European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 12, Number 4 (2010)

Impact of Advertisement on Children

Behavior: Evidence from Pakistan

Farooq Ahmed Jam

Principal Author, PhD Scholar, Faculty of Management Sciences
International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan
E-mail: jam_farooq@yahoo.co.uk
Tel: +92 333 2213269

Shakeel Akhtar
PhD Scholar, Faculty of Management Sciences
International Islamic University, Islamabad Pakistan
E-mail: sakhtar1980@yahoo.com

Syed Tahir Hijazi

Professor, Comsats Institute of Information Technology
Islamabad, Pakistan
E-mail: hijazisyd@yahoo.com

Muhammad Bashir Khan

Professor, Management Sciences Department, Iqra University
Islamabad, Pakistan
E-mail: drmohdbashir@hotmail.com

Abstract
Impact of marketing activities (specially adverting) on children is very important and
sensitive issue for the society and marketers. We explored with sample from 07 different
schools 330 children and 107 parents to come up with practical insight of advertising
influence on children memory and behavior in Pakistani context. Our results showed
interesting findings that ads do not impact negatively to children memory and behavior. It
enhances the knowledge of children and the ads targeted to children are not effective, for
effective positioning of children related products marketers should target the parents and
include ethical orientation along with environmental knowledge to influence the buying
behavior of parents. Our study provided several key market insights and suggestions for
practitioners and future researchers of marketing field.

Introduction
The consumer in this era is in target of massive media attacks effectively planned, and enlighten with
glamour as per the emotions, needs, wants and demands of the consumers. Marketers and companies
are spending billions of dollars on consumer research and to know the important factors involved in
consumer decision making. While talking about the marketing mix now a days marketers main focus is
on designing persuasive messages/commercials to attract the target customers. Because the major
chunk of the population and among all consumption of household a considerable portion is of children
products. So marketers are focusing and trying to attract and influence the children by designing ads
that are considerably attractive for children and persuasive enough for their emotional attachment with
the product. While common notion is that the mother is the targeted customer for marketers of baby
663
 European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 12, Number 4 (2010)

care industry. This notion is quit logical but now media and marketers are succeeded enough to
generate emotional attachment of children with the products so that they can insist on purchasing the
specific product for their use.
This concept has created a war of massive attacks on children of this age and forced to conscious
people of society about the negative impacts of these massive advertising attacks on children memory
and behavior.
Especially, the media, advertising and entertainment industries, collectively known as mass
media, are powerful because they penetrate every segment of modern-day society and effectively
influence how consumers view themselves, their neighbors, communities and the world. Although the
mass media denotes outlets beyond newspapers, radio and television, and the scope of media influence
now extends to digital spectrum, cable and satellite technology and the internet, it remains a fact that
the TV is the single major and foremost communicator of our times. As the world has global village so
now through our electronic media, access to all international channels is also easy. All these factors
have contributed in the increasing aggressive attitude in youth as they see violence on electronic media
in one form or another. The media, now a day, is promoting violent culture, which leave a deep impact
on youth. It has caused the aggression and violence of youth instead of promotion of peace and
harmony. According to, American Academy for Pediatrics Committee on Communications (AAPCC,
1995). Media violence can lead to aggressive behavior in youth. Over 1,000 studies confirm this link. It
also says that Media violence is especially damaging to young children (under age 8) because they
cannot easily tell the difference between real life and fantasy. Violent images on television and in
movies may seem real to young children. Viewing these images can upset them. Media violence affects
children by increasing their fear of becoming victims. Making them less sensitive to violence and to
victims of violence. Increasing their appetite for more violence in entertainment and in real life. Media
violence often fails to show the consequences of violence. This is especially true of cartoons, toy
commercials and music videos. As a result, children learn that there is few if any repercussion for
committing violent acts.

Review of Literature
In last 20 years impact of TV advertisements on children memory and behavior is the major topic of
debates in countries open for market competition (Boddewyn, 1984).Till 1988 advertising expense of
TV program raised up to $500 million approximately (Leccese, 1989).While looking at the children
responses to TV advertisement a research experiment revealed that children’s food choices specially in
snacks are based on their exposure to TV commercials (Gorn and Goldberg, 1982).Atkin (1981) also
confirmed these findings in his experimental study and found that the children with heavy exposure to
TV advertisements are more likely to recall those brands while shopping in the market and with their
parents. Those children demand advertised food products and toys while moving in market with their
parents. Children ranging in between 6 to 11 years of age watch TV commercials 3 hours a day and it
is estimated that over the period of a year average child see about 20,000 advertisements (Adler et al,
1980). Most of the research in consumer behavior and specially on advertisement impact on children
has focused two major points :(1) impact of TV commercials in shaping behavior and its positive or
negative influence on children life and habits.(2) Role of TV commercials on the development and
growth mental as well as physical of the children’s(Donohue, Meyer and Henke,1978).
Ward et al (1972) found age as a main factor in perception and learning from the advertisement
and the behavioral change is more likely to occur in older children as compared to younger one.
While focusing on the TV commercials and responses from the consumer in almost 500
commercials responses were recorded by the Leo Burnett Advertising Agency and they found seven
different types of responses to TV advertisement. Those responses include entertainment, confusion,
relevant news, brand reinforcement, empathy, familiarity, and alienation (Schlinger 1979).

