Indian J Pediatr

DOI 10.1007/s12098-014-1447-y

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Measuring Brand Awareness as a Component of Eating Habits

in Indian Children: The Development of the IBAI Questionnaire
Maria Gabriella Vecchio & Marco Ghidina & Achal Gulati &
Paola Berchialla & Elizabeth Cherian Paramesh & Dario Gregori

Received: 28 March 2014 / Accepted: 1 April 2014

# Dr. K C Chaudhuri Foundation 2014

Abstract
Objective To develop an instrument that allows one to estimate the Indian childrens brand awareness of alimentary
products.
Methods The IBAI (International Brand Awareness Instrument), an age specific tool composed of 12 sheets with images
reporting brand logos of alimentary products, has been adjusted for the Indian context in order to investigate on infants
cognitive skills of recalling and recognizing. The IBAI was
piloted in a sample of 100 children aged from 3 to 10 y and
enrolled in New Delhi schools.
Results Children aged 710 y showed an higher brand awareness as compared to those of 36 y.
Conclusions The IBAI instrument may be a component for
further analysis of the influence of food marketing on childs
diet, foods choices and preferences within the Indian social
and cultural macro-context. Findings suggest that children
over 6 y are particularly gullible by brands and TV promoted
advertising. Prevention through information should, therefore
M. G. Vecchio : M. Ghidina (*)
ZETA Research Ltd., Via Caccia, 8, 34129 Trieste, Italy
e-mail: marcoghidina@zetaresearch.com
A. Gulati
Department of Otorhinolaryngology (ENT), Maulana Azad Medical
College, New Delhi, India
P. Berchialla
Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences, University of
Torino, Torino, Italy
E. C. Paramesh
College of Nursing, Lakeside Institute of Child Health,
Lakeside Hospital, Bangalore, India
D. Gregori
Unit of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Public Health, Department
of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, University of Padova,
Padova, Italy

be offered to school aged children and their parents, involving

teachers, nutritionists and experts in developmental psychology also.
Keywords Awareness . Brand marks . Childhood . Food
logos . IBAI . Eating disorders . India

Introduction
The rate of obese and overweight people is ever-growing
worldwide, and childhood and adolescent obesity is now
considered one of the most important global plagues [1].
While up to some years ago it was especially an issue of
developed countries, now-a-days the problem of weight gain
in children is affecting also the developing ones.
India showed an increase of obesity from 4.9 to 6.6 %
between 200304 and 200506, and recently the prevalence
of childhood obesity is about 22 % [2]. Although genetic
specific predisposition represents a facilitating factor for the
development of obesity in India [3], several co-causing contextual factors have to be considered with regard to obesity
epidemic.
A switch in traditional diets, due to the popularity of fast
foods, soft drinks and high energy-dense foods, matched to
the rapid spread of sedentary lifestyle patterns, has resulted in
the loss of equilibrium between energy intake and expenditure
[4]. Moreover, important determinants of childhood obesity in
developing countries include high socioeconomic status, marketing by transnational food companies and residence in metropolitan cities [5]. The latter is a factor widely considered by
several researchers and specifically in India, it has been demonstrated that there is a substantial difference among the
prevalence of overweight and obese children in urban areas
(11.63 and 2.35 % respectively) compared to children from
the rural ones (4.7 and 3.63 %, respectively) [6].

