The Fairytale Character In Advertisment As A Means Of Influence On Children

Abstract

The objective of our research is to identify distinct features of senior preschoolers’ perception of the advertising images of fairytale characters on the packages of dairy products. In order to achieve our objectives, we use several psychodiagnostic procedures: the Sally-Anne test, a survey, the Delphi procedure, and eye tracking method using the Tribe Eye-Tracker and the Ogama software. We use the SPSS 21 programme for statistical processing. The findings of our study have enabled us to arrive at the following conclusions. The special fascination of fairy tale characters in advertising may be accounted for by the psychological singularities of the children between the ages of five and six. They are the predominance of play, dominance of involuntary attention, activation of the processes of imitation and identification, and also an incomplete Theory of Mind. The gaze duration for the advertising image of a fairytale character on the package is substantially longer than the duration of fixation on taste and brand. Food selection by preschool children is based predominantly on good feelings for a character depicted on the package. Food selection by parents is not based on the health benefits of a product. Parents and their children opt for different brands of dairy products.

Keywords: Advertisingchildrenparentseye-trackerTheory of Mind

Introduction

The rapidly growing food market tries to attract the attention of potential customers with all manner of visual means. From their preschool years, a child is forced to learn how to single out not only those products that are eye-catching and popular but also those that are beneficial for their health. The primary, but not the only, function of advertising is to prepare children to become competent consumers (Ampuero & Vila, 2006; Elliot, 2015). In view of the age-related features of child development, at the preschool age the greatest influence is exerted by the phenomena of psychological contamination (affecting the emotional sphere of the personality), imitation (involving the appropriation of behaviour models that have been observed) and indoctrination.

Products advertised demonstrate a particular lifestyle, which is typically associated with success, health and beauty, thereby imposing certain patterns of behaviour (Hahlo, 1999). This is reflected in a proclivity for the way of life that is shown on the screen and the use of specific brands, which young children recognize before they learn how to read (Weller, 2002). Children entreat and even compel their parents to buy attractive products, which are far too often inferior, and this sometimes leads to friction with the parents, who refuse to do so. The harmful influence of advertising on children consists not only in the purchase of low grade products but also the formation of distorted stereotypes and values. When parents explain that these products are deleterious to their health, 23 percent of children agree with them, but 60 percent actively protest and become upset (Strasburger et al., 2009),

The favourite fairytale heroes of the child, who endorse one or another product may exert the greatest influence on them, in the same way famous actors have a similar effect on an adult. The analysis of a particular influence of fairytale characters on preschoolers’ trust in the products they promote has yet to be carried out. It has also not been proved that these characters have an effect on children’s preferences. It has already been shown that the extent to which a child forms theory of mind plays a significant role in their understanding of the purpose beyond advertisement (Sergienko et al., 2013).

Investigations into the children’s perception of the package that bears the image of a fairytale character by using the eye-tracking device are rarely found in the research of child psychologists. The sequential presentation of visual patterns on a computer screen and records of children’s eye movements using an eye tracker makes it possible to analyze their spheres of interest in detail and to prove whether a fairytale character has a special effect on children’s preferences or not.

Problem Statement

When discussing the question of understanding advertisement by children at different ages, most researchers fall back on the Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Based on this theory, four relevant stages of development in the understanding of advertising have been singled out (Durkin & Barber, 2002):

• distinguishing the advertisement from the program content;

• recognizing and understanding the intent of advertisement;

• appreciating advertisement and evaluating it sceptically

• developing the cognitive defence against advertising

Research shows that until the age of five or six years old, children do not demonstrate any distinct awareness of advertising in the whole mass of information they receive and partially comprehend its meaning. Up to this age, children do not demonstrate any understanding of the intent behind advertising – to sell a product – and look at TV advertising as informative entertainment, which exhibits definite models of behaviour (Bloser & Roberts, 1985).

This fact has been confirmed by many studies; for example, four-to-six-year-olds are asked to watch an unfamiliar television commercial about cereal and then are presented with six pictures to choose different family activities (preparing breakfast, eating breakfast, shopping, etc.), all of which include the cereal. It reveals that only six-year-olds choose the shopping picture at more than chance levels (Gunter, 2009). Other studies carried out along similar lines indicate that it is impossible for children to understand the intent of advertising – to persuade them to buy whatever product is being promoted – until they reach the age of five or six (Macklin, 1987).

