Gráinne Murphy et al., “See, Like, Share, Remember: Adolescents’ Responses to
Unhealthy-, Healthy- and Non-Food Advertising in Social Media”. International Journal of Environmental
Research and Public Health, No. 17 (2020) doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072181 [available on the
Internet at <https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/7/2181> (last accessed
on 2 April 2020)].
Abstract
Media-saturated digital environments seek to influence
social media users’ behaviour, including through marketing. The World Health
Organization has identified food marketing, including advertising for unhealthy
items, as detrimental to health, and in many countries, regulation restricts
such marketing and advertising to younger children. Yet regulation rarely
addresses adolescents and few studies have examined their responses to social
media advertising. In two studies, we examined adolescents’ attention, memory
and social responses to advertising posts, including interactions between
product types and source of posts. We hypothesized adolescents would respond
more positively to unhealthy food advertising compared to healthy food or
non-food advertising, and more positively to ads shared by peers or celebrities
than to ads shared by a brand. Outcomes measured were (1a) social responses
(likelihood to ‘share’, attitude to peer); (1b) brand memory (recall,
recognition) and (2) attention (eye-tracking fixation duration and count).
Participants were 151 adolescent social media users (Study 1: n = 72; 13–14
years; M = 13.56 years, SD = 0.5; Study 2: n = 79, 13–17 years, M = 15.37
years, SD = 1.351). They viewed 36 fictitious Facebook profile feeds created to
show age-typical content. In a 3 × 3 factorial design, each contained an
advertising post that varied by content (healthy/unhealthy/non-food) and source
(peer/celebrity/company). Generalised linear mixed models showed that
advertisements for unhealthy food evoked significantly more positive responses,
compared to non-food and healthy food, on 5 of 6 measures: adolescents were
more likely to wish to ‘share’ unhealthy posts; rated peers more positively
when they had unhealthy posts in their feeds; recalled and recognised a greater
number of unhealthy food brands; and viewed unhealthy advertising posts for
longer. Interactions with sources (peers, celebrities and companies) were more
complex but also favoured unhealthy food advertising. Implications are that
regulation of unhealthy food advertising should address adolescents and digital
media.
Abstract
In today’s world
advertisement plays an important role in influencing customers buying behaviour
for products and services. Every company wants to achieve the highest market
share. For this purpose, companies use different ways to attract customers of
different segments in the best and in a sustainable manner to become the market
leader. In this challenging environment, companies are in a position to promote
its products in such a way that it gets more loyal customers. They are focusing
on the niche of children for marketing their products because they are the ones
who are easily attracted by advertisements and are influenced to buy the
advertised products. There are various ways in which a company promotes its
products. One such way adopted for promotion is ‘Television advertisements’.
This paper has made an attempt to study the impact of television advertisements
on the buying behaviour of children and how companies can promote their
products in an environmental-friendly manner, focusing on children in relation
to it.
J. M. Martínez Otero, "Nuevas formas de publicidad encubierta
en las plataformas digitales de Internet", Revista de Derecho Mercantil, No. 314 (2019) 223-264 [available on the Internet at <https://app.box.com/s/lyvlxqh6yqemnr3fknitfvrcs0hyqdhx> (last accessed on 13 February 2020)].