Indian J Pediatr

The increase of obesity in children living in urban

areas is due to the prevalence of sedentary lifestyles
and to the low level of physical activity, compared to
their rural counterparts. Television has come under more
scrutiny as a potential cause, enhancing obesity in children and adolescents [4, 7]. Indeed it can be linked to
the lack of time, which could be used for physical
activity, promoting, instead, sedentary life attitudes [8,
9], often accompanied by consumption of particular energy dense snack foods [10, 11]. Furthermore television
as mass media, demonstrated a relevant influence on
peoples food choices, due to advertising and commercial
campaigns [12]. Several studies have been conducted to
evaluate the relation between TV food advertising and
unhealthy food consumption in children, both in short
[11, 1315] and in long-term [16]. Most often alimentary
products, promoted during childrens and family programs are cereals, snacks, and fast foods [17], many of
which are high in complex sugars, saturated fatty acids,
and therefore, highly caloric.
Borzekowski et al. [18], then confirmed by Lobstein et al.
[19] and recently also by Boyland et al. [20] claimed that food
advertisements might directly affect intake, by either stimulating hunger and/or encouraging children to consume the
specific foods that are promoted. Several other studies suggested that food marketing alters childrens preferences for
specific food brands [21, 22], and also the report of the
Institute of Medicine [23] highlighted that marketing campaigns, promoting food and beverage, influence the preferences and purchase requests of children. This inference enhances consumption, at least in the short term, contributing to
less healthful diets, as well as negative diet-related health
status. Marketing based on brand marks is considered a strategy of advertisement in order to enhance recognition of a
company or product, expecting that people, especially children will develop psychological and cognitive affiliation to
such aliments, remaining perhaps addicted for the whole span
of life [17]. Up today, throughout the few investigation
tools specifically developed in order to analyze elementary school childrens (611 y) attitudes and behavior
towards brand-based aliments, the research instrument
realized by Forman et al. [24] for US kids, allows to
access different degrees of brand mark affiliation. The
tool is composed of 30 images showing different logos
of food brands. Considering that very popular logos are
available worldwide, like McDonalds or Coca-Cola
but others are country-specific, the original investigation
tool had been appropriately developed for the United
States [24].
The main goal of this research was to propose the
IBAI as a cultural specific instrument in order to reveal
childrens abilities in recognizing and recalling brands
within the Indian society.

Material and Methods

Stimuli Selection
A selection of 12 representative items of brand logos was
performed in order to build up the Indian specific IBAI.
Consistent to the research realized by Forman et al. [24], the
IBAI was created with special attention to the way, the different brands have been retrieved.
Three clusters of aliments were individuated as dependent
variables: sweet and salted foods as well as carbonated beverage. Table 1 shows the whole list of the brand marks taken
into account. These products were chosen according to constant confrontations and attend evaluation amongst the researchers, working on this project (especially, between psychologists and pedagogues). Two criteria in selecting the
brands were used: The aliments had to be available in most
common Indian shops and supermarkets and, of course, being
at the same time suitable for kids.
Instrument Development
An age specific tool composed of images, showing different
food brands was realized in order to access childrens abilities
of recalling and recognizing specific alimentary products. The
dozen of selected logos were matched with four images, with
just one corresponding to the specific type of snack or beverage. Twelve sheets for the development of the Indian specific
IBAI, defined as so-called flash cards, showing one logo and
four different alternatives of food typeseach of them
matched to the logo and places on the top of the cardwere
realized (Table 1). Some examples of the cards are illustrated
in Fig. 1.
All images, showing overall 12 brand logos and 48 different alimentary products (four for each logo), were designed on
811.5 sheets and collocated within a binder for the experimental phases [24].
Study Sample
Overall 100 children, gender balanced and aged 3 to 10 y,
were gathered from school contexts in New Delhi. These kids
constituted the sample for the creation of the Indian specific
IBAI. With regard to ethical standards, it was ensured that
children do not present mental and cognitive diseases. Informed consent was administered to all parents of the infants
recruited for the study.
Study Conduction
The IBAI was administered to the 100 selected children for
analyzing their recognition and recall ability. Especially the
recalling task regards the naming of the brand, as indicated by

Indian J Pediatr
Table 1 International Brand Awareness Instrument (IBAI) - India
Flash carda

Brand

Solution

Product A

Product B

Product C

Product D

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

Coca Cola
Mc Donald
Mother Dairy
Hippo
Britannia
Kinder
Kellogs
Maggi
Cadbury
Lays
Amul Butter
Thums Up

A
C
A
A
B
A
C
B
D
C
A
C

Coca Cola
Pasta
Milk
Munchies
Chocolate
Egg shape chocolate
Peanuts
Fish
Lollipop
Ice Cream
Butter
Lemonade

Milk
Toast
Orange juice
Normal potatoes
Plum cake
Chocolate bar
Cornflakes
Nuddles
Chips
Wafer
Donut
Orange juice

Orange
Hamburger
Tea
Chips
Croissant
Caramel chocolate
Chocolate cereals
Roast beef
Wafer
Potato chips
Candies banana
Cola

Chocolate
Fish
Strawberry syrup
Stick chips
Gummy candies
Tablet chocolate
Potatoes
Sandwich
Chocolate
Chocolate
Soup
Milk

List of brands and products presented in the flash cards of the IBAI with the solutions of the correct brand and the product associations

