The Influence of Cartoon Endorsement on Children’s Food Choice
Abstract
Introduction
At the present time, children have a greater influence and effect on purchase decision in a family. With pester power, which is defined as “the nagging ability of children to purchase the product they desire due to some reason” (Seth et al, 2008), parents purchase product for their kids. Nadeau (2011) mentioned that children impact 43% of family purchases today and a large amount of money is spent on food products. Concerning about children spending power, food and beverage marketers have stimulated to find the way to satisfy children need and want as well as develop product and brand loyalty. They use various techniques to communicate with children as a main
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It can be classified into two types. First is “branded spokes-characters” that is created by the product company to use as a specific brand spokesperson (Calvert, 2008). The example of famous branded characters are Tony the Tiger that is a spokesperson for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes and Ronald Mcdonald that created to promote Happy Meals and McDonald’s brand. Another type of cartoon endorsement is “licensed characters” which are taken from many media sources such as movie and television cartoons, comic and fiction books, videogames, and dolls and toys (McGinnis, Gootman, & Kraak, 2006). The famous licensed characters that are used to endorse products such as Garfied for Embassy Suites and Alpo (Kyung, Kwon, & Sung, 2010), SpongeBob SquarePants and Hello Kitty for a various …show more content…
Source credibility refers to “a communicator’s expertise, objectivity, or trustworthiness” (Solomon, 2013, p.344). Source credibility contains the two dimensions that are expertise and trustworthiness. Expertise is defined as ability of sender to show the professional knowledge of product. Trustworthiness is the believability of the messages from communicator to receivers (Ohanian, 1990, cited in Huang et al., 2011)
Source attractiveness is ability of communicator to take an interest of audience. Solomon (2013) explained that this value relates to outward appearance, personality, and social status. There are two central attributes, which are likeability and similarity. Likeability is defined as the affection for the appearance and behavior of source. Similarity refers to a similar feature or aspect that an audience feels that she shares with
of Philip Morris, said “People could point to these things and say, ‘They’ve got too much sugar, they’ve got too much salt […] well, that’s what the consumer wants, and we’re not putting a gun to their head to eat it. That’s what they want.” (Moss 267) However, consumers are being unconsciously forced to fund food industries that produce junk food. Companies devote much of their time and effort into manipulating us to purchase their products. For instance, Kraft’s first Lunchables campaign aimed for an audience of mothers who had far too much to do to make time to put together their own lunch for their kids. Then, they steered their advertisements to target an even more vulnerable pool of people; kids. This reeled in even more consumers because it allowed kids to be in control of what they wanted to eat, as Bob Eckert, the C.E.O. of Kraft in 1999, said, “Lunchables aren’t about lunch. It’s about kids being able to put together what they want to eat, anytime, anywhere” (Moss 268). While parents are innocently purchasing Lunchables to save time or to satisfy the wishes of their children, companies are formulating more deceiving marketing plans, further studying the psychology of customers, and conducting an excessive quantity of charts and graphs to produce a new and addictive
Eric schlosser, a writer for Atlantic Monthly, addresses in his article, “Kid Kustomer”, the various marketing strategies used on children to American parents after the success of ads for the young. Schlosser exemplifies how companies market their products to children in order to convince parents to recognize the fact that the advertisements produced by companies turn children into customers. He employs parallel syntax, figurative language, and a objective tone to accomplish his goal.
Reflection: From this article I can understand how and why some people in today’s culture are deemed attractive. Some faces have average (universal) attractiveness and have similarities to many different types of people.
Any agency that uses children for marketing schemes spend hundreds of billions dollars each year world wide persuading and manipulating consumer’s lifestyles that lead to overindulgence and squandering. Three articles uncover a social problem that advertising companies need to report about. In his research piece “Kid Kustomers” Eric Schlosser considers the reasons for the number of parents that allow their children to consume such harmful foods such as ‘McDonalds’. McDonalds is food that is meant to be fast and not meant to be a regular diet. Advertising exploits children’s needs for the wealth of their enterprise, creating false solutions, covering facts about their food and deceiving children’s insecurities. It contains dissatisfaction that leads to over consumption. Children are particularly vulnerable to this sort of manipulation, American Psychological Association article, “Youth Oriented Advertising” reveals the facts upon the statics on consumers in the food industries. The relationship that encourages young children to adapt towards food marketing schemes, make them more vulnerable to other schemes, such as, advertising towards clothing, toys and cars. Article writer of “The relationship between cartoon trade character recognition and attitude toward product category in young children”, Richard Mizerski, discusses a sample that was given to children ages three to six years old, about how advertising incurs young children that are attracted too certain objects or products on the market.