664
European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 12, Number 4 (2010)

A sad or happy program or commercial can affect the mood, and cognition of the viewer. A
happy program can produce effectiveness and positive cognitive response to commercial as well as
better and effective recall (Goldberg and Gorn, 1987). Galst and White (1976) proposed a cause and
effect relationship and found strong correlations between TV advertisement exposure of children and
their purchase preferences as well as amount of purchase while shopping with their parents.
Results of a two method study on snacks and sugar foods revealed that effectively designed
message in TV advertisements can generate action and effectively persuasion in children for purchase
of the product (Goldberg, Gorn and Gibson, 1978).
It was predicted that children’s age is the factor that determines the effectiveness and
persuasiveness of TV advertisement in children. Younger children are less likely to differentiate among
TV programs and commercials so they pay more attention to TV ads as compared to older ones (Blatt,
Spencer, and Ward 1972; Robertson and Rossiter 1974; Ward, Levinson, and Wackman 1972; Ward,
Reale, and Levinson 1972; Ward, Wackman, and Wartella 1977)
Voojis and van der Voort's (1993) stated that there is a marvelous body of literature
representing that watching aggressive television is linked with augmented hostile attitudes and
behaviors. This relationship is particularly distinct in childhood, whose comparatively restricted
knowledge and cognitive capital make them especially susceptible to television. The essential mania
comes out here that children try to copy the advertisement in which they get concerned and we have
been reading lot of occurrence in the media regarding copying issue. Those children tried to copy the
ads or film senses we will be going to test this in our hypothesis.
Television has the prospective to cause both positive and negative special effects, and
numerous studies have appeared at the bang of television on society, principally on children and
adolescents. An individual child’s developmental level is a significant factor in determining whether
the medium will have positive or negative effects. Not all television programs are bad, but data
showing the negative effects of contact to aggression, unsuitable sexuality and disgusting language are
convincing. We will be hypothesizing that ads impact negatively to the children’s memory as well as
their behavior ,and we will also be testing in another hypothesis that ads enhances the knowledge of
children about the environment.
The quantity of aggression on television is on the rise. The normal child see 12,000 aggressive
act on television annually, as well as numerous interpretation of assassination and rape. Further more
than 1000 studies authenticate that experience to serious doses of television violent behavior increases
violent behavior, for the most part in boys. Other studies link television or newspaper exposure of
suicides to an increased suicide threat. (Position Statement, Canadian Pediatric Society, 2003). A
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report discovered what many supposed: media corporations were
normally neglecting their own ranking limits and aggressively advertising cruel amusement to children
and teens (Media Awareness Network, 2005). Over the last 30 years there has been extensive research
on the relationship between televisions violence and violent behavior among youth. Longitudinal,
cross-sectional, and experimental studies have all confirmed this correlation (Beresin.V Eugene, 2005).
Prior to the birth of TV, this has discovered new entertainment opportunities for the families. People
were not much emotionally linked with the means of amusement they had like radio, live theater. By
submerging the people in too much entertainment, the media has created a new culture for the youth
that has kept them so immersed that many of them have become unusual.

Hypothesis
On the basis of above review we hypothesized following relationships among media (Advertisements)
and their impact on children memory as well as their behavior of buying. We additionally hypothesized
the relationship between children focused advertisements and their impact on product sales.
H1: Children try to copy and rehears the advertisement.
H2: Children insist on buying advertised products.

665
 European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 12, Number 4 (2010)

H3: Ads targeted to children are effective in selling children related products.
H4: Ads impact negatively on memory and behavior of children.
H5: Ads enhance the knowledge of children about the environment.