Forman et al. [24]. Also food items were included, whose

brand etiquettes are different from some of the promoted
products names (i.e., brand: McDonalds; product: Big

Mac; food: hamburger). Through accessing the product naming task, it was assumed, that this tool might promote a
reliable parameter in order to understand how children become aware to specific brands and aliments.
Children were exposed to each flash card of the IBAI
separately. For every single sheet infants were invited to
answer to three questions, in order to verify her/his knowledge
about the brands and about the products associated with the
selected items. Pointing at the image of the logo, the experimenter asked Do you know the name of this logo? Once
children answered, tracing a circle with the forefinger over the
four illustrated products, the experimenter said choose the
food that matches with the logo. Finally, when the child
selected a food picture, the experimenter asked Which is
the name of this product? The experimenter did not inform
the children if the responses were right or not.
For all cards the researcher assigned 1 point to the correct
naming of the logo, 1 point if the kid correctly matched the
name to the logo and finally 1 point if the kid remembered the
name product. Scores of the brand awareness, according to the
administered cards, shift from 0 to 36 point (3 points for the 12
sheets). Throughout this range, it was possible to distinguish
four separated clusters with regard to different degrees of
brand awareness: 012 very low brand awareness; 1318
medium-low brand awareness; 1924 medium-high brand
awareness; 2536 very high brand awareness.

Statistical Analysis

Fig. 1 An example of flash card used in the IBAI. The logo of Coca-Cola
was associated with milk, orange-juice and chocolate, producing a single
card with five images (correct match = image a)

A linear regression model was fitted to estimate the effect of

age and gender on total IBAI score. In order to analyze the
differences according to the three tasks of the IBAI (the brand
naming, the brandproduct association, and the product
naming), ANOVA for repeated measures was applied.

Indian J Pediatr

Distributions of correct match within each IBAI task are

shown through boxplots.

Results
The distribution of childrens answers according the correct
recognition of the brands name, the correct association between the logo and respective product, as well as the correct
naming of the food type, that emerged from the IBAI are
shown in Table 2. With regard to the overall performance of
every single kid, the major part (70 %) claimed a very low
brand awareness, 20 % of them a low one, 9 % a medium
level, while just 1 % exhibited a high awareness (Table 3).
According to age, results demonstrated that the group of
children aged 36 presented a significantly lower brand
awareness (about seven points lower, p<0.001) compared to
the group of 710 y olds. No significant gender related differences emerged.
Comparison of correct responds scores between the twelve
items revealed, that the brand product association task, the
brand naming task and the product naming task, resulted being
significantly different from each other (p value <0.001), as
depicted in Fig. 2.

Discussion
Weight-related diseases in India became a relevant health
issue only recently [25], considering obesity and overweight
as low profile problems until a decade ago. Since then a rapid
spread of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), like diabetes
[2], coronary diseases [26] and eating disorders [27], emerged
Table 2 Item response distribution for the IBAI
Flash card Brand name

