication styles among younger children. To test the assumption that restrictive mediation could be successful among young children, we also compared the success of the various strategies among younger and older children. Our results confirmed that among the younger children in the sample (<8 years old), conformity-oriented advertising communication was successful in reducing the impact of advertising. Parental attempts to restrict their children's exposure to advertising may be more successful among young children, because parents still have control over their media exposure. Parental influence on children's television viewing behavior diminishes as children grow older, for instance because they watch television in their bedroom more often.

So far, these results were in line with earlier findings and assumptions. However, in contrast with previous findings, conformity-oriented communication about consumption was also very successful in reducing the impact of advertising. An explanation might be that when it comes to children's food consumption patterns, the family context plays a particularly important role (Kremers et al., 2006). Although children exert increasing influence on family purchases, parents are still the primary gatekeepers to children's food intake. In general, they are the ones controlling financial expenditures and making the final purchase decision in the retail environment (Mangleburg, 1990). In addition, most parents can control access to food at home, for instance by family rules on snacking and by determining what's for dinner (Cullen et al., 2001). In our study, conformity-oriented consumer communication strategies may have prevented children from gratifying advertising-induced desires.

It has to be noted that the success of conformity-oriented communication might be a short-term one. It is conceivable that in the long term, children benefit more from a conversation-oriented strategy. Earlier studies have shown that strict parental control practices diminish children's self-control in eating (Fisher & Birch, 1999). With increasing age, children obtain more autonomy in their consumption choices. Children from conformity-oriented parents may lack the nutrition-related knowledge to deal with that autonomy when they grow up, because their parents failed to explain the motivation behind their restrictions. Although speculative, this does suggest that the results for conformity-oriented communication should be interpreted with caution. It is plausible that socio-oriented communication is more effective, in the short term as well as the long term, when parents explain why they imply certain rules and restrictions. Overall, more research is needed to investigate the interaction between the various parental communication strategies, particularly between conformity- and conversation-oriented styles (cf. Fujioka & Austin, 2002).

Conclusions

In summary, our review of the literature suggests that advertising can have intended as well as unintended, possibly harmful, effects on children. These effects can be moderated by parents and caretakers, especially by using conversation-oriented strategies. Our conclusions might contribute to the ongoing political and sociolegal debate on child-directed advertising, and help establish guidelines for its regulation. In many Western societies, concerns about the possible adverse effects of marketing efforts directed at children have led to policies regarding child advertising. One kind of policy approach focuses on regulation and restriction of advertising, while another aims at educating children about advertising, mostly through school-based media literacy intervention programs. In recent years, several countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the Netherlands, have introduced such media literacy programs. Many studies have shown that media literacy programs can increase children's awareness, understanding, and critical attitude toward advertising (see Chapter 32, this volume).

Although increasing children's advertising and consumer literacy is important and necessary in our consumer society, literature suggests that literacy is not necessarily a defense against the persuasive influence of advertising. Applying critical defenses while being exposed to advertising requires a systematic level of processing and advanced information-processing skills. Up until the age of 12, most children have not yet developed the cognitive capacities to independently retrieve and apply their knowledge as a defense against persuasion. In addition, they are more likely to process advertising in less elaborate ways, in which positive emotions and associations elicited by advertising are likely to overrule rational argumentation. Therefore, when trying to protect children from the possibly harmful effects of advertising, advertising literacy education is perhaps not the most effective policy.

However, the literature convincingly shows that parents and caretakers can effectively counter the undesired effects of advertising by critical discussion about advertising and by conversation and rule-making about consumption. Therefore, in our view media literacy programs should also incorporate parent-directed materials and focus, for instance, on raising parental awareness on advertising, consumer skills, and a healthy lifestyle. Not only is this a more effective way of increasing children' defenses, parents could also use some support in their battle against commercialism. Even though most Western countries have protective policies concerning child-directed advertising, the lion's share of the responsibility is still shouldered by the parents, who are usually the first to experience inconvenience as a result of advertising. Therefore, advertising-related policies could also be aimed at the empowerment of parents, by increasing parental defenses against advertising.

