Interesting Results

Children’s Responses to Advertisements on Television

Most children watch a lot of television and many people worry about how they are affected by exposure to so many advertisements. A 2001 study¹ examined what happens when six, eight, and ten year olds are shown ads one, two, or three times. This produced results that some may find surprising:

Unaided recall of brand names was relatively poor for children of all ages, even after repeated exposures. No child under ten was able to recall the name of any advertised brand after a single exposure, and after three exposures, only 6% of six year olds and 19% of eight year olds could correctly recall brand names. 11% of ten year olds correctly recalled brand names after a single exposure, and this increased to 28% following three exposures.
In contrast, when provided with visual cues (still photos), children of all ages had relatively high rates of recognition (they were able to correctly identify images that came from ads they had seen). The rates of recognition ranged from 72% for six year olds who had seen an ad only once to 94% for eight year olds who had seen an ad three times or ten year olds who had seen it twice.
Even though children could usually recognise ads they had seen before, they were often unable to correctly identify information contained in the ads. After a single exposure to an ad, children of all ages were no more likely to correctly identify information contained in the ad than would have been expected by chance. Repeated exposures only slightly improved understanding of advertising content.

¹ Oates, Caroline et al. (2001), “Children and Television Advertising: When do They Understand Persuasive Intent?”, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 1(3), 238-245.