The Persuasiveness of Child-Targeted Endorsement Strategies: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Several European and U.S. reviews have established the link between food marketing and childhood obesity (EU Pledge, 2012; FTC, 2006;Persson, Soroko, Musicus & Lobstein, 2012), which has stimulated researchers to investigate the effects of the most prevalent child-targeted marketing technique: the use of endorsing characters. This systematic review of these studies (15 identified; participants age 3-12 years) focuses on three important questions: (a) Does a basic endorser effect exist?, (b) Is the strength of the endorsement effect influenced by endorser type?, and (c) Does the endorsement strength differ according to the type of food being promoted?Keywords: food, children, marketing, endorsement, characters, persuasion SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF CHILD-TARGETED FOOD ENDORSEMENT 3The Persuasiveness of Child-Targeted Endorsement Strategies: A Systematic Review It has been argued that advertising aimed at children (up to age 12) is "fundamentally unfair", because children lack an adult-like understanding of an advertisement's selling intent (Rozendaal, Buijzen, and Valkenburg, 2010, p. 86).However, food marketers employ many techniques in their promotions in order to grab children's attention and persuade them. The use of an endorser to promote products is one of the techniques most often used in food marketing to children (Boyland, Harrold, Kirkham & Halford, 2012). Friedman and Friedman (1979) discerned three types of endorsers: the celebrity 1 , the expert, or the typical consumer.Although all three are used to target children, this chapter provides an up-to-date systematic review of available insights into celebrity endorsement effects only, as this technique is particularly widely used to promote mainly unhealthy foods to children via TV, packaging and the Internet (e.g., Elliott, 2008; Boyland et al., 2012;Alvy & Calvert, 2008; Hebden, King & Kelly, 2010).The current review focuses on research conducted with children between the ages of 3 and 12 years because within these age limits there are large differences in children's susceptibility to (endorsement) advertising. As proposed by Rozendaal, Lapierre, Van Reijmersdal and Buijzen (2011), resisting persuasion not only requires conceptual and attitudinal advertising literacy, but also the ability to apply the former during advertising exposure. For children under 7 years old, their conceptual advertising knowledge is not yet fully developed, which makes them particularly 1 As well as famous people (typically in the field of entertainment or sport), this definition can also include fictional characters. These can either be licensed characters, in which case they are known outside of the endorsed product (e.g., a cartoon character known from a movie or series) or branded characters, which are created specifically to promote the brand and/or product (e.g., Tony the Tiger for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes; or Captain Birdseye, also known as Captain Iglo, for Birds Eye or Iglo frozen seafood products). SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF CHILD-TARGETED FOOD ENDORSEMENT 4vulnerable....

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Can a Toy Encourage Lower Calorie Meal Bundle Selection in Children? A Field Experiment on the Reinforcing Effects of Toys on Food Choice

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