Finally, it is important to emphasize that parents and caretakers should not be considered as the only effective instrument to counter harmful advertising effects. First, literature suggests that parental communication efforts are not effective for all children. Specifically, children under the age of seven may benefit more from advertising restrictions. In addition, it would be unwise to invest in the empowerment of children and parents, while the commercial pressure is increasing, and advertisers keep developing more sophisticated methods to reach the child consumer. It cannot be denied that many of the advertised products are just too attractive to resist and that some marketing techniques, especially new embedded forms of marketing, are difficult to recognize and grasp – for children as well as adults. It is therefore of utmost importance that a fair and healthy media environment for children and their families is warranted, whether it is by self-regulatory or legislative policies.

REFERENCES

Atkin, C. K. (1975). Survey of pre-adolescent's responses to television commercials. In The effects of television advertising on children. (Report no. 6.) East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University.

Austin, E. W. (2001). Effects of family communication on children's interpretation of television. In J. Bryant & J. A. Bryant (Eds.), Television and the American family (2nd ed., pp. 377–396). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Austin, E. W., & Johnson, K. K. (1997). Effects of general and alcohol-specific media literacy training on children's decision making about alcohol. Journal of Health Communication, 2, 17–42.

Auty, S., & Lewis, C. (2004). Exploring children's choice: The reminder effect of product placement. Psychology and Marketing, 21, 697–713.

Brody, G. H., Stoneman, Z., Lane, T. S., & Sanders, A. K. (1981). Television food commercials aimed at children, family grocery shopping, and mother–child interactions. Family Relations, 30, 435–439.

Buijzen, M. (2007). Reducing children's susceptibility, to commercials: Mechanisms of factual and evaluative advertising interventions. Media Psychology, 9, 411–430.

Buijzen, M. (2009). The effectiveness of parental communication in modifying the relation between food advertising and children's consumption behaviour. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 27, 105–121.

Buijzen, M., & Mens, C. (2007). Adult mediation of television advertising effects: A comparison of factual, evaluative, and combined strategies. Journal of Children and Media, 1, 177–191.

Buijzen, M., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2000). The impact of television advertising on children's Christmas wishes. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 44, 456–470.

Buijzen, M., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2003a). The effects of television advertising on materialism, parent–child conflict, and unhappiness: A review of research. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24, 437–456.

Buijzen, M., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2003b). The unintended effects of television advertising: A parent–child survey. Communication Research, 30, 483–503.

Buijzen, M., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2005). Parental mediation of undesired advertising effects. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 49, 153–165.

Buijzen, M., Bomhof. E., & Schuurman, J. (2008a). A test of three alternative hypotheses explaining the link between children's television viewing and weight status. Journal of Children and Media, 2, 67–74.

Buijzen, M., Schuurman, J., & Bomhof, E. (2008b). Associations between children's television advertising exposure and their food consumption patterns: A household diary-survey study Appetite, 50, 231–239.

Calvert, S. L. (2008). Children as consumers: Advertising and marketing. The Future of Children, 18, 205–234.

Cullen, K., Baranowski, T., Rittenberry, L., Cosart, C., Hebert, D., & de Moor, C. (2001). Child-reported family and peer influences on fruit, juice and vegetable consumption: Reliability and validity of measures. Health Education Research, 16, 187–200.

Derbaix, C., & Bree, J. (1997). The impact of children's affective reactions elicited by commercials on attitudes toward the advertisement and the brand. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 14, 207–230.

Derscheid, L. E., Kwon, Y. H., & Fang, S. R. (1996). Preschoolers' socialization as consumers of clothing and recognition of symbolism. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 82, 1171–1181.

Dixon, H. G., Scully, M. L., Wakefield, M. A., White, V. M., & Crawford, D. A. (2007). The effects of television advertisements for junk food versus nutritious food on children's food attitudes and preferences. Social Science and Medicine, 65, 1311–1323.