The five factors associated with attraction are proximity, similarity, reciprocal liking, physical attractiveness, and evolution (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2013). With proximity, people are more likely to become attracted to those they see and interact with regularly. The second factor, similarity, is based upon two individuals having a general match in interests, attitudes, values, etc. In reciprocal liking, an interested in someone is often sparked when they know the other is interested, despite being dissimilar in other aspects. Physical attraction plays a role in that it is the factor that has the greatest impact on sexual desire. With physical attraction, there is also the assumption that what is beautiful is good, and therefore possessing all other positive qualities, as well. Lastly, evolution is believed to play a role in attraction because men and women seek certain characteristics in order to maximize their reproductive success (Aronson et al., 2013). Each of these factors plays a role in determining attraction but...
The land of the free, brave and consumerism is what the United States has become today. The marketing industry is exploiting children through advertisement, which is ridiculously unfair to children. We are around advertisement and marketing where ever we go; at times, we don't even notice that we are being targeted to spend our money. As a matter of fact, we live to buy; we need and want things constantly, and it will never stop. The film, Consuming Kids , written by Adriana Barbaro and directed by Jeremy Earp, highlights children as this powerful demographic, with billions of dollars in buying power, but the lack of understanding of marketers’ aggressive strategies. Children are easily influenced and taken advantage of, which is why commercialization of children needs to stop. Commercialization to children leads to problems that parents do not even know are happening such as social, future, and rewired childhood problems. Government regulations need to put a stop to corporations that live, breathe and sell the idea of consumerism to children and instead show that genuine relationships and values are what are important.
Commercials make the viewer think about the product being advertised. Because of the amount of television children watch throughout the week, it allows the children to be exposed to the information over and over again. Per year, children are known to view thousands of fast food commercials. On a daily basis, a teen will usually view five advertisements and a child aged six to eleven will see around four advertisements (Burger Battles 4). Businesses use this strategy to “speak directly to children” (Ruskin 3). Although the big businesses in the fast ...
Growing up children get drilled different moral sayings, one of which is “beauty comes from within” but does it really? The answer is no, we are drawn in by physical appearance then later personality comes into play. When intrigued by someone’s appearance so much that it draws one person to another this is attraction. There are certain aspects off a person appearance that make them attractive to multiple people, things like facial symmetry and body size ratios this is their attractiveness. Upon looking at someone we do not know we are analyzing their facial symmetry or the ratio of their head to shoulders because it’s instinct. It’s a variety of different factors that come together to produce what an individual recognize as attractiveness. This paper will include these factors of attractiveness from a psychological stance, three different articles will be examined and brought together to assist in understanding attractiveness.
Klohnen, E., & Luo, S. (2003). Interpersonal attraction and personality: What is attractive--self similarity, ideal similarity, complementarity or attachment
Today's young people are generally unresponsive to traditional brand marketing messages. Teens spent $12 billion dollars last year according to a recent study of Teen Marketing Trends. Teens not only use their money on small purchases such as music, clothes and food but also have the power to influence high-end purchases of their parents. Every year younger teens are being marketed because that they are the future teenagers and brand loyalty is an important thing to many companies. If you can get an older child hooked on a product, they’ll generally love it for life. These younger age demographics are being marketed to because more and more kids have increasing spending power and authority over what is purchased in their household.
“When children watch television, they cannot escape food advertising. “Sugared snacks and drinks, cereal, and fast food advertisements respectively comprise approximately thirty-two percent, thirty-one percent, and nine percent of all advertisements marketed specifically to children.” (Termini, Roberto, Hostetter) Due to limited cognitive abilities, children view many food advertisements, and don’t really have the knowledge or capability to comprehend that the food being advertised is not healthy. They don’t believe that anybody would want to sell them something that harms them, so they might plead to their parents to get them that cereal with the funny talking frog on the cover, not knowing how much sugar is in the cereal, and how harmful it is to their bodies.... ...
“There are twelve billion dollars spent annually on ads directed at children” (Dittmann, 2004). These advertisements target young, impressionable minds, capture the attention of the child and imprint an ideal or message. While watching advertisements, a child develops a like or dislike for an activity or product. The strength of the desire is proportional to exposure. Desire creates action and action creates sales. I observed this principle with a sibling, my younger brother Eron. When a General Electric commercial came on television he, would turn and be mystified by the music and dancing of the actors. Around the age of eight, he expressed a very strong opinion that General Electric products are superior to other products. At this stage in his development, he did not have the cognitive ability to think abstractly to weigh all of the aspects associated with what makes a product of quality.
McGinnis, J. Michael., Jennifer Appleton. Gootman, and Vivica I. Kraak. Food Marketing to Children and Youth: Threat or Opportunity? Washington, D.C.: National Academies, 2006. Print.
One of the most effective ways to promote a brand of a product or service is through endorsement. Marketers use endorsers to promote their brand as it is reachable to many and the level of influence of the people to be the brand’s customers is much likely to be high.
Advertising has had a powerful impact on today’s children. From songs, to logos. to characters, advertisers keep in mind their audiences. Competition is the force which causes advertisers to target children. Children are targeted through the catch phrases. animated characters, and toys in these competitive advertisements.