Shopping Decisions among Young Children in the United States - Essay Example

Effect of advertisement images on shopping decisions among young children in United s Introduction. The advertisements are shown to have greater influence on the consumerist attitude in young children. One important source of such exposure is the children's magazines, which are found to very widely used in most of the homes in United States. The studies undertaken earlier also have shown that the magazines are among the three major products selected by the young children in the upper primary elementary and early high school students. Thus under most of the situations the books are purchased with an interest to create better reading habit among the children the experiences of children being attracted to the advertisements displayed in these items is said to be a matter of concern. The different age groups of children have different tastes and interests, who also shows have different pattern of affinity to the products. The adolescent group is the most vulnerable to such type of advertisements as they are seeking a string association to gain a sense of security. Thus advertisers have clearly created a separate domain for segmenting the boys and girls as separate target groups. The girls are made to feel or establish a feeling of anxiety about their health and body by displaying models that symbolizes their product range. The consumer societies have strongly intervened in this issue and have initiated awareness for both the parents and the youth on the health impacts the advertisements could cause on long-term basis. The gender being utilized in the generating higher consumption of goods is a conventional strategy in business. Though the intervention by consumer societies have helped to tone down the gravity of these advertisements the power of market is so enormous that the awareness programmes cannot be expected to gain a comprehensive success in their mission. Thus the case study is undertaken to evaluate the relative effect of the advertisements on the purchase decisions made by youth in United States. The specific objectives addressed in the study are (i) To understand the influence of consumer societies on the influencing the consumer attitude in young children in the United States. (ii) To assess the impact of the advertisements that portrays women differently in the magazines and further influences the shopping decisions of young children especially across young boys and girls. 2. Literature Children represents a very strong market segment and advertisers recognize these aspects and the extend of brand loyalty that could be carried into the adulthood. Though it is established knowledge that as children don't understand the impact of the strong intentions of marketing it is considered unethical to advertise or display any promotional campaign before they attain a age of eight or nine. The consumer unions have expressed the views that as the children have very low ability to understand the reality and advertising content the advertising matter could in most of the situations distort the view about the world in children. Also, they have very low ability to assess the claims being made in the advertising matter. Also, expert academicians in the consumer behavior too have reinforced this claim that by saying the during the young ages the cognitive structures are in the formative stages and hence the children would be highly sensitive to the external influences (Mizerski, 1995). This especially true when such matter appears on the walls of the schools or on the book covers or on the anything related to their domains of closer interaction. These situations makes the children to believe that the contents are legitimate and start developing a positive inclination to the advertisement matter without analyzing the matter. The tender age fails to differentiate the commercial component in such displays and fails to understand the manipulative actions hidden in it. Often the advertisements create a sense of reality in the mind of children and they try to relate them with the regular news features in the television or any other media type (Fox, 1995). Advertising is a way of conveying a message to the mind of the customer. The children are the easiest targets to achieve this objective. The colorful advertisements that appear in media and billboards may be catchy to the child 's eye. They are in demand for the various products that constantly appearing in a very attractive way. Normally, today, children are aware of their needs and uses without regarding how much money they are spending. They are demanding and parents have to satisfy their demands regardless of the money. The children's programs are heavily packed with their food products and other articles (cloths, toy items) that are very much needed. Also they come in attractive colors that create interest. The child under the spell of the advertisements, regardless they are worthy or not, regularly demand for it. In the case of branded cloths, they are demanding only branded items, the children under the advertising spell, demands for those products. Thus every day as the no of products that are entering the market are increasing, the advertisements are also increasing. In course the parents have no other way to agree to their demands. Had advertisements have targeted at a broader set of group they would have created a collective decision making situation rather than being inclined towards the decisions made by children. The personalities who appears in the advertisements, who is well known from media or a sports person, or cartoon characters, will be a role model for the children who are attracted by the ads. The children also fascinate their actions and propaganda during that young age. Thus their minds can be captured by the actions of the person who are appearing in these advertisements being shown by a variety of consumer products. The older children though are not so inclined to the television programs but could be easily attracted by advertisements. Children in their adolescent age are in a hurry to create an identity for themselves and hence could fall prey to the group peer pressure activities. The feeling of insecurity makes them fall according to the peer pressure. Advertisers tries to use this insecurity feeling of the youth by presenting their products as those that could ensure an ideal companion as well as a strong companion. The fundamental objective in the advertisement programmes is to increase the consumption and in turn obtain tremendous happiness. This is the age that could also be easily to tune by gender-stereotyped advertisements in the magazines. Here also the youth are the prime targets. Projecting women as the symbol of beauty, the youth who are more conscious of their own appearance could be attracted than any other age group. They also project women as the symbol of healthy body and mind, like the food items that ensures a body weight control, perfumes that could cause a strong appeal. Thus using women as the agents for the sales increase is the common strategy adopted by the cosmetic and diet product industries. Thus portraying women also varies across the gender targeted in the magazines. The female oriented magazines are more aimed in creating confidence in the women, as they are more insecure about their bodies. Hence, the advertisements in these segments try to portray women who can present them as very confident individuals by choosing the appropriate product range to address these issues. On the other hand, the advertisements in the male magazines tries to create a strong appeal among the reading population by presenting the women as the point of attraction. Thus most of the male products from the men's wear, body deodorants