Methodology
We selected seven schools in Rawalpindi, Pakistan focusing on children’s below age 16 years. Two
questionnaire one 9 item for children and other of 10 items for the parents were administered to collect
the data from 500 students of seven schools and 200 of their parents. Among 500 distributed
questionnaires to children 360 returned back and among 200 of parents questionnaires only 110 were
back filled with response rate of 72% for children and 55% for parents. Further analysis excluded 30
responses from children’s and 7 responses from parents due to improper filling and bad handwriting.
So actual sample comprises of 330 for children and 107 for parents.

Measures
Questionnaires were prepared in Urdu for the full understanding of respondents and special attention
was paid on language to make it as easier as possible to understand. Data were inferred and tabulated
using simple excel program and percentages are given for clarity of results. We used double response
from parents and children’s to minimize the single response bias and to see weather parents confirm
the responses of children or not. To check the understanding of questionnaire a pilot testing was done
in first school and results were 100% satisfactory that children easily read and understand the concepts
asked in questionnaire. Due to unavailability of any standard questionnaire we used our own
questionnaire as per Pakistani context to tap the real impact of media and advertisement on children.
We presented the findings separately as taping per item in questionnaire. We used simple excel
program for calculating percentages, we used percentage method intentionally to make our findings
more simple and understandable.
Following questions were asked in the questionnaire:
1. “You have separate room for TV in your home”.
2. “Cable is available at your home”.
3. “You watch TV with your parents”.
4. “You like TV advertisement”.
5. “You shop things of your choice or your parents shop things for their own choice”.
6. “You go for shopping with your parents”.
7. “Ads help you in making decision for purchase”.
8. “You try to copy the ads”.
Children Responded at these questions with “YES” or “NO”. Because of children sample and
significant portion of sample was below 12 years of age we just provided them option of “YES” or
“NO” to avoid from any confusion. Although school in sample were English medium but for more
reliability and understanding we converted our questionnaires in URDU.
Same questions were asked from parents with little changes in questionnaire to encounter single
source bias problem. Additional questions asked to parents are:
1. “You care for your children choice while making a purchase decision”?
2. “Does Ads influence children’s buying choices”?
3. “Ads impact negatively to behavior of your children”?
4. “Ads enhance the knowledge of children regarding environment”?

666
European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 12, Number 4 (2010)

Results
All results obtained against each item are given in numbers and with percentages to elaborate the
findings of study. We divided these into two tables. Table 1 explains the responses of children against
9 item questionnaire. Table two explains the findings from parent’s responses with 10 item
questionnaire.

Table 1: Children Responses

Questions Yes No Some times

Separate rooms 61 (18%) 262 (82%) ---
Cable Availability 256 (78%) 74 (22%) ---
Watch TV with parents 166 (50%) 49 (15%) 115 (35%)
Likeness of Ad 152 (46%) 108 (33%) 70 (21%)
Parents shop for children 277 (84%) 9 (3%) 44 (13%)
Children go for shopping with parents 174 (53%) 23 (7%) 133 (40%)
Ads influence on buying 83 (25%) 178 (54%) 69 (21%)
Ads help on buying 153 (43%) 102 (31%) 75 (23%)
Children try to copy 122 (37%) 156 (47%) 52 (16%)

Table 2: Parents responses

Questions Yes No Some times

Separate rooms 11 (10%) 96 (89%) ---
Cable Availability 86 (80%) 21 (20%) ---
Watch TV with Children 166 (50%) 49 (15%) 115 (35%)
Impact of Ad on buying 22 (26%) 40 (38%) 45 (42%)
Ads help on buying 43 (40%) 39 (36%) 25 (24%)
Care for children choice while shopping 70 (65%) 15 (14%) 12 (11%)
Ads influence children on buying 25 (23%) 54 (51%) 28 (26%)
Bad impact on children 40 (38%) 56 (52%) 11 (10%)
Children try to copy 46 (43%) 36 (24%) 25 (23%)
Knowledge Enhancement 78 (73%) 15 (14%) 14 (13%)

Discussion
When we asked for separate TV rooms 18% children replied of course while 82% have common room
in their homes. While parents confirmed these findings with 11% responses in yes and 89% confirmed
that they have common rooms for tv and they watch TV along with their children. So this finding has
insight for advertisers and marketers to mould their messages as per family influencing rather than
focusing on children only. Even they are targeting for child related products.
Also the findings regarding cable availability were reported almost same by both respondent
groups.80% people have cable connections in their home while 20% of the sample not having this
facility. So this finding is of great importance for marketers who want to position their products among
the urban community. They can use local cable ads for that purpose instead of going on international
channels and wasting lot of money. Responses regarding watching tv with family were found exactly
same and both groups reported 50% in YES and 15 % in NO and 35% to some times.
Whether advertisements impacts on buying choices of children or not. Both groups have
consensus in this hypothesis and findings rejected the hypothesis 2 proposed by us.54% of children
reported no influence on buying choices while 51% parents confirmed their findings. Only 15%
children and 26% parents agree that ads impact on buying choices of children’s. Remaining 30 to 35 %
reported some time influence on buying choices. Among the sample 84% children responded that their
parents shop for them, only 3 % reported NO and 13% reported mix results. While parents responded
that 65% of them care for children choices while shopping for them, 14% take no care for children
choices and 11% gave mix results. So both answers are insight for marketers that they have to focus to
667
 European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 12, Number 4 (2010)

