Transcript Chinese children’s understanding of television advertising

Chinese children’s
understanding of television
advertising
Kara Chan and James U. McNeal
Presented to AAA Denver
Conference, 27-30 March 2003
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Research objectives
To study Chinese children’s
understanding of television advertising
 To study how understanding of TVAs
relates with gender, age, extent of
television viewing, and level of
advertising
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Why study Chinese children?
290 million Chinese children under 14
 One child policy since 1979
 Children have great influence on family
purchase decisions
 Rapid economic growth and
commercialization of childhood
 Children consider TV a major source of
information about new products
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Advertising in China
Relatively new, since 1979
 Uneven in the nation: Beijing, Shanghai
and Guangdong account for 50% of total
ad expenditure
 A lot of adults’ commercials in children’s
TV programs, e.g. May 2002 afternoon
programming (70% adult commercials,
30% children commercials)
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Advertising in China
Much television program sponsorship
 Many illegal ads (e.g. 66824 in 2000,
among which 39% were illegal outdoor
ads and 30% were illegal print ads)
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Theoretical model
John’s (1999) model of consumer
socialization
 Increasing understanding of advertising
with age: perceptual (3-7), analytical
(8-11), reflective (12-15)
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Hypotheses
H1: understanding increases with age
 H2: when the age factor is controlled,
children who watch TV more often will
have a better understanding of TVA
 H3: when the age factor is controlled,
children living in a city with a high level
of advertising development will have a
better understanding of TVA
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Method
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Survey of 1,758 children in 3 urban cities
Beijing, Nanjing and Chengdu representing
high, medium and low levels of advertising
development, respectively
Two schools for each city, randomly select
one class in each grade (grade 1 to 6)
Close-ended questionnaire
Grade 1-3, read Q&A to them by researchers
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Procedure
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When we watch TV, some messages occur
before and after the television program that
are not related to the program. They are
called commercials
What are TV commercials?
What do TV commercials want you to do?
Why do TV stations broadcast commercials?
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What are TV commercials?
(%)
6-7
8-9 10-11 12-14
total
Funny messages
15
11
11
8
11
Take a break
37
31
26
20
28
Introduce
products
Promote
products*
Don’t know
29
25
21
28
25
16
29
41
43
34
2
4
1
2
2
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What do TVC want you to do? (%)
6-7
8-9 10-11 12-14 total
Evaluate them
8
9
9
9
9
Check products
20
25
18
19
21
Tell parents*
34
27
21
16
24
buy products*
33
33
49
53
42
6
5
3
3
4
Don’t know
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Why do stations broadcasts TVC?
(%)
6-7
8-9 10-11 12-14 total
Not to waste
time
Help audience
16
16
14
11
14
9
12
10
12
11
Care for public
18
16
17
16
17
Subsidize prog
13
16
17
22
17
Make money
40
35
39
35
37
Don’t know
3
5
4
4
4
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Understanding by age (%)
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
what are TVC
What TVC want you to
do
A6-7
A8-9
A10-11
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Why stations broadcast
TVC
A12-14
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Result of hypothesis testing,
H1: partially supported
Understanding of ‘what are TVC’
increased with age
 Understanding of ‘what do TVC want
you to do’ increased with age
 Understanding of ‘why do TV stations
broadcast commercials’ did not increase
with age (understanding was high
among very young children)
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Result of hypothesis testing,
H2: not supported
Using general linear model
 Test TV viewing as main effect or as an
interaction effect with age
 TV viewing had no main/interaction
effect
 When age was controlled, children who
watched more TV did not have a better
understanding of TVC
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Result of hypothesis testing,
H3: not supported
Using general linear model
 Test ad level as main effect or as an
interaction effect with age
 Ad level had significant main effect, but
no interaction effect
 When age was controlled, children
residing in high level of advertising did
not have a better understanding of TVC
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Result of hypothesis testing,
H3: not supported
Ad level had significant main effect, but
not in the predicted direction
 Children residing in Beijing (high ad
level) had lower understanding of TV
advertising
 They mistook TVA as messages to help
the audience/care the public
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Discussion and conclusion
Mainland Chinese children have a high
understanding of television advertising,
despite the lack of any media literacy
program
 High understanding of why TV stations
carry commercials for money
 General increase in understanding with
age
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Future studies
Extend to rural Chinese children
 Focus group interview about sources of
knowledge about TV commercials
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