or any male dominated segments are mostly presented through women who is portrayed as being fascinated by the male achievements or holdings. This is said to cause serious impact on the health of young women and men. Studies have shown that atleast one out of four college girls in America used unhealthy means to control their weight. Thus advertisements portraying very slim or thin females as the ideal model, the tendency for the young women to keep up to the exhibited type of body mass leads to control of body weigh using unhealthy means like fasting, skipping of the meals, under going excessive exercises and self - induced vomiting (Media Wireless network, n.d.). It is also surprising to know that these weight control measures are being practiced by girls who are as young as 5 or 6. Thus the female magazines and television shows tries to create a sense of anxiousness in them and hence make their business from it The consumer societies have been strongly trying to communicate the impact of such eating habits across the young population. Even studies have shown that more than half million women in canada suffered from eating disorders. Thus the efforts and energy spent to create the awareness and positive action against the growing illusion among the youth is often defeated by the crafty advertisements and promotional programmes. Thus, though the earlier studies have clearly established a gender stereotype in the advertisement sector, the influence of such attitudes among the shopping behavior of young children is not clearly addressed. And a detailed case analysis with this issue in focus would certainly give more insight into the shopping styles of the children. 3. Methodology The method of data collection is selected based on the requirement to gather the true relation on the consumer behavior with the advertisement influence. Thus the details about the data types and techniques adopted to collect them along with their characteristics are described here. The most important objective of the data collection exercise was to arrive at the large volume of information based on the consumer trends and the influence of consumer societies. Together with this the effect of advertisement in creating gender specificity in the advertising space. The data collected in this exercise broadly falls into two types of two classes - primary and secondary information. The primary information refers to the direct information collected from the samples selected or chosen for the data collection process. This is mostly undertaken using either structured or unstructured interviews, focus group discussions and very close observations on the samples to understand their attitudes towards consumerism. The samples for this exercise are chosen randomly from the shop by observing and understanding their purchase patterns very closely. The expected research outcome is significant amount of information that would help to significantly comment on the effect on consumer societies and advertisement effects on the deciding the consumer choice. The focus group discussions too planned in this activity could help the customers to assess their comments on the others opinions and help to give most appropriate reason for the problems proposed (Remenyi et al, 2005 ; Creswell, 2003). The important aspects that were aimed in the discussion / interview process is to unravel their opinion or their acceptance towards consumerist society. The sample population selected is requested to give detailed information on their reason for the shopping activity and the influence they have had on the activities by consumer societies. This would also include the strategies that usually force them to visit the shops and also lead to large scale buying session in these centres. The effect on the consumer societies on the different age groups are also a key factor in this research initiative. Also, the advertisement influence particularly the impact that women advertisement in a women magazines could cause than a male magazine could have in the sales generation potential is also a task in hand. And, the degree of variability across different age groups in the purchase pattern as well as the culture prevailing among them is also assessed in this exercise. The secondary information, which is available from the published literature, is collected based on the specific need of the study. All the methods and the techniques used here is expected to deliver the desired level of consistency in the information collected (Saunders et al, 2000). . 4. Findings and Discussion The case study was undertaken by choosing the parents whose children are in the early high schools and who are in the threshold of adolescent age. The information collected was primarily to understand what influenced the most in the purchase decision of their children. Their role in deciding the shopping choice of their children is also explored in detail. Other set of information collected during the discussions with the parents is the type of media to which the children are exposed at home and also at school. This included the type of magazines to which the children would usually associate, the television programmes that would attract them most etc. Also, the gender aspect in the study is also considered high as the effect of images that is carried in the magazines read by both girls and boys could have strong influence on the buying pattern. The information collection shall also be focussed on the type of images like those of females in the magazines or print media that are read more frequent by males and females are considered separately. This could help to understand the change in the style and content of the images displayed could also influence their buying styles significantly. The results obtained showed that the images in the magazines have strong influence on the consumer behavior of the children. The most of the children with whom the discussion was held showed that they carry strong images of self in line with those portrayed by the advertisers. They were also of the opinion that the consumer societies or their parents too are too narrow to see their personal concerns. Many of them feel that positioning them in their peer group is very vital for them being acceptable in future. The consumer societies and parents alike have tried hard to convince them on the hollowness in the advertisements and need for each one to develop their own uniqueness rather than a pattern dictated by the advertisements. It is also surprising that they seriously try to be ignorant on the health problems that would be subjected when they try to follow the advertisement messages blindly. Their levels of fascinations are so high with the images created on televisions and other media forms. Also, the gender stereotypes in the advertisements have led to the illusionary benchmarks about the expectations carried by the opposite gender Thus the advertisers are found to be highly successful in identifying the lacuna prevailing among the youth population and have cleverly capitalized the opportunity for the potential market gains. 5. Conclusion The case studies undertaken have helped to understand the effect of advertisement on the youth decision on the purchase patterns. The case study have revealed that the advertisement in the magazine have caused a strong impact on the consumption pattern in children especially the youth. Though the parents along with the support of consumer societies have helped to intervene in the consumption patterns in their children, the success rate have not been very encouraging. Thus the vulnerability prevailing in the society has been exposed and a comprehensive intervention is necessary to expect any obvious results. 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