children or their parents. Because children can have a bad impact from advertisement and they have
very little purchasing power so marketer should focus on parents while advertising for child related
products because they are the actual decision makers in purchase for children. These findings disagree
with our Hypothesis 3 and suggest that marketer should focus on parents to influence them and sell
them child related products instead of focusing /targeting the children in tv ads. While results of
another question relevant to this gives controversial results regarding children insist on buying
advertised things while buying with their parents. Our findings show that 53% of the children’s go for
shopping with their parents but 65% parents care for children’s insist on buying. So from this finding it
looks positive to target the children but 26% children and parents are agree that ads can influence the
buying choices but 56% not agree with it. Children may insist on buying but not affected by the
advertisement. So wasting billions of dollars in advertisement to position the product in the mind of
children is useless, this strategy might be useful in products like confectionary items etc. These
findings rejected the H: 3 of our hypothesis that children targeted ads are not effective in generating
sale for child related products. Marketers should keep in mind while doing the job of media planning.
While our hypothesis regarding bad impact of ads on children memory and behavior was rejected
because only 38% parents agreed on it while 52% were not agreed and only 10% were in between. This
finding was quite surprising for us because in our review our main focus was on bad influence of
media and advertisement on children memory and behavior to make them assertive and violent. But
our sample rejected this H: 4 that ads do not impact negatively on behavior of children. While 43%
parents and 37% children found agreed on that children try to copy the ads while 47% children and
24% parents were not agree on copying the ads contents. H: 5 of our hypothesis was strongly supported
that 73% parents responded in favor that ads enhance the knowledge of children about the
environment. This again gives key insight to marketers that ads promoting ethical standards and good
knowledge are liked by the parents. As we proposed earlier that targeting children for child related
products is useless and marketer should focus on parents instead of children. This insight can help
marketers how to target the parents while positioning children related products. Ads with promotion of
ethical standards and widely accepted norms could get marvelous attention of parents and could be the
cause of ever high sales volumes.

Conclusion
We started with the aim to explore the role of advertisement in influencing the behavior of children and
our findings provided astonishing insights for future researchers and marketing managers. We ended
up with the findings that ads didn’t help buying behavior but children insist on buying things they like
while shopping with their parents. And the reason for this insistence was proved to be personal not the
impact of advertising. We find mix results that they try to copy the ads, and parents rejected the notion
that ads negatively impact the behavior of their children, while they were agree in majority that ads
enhance the knowledge of their children. We discussed several key insights for practitioners and future
researchers. What we believe this study has a great importance for marketers involved in positioning
and advertisement and will definitely add value in marketing literature regarding impact of marketing
practices on society especially on children.

Limitations and Futur Research Implications

Future researcher must test these findings in different cultural context to support our findings or if any
different results found. There are some limitations of study regarding sample selection because entire
sample is taken from only one city of Pakistan so it may not be the true representative of population.
Life style, economic condition and per capita income of that area might have some influence on the
community in sample. Another major limitation of our study is that lack of grounded theory for our
hypothesis support. We tried our best to find relevant literature in good generals but due to uniqueness
668
European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 12, Number 4 (2010)

of the concept we didn’t succeeded to add that in our study. Most of our references are from
newspapers, internet and media sites. Third major limitation of our study is regarding the validity and
reliability of our measuring instrument, we adopted the questionnaire from (North and Kotze, 2001)
and make required changes in their scale as per our sample, we translated it into Urdu for the need of
our sample population. Although we tried our best to make the process standardized but the sole
reliability and validity of our instrument is referred to them. Despite of all these constraints we tried
our best to follow the standard research procedures and styles for our study and hopeful that our
sincere attempt will add very little value in this stream of research.