Dubow, J. S. (1995). Advertising recognition and recall by age – including teens. Journal of Advertising Research, 35, 55–60.

Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace.

Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7, 117–140.

Fisher, J. O., & Birch, L. L. (1999). Restricting access to palatable foods affects children's behavioral response, food selection, and intake. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 69, 1264–1272.

Fischer, P. M., Schwartz, M. P., Richards, J. W., Goldstein, A. O., & Rojas, T. H. (1991). Brand logo recognition by children aged 3 to 6 years. Journal of the American Medical Association, 266, 3145–3148.

Fujioka, Y., & Austin, E. W. (2002). The relationship of family communication patterns to parental mediation styles. Communication Research, 29, 642–665.

Goldberg, M. E. (1990). A quasi-experiment assessing the effectiveness of TV advertising directed to children. Journal of Marketing Research, 27, 445–454.

Goldberg, M. E., & Gorn, G. J. (1978). Some unintended consequences of TV advertising to children. Journal of Consumer Research, 5, 22–29.

Goris, J. M., Petersen, S., Stamatakis, E., & Veerman, J. L. (2010). Television food advertising and the prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity: A multicountry comparison. Public Health Nutrition, 13, 1003–1012.

Gorn, G. J., & Florsheim, R. (1985). The effects of commercials for adult products on children. Journal of Consumer Research, 11, 962–967.

Gorn, G. J., & Goldberg, M. E. (1977). The impact of television advertising on children from low income families. Journal of Consumer Research, 4, 86–88.

Greenberg, B. S., & Brand, J. E. (1993). Television-news and advertising in schools: The Channel One controversy. Journal of Communication, 43, 143–151.

John, D. R. (1999). Consumer socialization of children: A retrospective look at twenty-five years of research. Journal of Consumer Research, 26, 183–213.

Kelly, B., Halford, J. C. G., Boyland, E. J., Chapman, A., Bautista-Castano, I, Berg, C. et al. (2010). Television food advertising to children: A global perspective. American Journal of Public Health, 100, 1730–1736.

Kremers, S. P. J., de Bruijn, G. J., Visscher, T. L. S., van Mechelen, W., de Vries, N., & Brug, J. (2006). Environmental influences on energy-balance-related behaviors: A dual process view. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 3, 9.

Kunkel, D., Wilcox, B. L., Cantor, J., Palmer, E., Linn, S., & Dowrick, P. (2004). Report of the APA task force on advertising and children. Retrieved February 2, 2010, from http://www.apa.org/pi/families/resources/advertising-children.pdf

Livingstone, S., & Helsper, E. J. (2006). Does advertising literacy mediate the effects of advertising on children? A critical examination of two linked research literatures in relation to obesity and food choice. Journal of Communication, 56, 560–584.

Macklin, M. C. (1983). Do children understand TV ads? Journal of Advertising Research, 23, 63–70.

Mallinckrodt, V., & Mizerski, D. (2007). The effects of playing an advergame on young children's perceptions, preferences, and requests. Journal of Advertising, 36, 87–100.

Mangleburg, T. F. (1990). Children's influence in purchase decisions: A review and critique. Advances in Consumer Research, 17, 813–825.

Martin, M. C., & Kennedy, P. F. (1993). Advertising and social comparison: Consequences for female preadolescents and adolescents. Psychology and Marketing, 10, 513–530.

Matthews, A., Cowburn, G., Rayner, M., Longfield, J., & Powell, C. (2004). The marketing of unhealthy food to children. Brussels, Belgium: European Heart Network.

McGinnis, J. M. E., Gootman, J. A. E., & Kraak, V. I. E. (2006). Food marketing to children and youth: Threat or opportunity? Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Meyers-Levy, J., & Malaviya, P. (1999). Consumers' processing of persuasive advertisements: An integrative framework of persuasion theories. Journal of Marketing, 63, 45–60.

Moore, E. S., & Lutz, R. J. (2000). Children, advertising, and product experiences: A multimethod inquiry. Journal of Consumer Research, 27, 31–48.