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

Brand-product association

Product name

11
56
31
35
7
4
20
12
0
23
0
9

11
56
31
35
7
4
20
12
0
23
0
9

7
69
52
42
9
6
40
32
6
35
8
22

7
69
52
42
9
6
40
32
6
35
8
22

8
78
70
32
10
16
60
53
9
50
16
38

8
78
70
32
10
16
60
53
9
50
16
38

above all in urban contexts. Such a demographic modification

is due to intra-national migration processes from rural to urban
areas [2830], causing a general transformation of Indias
traditional social structure, through contaminations with typical western-driven habits. Several researches have been focused, therefore, on the decrease of vegetable and fruit consumption, favoring westernized diets, such as pre-packed food
and carbonated beverages [31].
Advancement of technological mediated infrastructures,
furthermore, represent urbanization- and globalization related
factors responsible for a decrease of overall physical activity,
often accompanied by rise of excessive energy intake [32].
Among these technological artifacts, TV and food advertising
were identified as possible co-causing obesogenic factors [14,
20]. Television promoted advertising represents, indeed, a
source of food-related information for children [33], constantly exposed to poor nutritional messages [34].
Within this study the impact of food advertising on childrens choices and preferences, as well as their knowledge and
awareness related to particular food-products, especially
snacks and soft drinks, was evaluated. To achieve the target
according to the research protocol adopted by Forman et al.
[24], the IBAI was specifically adjusted for Indian culture, in
order to individuate infants skills in recognizing brands and
food logos.
What principally emerged out of this study was that children aged 710 demonstrated higher brand awareness levels
as compared to the younger groups, resulting therefore more
sensitive to commercials. This outcome is in line with findings
revealed by Forman et al. [24] evidencing that the recall
exercise was too difficult for children aged 46 y. Such a
result suggests that childrens age is an important factor in
determining their ability to perform recall and recognition
tasks.
Consistently to researches focused on childrens cognitive
development, recognition of complex items are due to association processes and selective attention [35]. Children normally
consolidate such higher intellectual functions by developing
linguistic skills [36]. Experimental studies in Neurosciences
demonstrated, indeed, that humans ability in producing articulated thoughts and critical reasoning, as basic functions in
recalling memory traces while encoding perceptive stimuli, is
due to growth in linguistic strength [37]. Children learn with
age to transform lexical, mainly quantitative meanings, in
complex semantic signifiers, creating qualitative systems of
knowledge [37].
These processes allow a child to build up associations
among long term memory, perceived reality and its symbolical
related meanings, shifting attention to category-relevant features [35]. As pointed out by Sloutsky et al. [38] selective
attention is strictly associated to late maturing brain structures,
such as the prefrontal cortex, and children normally reach this
developmental step later than other mental abilities. While

Indian J Pediatr
Table 3 Childrens total IBAI
score

Females

Males

36 y

012
1318
1924
2536
Total

710 y

Total

36 y

710 y

24
1
0
0
25

96
4
0
0
100

8
11
5
1
25

32
44
20
4
100

27
2
0
0
29

93
7
0
0
100

11
6
4
0
21

52
29
19
0
100

children learn perceptual categories just during the first moments after birth [39], associative recognition abilities, produced through sub-serving selective attention circuits, come
online substantially later [38].
Findings of neuro-scientific and psycho-cognitive researches contribute in understanding how humans and especially children learn to associate perceived reality to symbolic
meanings of social relevance. Skills in recognizing and
recalling products names, then associated to specific brand
logos, exposed to children during the experimental setting of
the present study, revealed higher levels in the older age
group, confirming that such abilities are due to advancement
of linguistic and cognitive development.
Attention should therefore be paid by professionals in the
health sector, parents and teachers, in order to prevent children

70
20
9
1
100

70
20
9
1
100

against manipulator food-linked advertising. Critical abilities

in assisting commercial campaigns, especially promoted by
television broadcasts, should therefore be empowered just in
early age. Also the choice of available channels must be
monitored by childrens caregivers for granting infants suitability to age appropriate broadcasting.
Though the experimental setting revealed interesting findings about infants associative skills in recognizing and
recalling advertise-promoted food brands, above all in relation
with cognitive and intellectual development, the sample, constituting this pilot project, involved just 100 children. Despite
the limited size of researchs population, socio-demographic
variables were quite homogeneous, considering only children
belonging to alphabetized backgrounds in New Delhi. Given
the poli-geographical and pluri-cultural structure of worlds

20

40

60

80

Fig. 2 Percentage of correct

responses for the three tasks of
IBAI

% Correct brand name % Correct brand & product name % Correct product name

Indian J Pediatr

seventh largest nation, forthcoming studies should be extended to other Indian regions, allowing comparison amongst
various contextual and socially diversified samples.

Conclusions
This study contributes to existing knowledge in measuring
how Indian children are aware of specific food-related brand
marks, commonly promoted by television advertising. The
experimental setting designed for the research allowed to
access childrens skills in associating alimentary products,
usually available in local supermarkets, to the respective brand
logo. Findings showed that age resulted to be the primary
factor in performing cognitive exercises, due to attention
related abilities in selecting specific patterns from perceived
reality. Such mental functions are involved in developing
psychological and emotional affiliation to eating habits, promoted by visual marketing strategies.
Contributions MGV, AG and DG: Designed the study; MGV, PB and
ECP: Wrote the manuscript; MG and PB: Performed the statistical analysis. All authors contributed to results interpretation, read and approved the
final manuscript. DG will act as guarantor for this paper.
Conflict of Interest None.
Source of Funding This work is partially supported by an unrestricted
grant from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Directorate General for
Country Promotion, and from Prochild ONLUS (Italy).

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