References
[1] Adler, Richard P., Scott Ward, Gerald S. Lesser, Laurene K. Merringoff, Thomas S. Robertson,
and John R. Rossiter (1980), The Effects of Television Advertising on Children: Review and
Recommendations. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
[2] Atkin, Charles K. (1981), "Effects of Television Advertising on Children," in Children and the
Faces of Television: Teaching, Violence, Selling, Edward L. Palmer and Aimee Dorr, eds. New
York: Academic Press, Inc., 287-304. Anderson C.A and Bushman B.J (2002); the Effects of
Media Violence on Society, March, 2002.
[3] Beresin. V Eugene; The Impact of Media Violence on Children and Adolescents: Opportunities
for Clinical Interventions, Develop Mentor American Academy of Child & Adolescent
Psychiatry, 2004.
[4] Boddewyn, J. J. (1984), Advertising to Children: Regulation and Self-Regulation in 40
Countries. New York: International Advertising Association, Inc.
[5] Blatt, J., L. Spencer, and S. Ward (1972), "A Cognitive Development Study of Children's
Reactions to Television Advertising," in Television and Social Behavior (Vol. 4), Television in
Day-to-Day Life: Patterns of Use, E. Rubenstein, G. Comstock, and J. Murray, eds.
Washington, DC: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
[6] Galst, Joann and White, Mary (1976), "The Unhealthy Persuader: The Reinforcing Value of
Television and Children's Purchase-Influencing Attempts at the Super- market," Child
Development, 47.
[7] Gorn, Gerald J. and Marvin E. Goldberg (1982), "Behavioral Evidence of the Effects of
Televised Food Messages on Children," Journal of Consumer Research, 9 (2), 200-5.
[8] Leccese, Donna (1989), "Toy Advertising and TV: A Healthy Marriage," Playthings (July), 28-
55.
[9] Marvin E. Goldberg and Gerald J. Gorn (1987),Happy and Sad TV Programs: How They
Affect Reactions to Commercials: The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 14, No. 3 , pp. 387-
403
[10] Marvin E. Goldberg, Gerald J. Gorn, Wendy Gibson (1978), TV Messages for Snack and
Breakfast Foods: Do They Influence Children's Preferences? : The Journal of Consumer
Research, Vol. 5, No. 2 , pp. 73-81
[11] Robertson, T. and J. Rossiter (1974), "Children and Commercial Persuasion: An Attribution
Theory Analysis," Journal of Consumer Research, 1, 13-20.
[12] S. Ward, G. Reale, and Levinson, (1972). "Children's Perceptions, Explanations, and Judgments
of Television Advertising: A Further Explanation," in Television and Social Behavior, Vol. IV,
468-490.
[13] Schlinger, Mary Jane (1979), "A Profile of Responses to Commercials," Journal of Advertising
Research, 14 (2), 37-46.
[14] Thomas R. Donohue, Timothy P. Meyer, Lucy L.(1978), Henke Black and White Children:
Perceptions of TV Commercials: The Journal of Marketing, Vol. 42, No. 4, pp. 34-40Published
by: American Marketing Association.

669
 European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 12, Number 4 (2010)

[15] Voojis and van der Voort's; How Media Violence Affects Aggression, (1993). Thoman.
Elizabeth; Making Connections: Media's Role in our Culture of Violence, Center of Media
Literacy.
[16] Ward, S., D. Levinson, and D. Wackman (1972), "Children's Attention to Television
Advertising," in Television and Social Behavior (Vol. 4), Television in Day-to-Day Life: Pat-
terns of Use, E. Rubenstein, G. Comstock, and J. Murray, eds. Washington, DC: Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare.
[17] Ward, S., G. Reale, and D. Levinson (1972), "Children's Perceptions, Explanations, and
Judgments of Television Advertising: A Further Explanation," in Television and Social
Behavior (Vol. 4), Television in Day-to- Day Life: Patterns of Use, E. Rubenstein, G.
Comstock, and J. Murray, eds. Washington, DC: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
[18] Ward, S., D. Wackman, and E. Wartella (1977), How Children Learn to Buy: The Development
of Consumer Information Processing Skills. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
[19] Wartella, E., D. B. Wackman, S. Ward, J. Shamir, and A. Alexander (1979), "The Young Child
as Consumer," in Children Communicating: Media and Development of Thought, Speech, and
Understanding, E. Wartella, ed. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
[20] Wackman, Daniel B., Wartella, Ellen B., and Ward, Scott (1977), "Learning to Be Consumers:
The Role of the Family," Journal of Communication, 27 (Winter), 138-51.
[21] Position Statement, 2003; Impact of Media Use on Children and Youth, Canadian Pediatric
Society, May/June 2003, p.301. http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/index.cfm

670