Moore, E. S., & Rideout, V. J. (2007). The online marketing of food to children: Is it just fun and games? Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 26, 202–220.

Moschis, G. P. (1987). Consumer socialization: A life-cycle perspective. Lexington, MA: Heath.

Moses, L. J., & Baldwin, D. A. (2005). What can the study of cognitive development reveal about children's ability to appreciate and cope with advertising? Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 24, 186–201.

Opree, S. J., Buijzen, M., Valkenburg, P. M., & Van Reijmersdal, E. A. (2011, May). The effects of advertising on children's materialistic orientations: A longitudinal study. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Boston, MA.

Owen, L. H., Lewis, C., Auty, S., & Buijzen, M. (2010, June). The role of personal salience in children's implicit processing of brand placements in movies. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, Singapore.

Pechmann, C., Levine, L., Loughlin, S., & Leslie, F. (2005). Impulsive and self-conscious: Adolescents' vulnerability to advertising and promotion. Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 24, 202–221.

Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1996). Attitudes and persuasion: Classic and contemporary approaches (new ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Petty, R. E., Cacioppo, J. T., Strathmann, A. J., & Priester, J. R. (2005). To think or not to think: Exploring two routes to persuasion. In T. C. Brock & M. C. Green (Eds.), Persuasion: Psychological insights and perspectives (pp. 81–116). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Petty, R. E., Fazio, R. H., & Briñol, P. (2009). Attitudes: Insights from the new implicit measures. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

Pine, K. J., & Nash, A. (2002). Dear Santa: The effects of television advertising on young children. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 26, 529–539.

Pollay, R. W. (1986). The distorted mirror: Reflections on the unintended consequences of advertising. Journal of Marketing, 50, 18–36.

Richins, M. L. (1991). Social comparison and the idealized images of advertising. Journal of Consumer Research, 18, 71–83.

Rideout, V., Foehr, U. G., & Roberts, D. F. (2010). Generation M²: Media in the lives of 8- to 18-year-olds. Menlo Park, CA: Kaiser Family Foundation.

Ritchie, L. D., & Fitzpatrick, M. A. (1990). Family communication patterns: Measuring intrapersonal perceptions of interpersonal relationships. Communication Research, 17, 523–544.

Robertson, T. S., Ward, S., Gatignon, H., & Klees, D. M. (1989). Advertising and children: A cross-cultural study. Communication Research, 16, 459–485.

Rozendaal, E., Buijzen, M., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2009). Do children's cognitive defenses reduce their desire for advertised products? Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 34, 287–303.

Rozendaal, E., Buijzen, M., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2010). Comparing children's and adults' cognitive advertising competences in the Netherlands. Journal of Children and Media, 4, 77–89.

Siegler, R. S. (1998). Children's thinking (3rd ed.). Englewood cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Shrum, L. J., Burroughs, J. E., & Rindfleisch, A. (2005). Television's cultivation of material values. Journal of Consumer Research, 32, 473–479.

Valkenburg, P. M. (2004). Children's responses to the screen: A media psychological approach. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Valkenburg, P. M., & Buijzen, M. (2005). Identifying determinants of young children's brand awareness: Television, parents, and peers. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 26, 456–468.

Valkenburg, P. M., & Cantor, J. (2001). The development of a child into a consumer. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 22, 61–72.

Ward, S., & Wackman, D. (1971). Family and media influences on adolescent consumer learning. American Behavioral Scientist, 14, 415–427.

Ward, S., Wackman, D. B., & Wartella, E. (1977). How children learn to buy: The development of consumer information-processing skills. Oxford, UK: Sage.

Wright, N. D., & Larsen, V. (1993). Materialism and life satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction, and Complaining Behavior, 6, 158–165.

Yang, M., & Roskos-Ewoldsen, D. R. (2007). The effectiveness of brand placements in the movies: Levels of placements, explicit and implicit memory, and brand choice behavior. Journal of Communication, 57, 469–489.

Zimmerman, F. J., & Bell, J. F. (2010). Associations of television content type and obesity in children. American Journal of Public Health, 100, 334–340.