The impact of advertising on a person is more often than not presented according to the AIDA model, the acronym for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. It turns out that, in order to spark a customer’s interest in any product and arouse the desire to purchase it, one must capture their attention, first. This is the point at which designers step forward to work on the packaging in order to make a product stand out and be recognizable. The package plays an important role in producing an initial impression on people, acting as a “mute salesman”. It is unlikely that a nondescript phial will catch the interest of a young child if there is a really flashy product standing next to it. In one study (Rettie & Brewer, 2000), it is established that 73 percent of all buying decisions are made at the moment of discovery, when the buyer is standing in front of the product, and, what is more, the key factor is the packaging (Ogba & Johnson, 2010).

Images of fairytale characters, characters from popular animated films and trademark mascots, which then become an integral part of the brand name – all of these are used to arrest the attention of children. Likewise, there is a growing proliferation of free gifts and stickers, the presence of which is often reflected on the package (Ogba & Johnson, 2010). Many companies target their products specifically at children, trying to develop loyalty to their brand, thus cultivating a new generation of consumers who will buy their goods or services.

In order to truly attract attention, a brand character should possess the following characteristics: they should be easily perceived and identified with the brand, they should be visually laconic, vivid and accessible to the target audience, they should convey a positive assessment of the product and its owner, and they should also be emotionally charged and unique (Zashchirinskaya et al., 2017).

From all of the aforementioned, one can observe that the ideal trademark mascots for children are characters from fairy tales and animated films or archetypal figures that have become a part of a brand.

Most frequently, the mechanism of contagion manifests under the conditions of chance or impulse purchases, when people are standing in checkout lines. We have all seen, at least one time in our lives, how in supermarkets children start begging their parents to buy something they have seen in the hands of another child.

Research Questions

Our research was predicated on verifying the hypothesis that a child’s preference was associated with how bright the package was, and how much space the fairytale character took up on it. Their first emotional reaction to a product had an impact on a child’s incentive to select it among other children’s goods. When children identified themselves with a fairytale character on the package, they were more likely to endow it with positive attributes. Verbal descriptions of characters used in advertising were connected with their personal qualities and capabilities but not with their appearance.

Purpose of the Study

The objective of our research was to discover distinct features of senior preschoolers’ perception of the advertising images of fairytale characters on the packages of dairy products.

Research Methods

In order to achieve our objectives, we used several psychodiagnostic procedures: the Sally-Anne test, a survey, the Delphi procedure, and eye tracking, using the Tribe Eye-Tracker along with the Ogama software. We used the following statistical procedures during the course of the empirical study: Student’s t-distribution, the Pearson's chi-squared test and regression analysis.

Findings

When the children were polled as to which product they would choose and why, 55.2 percent said they were attracted by the character on the package, 24 percent – by the eye-catching appearance, and 15.2 percent – by an advertisement that they had already seen. As to the product features (taste), 4 percent of those polled cited this criterion, and the presence of the product at home (previously purchased) turned out to be decisive for 1.6 percent of the children. When identifying themselves with the advertising image on the package, the children more often than not gave credit to positive personal qualities of the character. In this category of the answers, the attributes “cheerful” and “funny” stood out, which spoke of their significance, given the emotional development of the preschoolers (p<0.01).

A fairytale character used to promote a product and their colour both had a particularly strong influence on children. The presence of the correlation between the colour and the amount of space that a character took up (the Pearson procedure, r=0.725, p<0.01) witnessed to the statistically significant connection between the colour and the display area of the character on the package. There was also a correlation between the number of colours and a child’s decision whether to select a product (r=0.641, p<0.05) or not, which also confirmed the statistically significant connection between these elements.

Conclusion

The findings of our study have made it possible to arrive at the following conclusions.

A special fascination of fairytale characters in advertising can be explained by the psychological singularities of children between the ages of five and six. They are the predominance of play, dominance of involuntary attention, activation of the processes of imitation and identification, and also an incomplete Theory of Mind.

The gaze duration for the advertising image of a fairytale character on the package is substantially longer than the duration of fixation on taste and brand.

Food selection by preschool children is based predominantly on good feelings for a character depicted on the package.

Food selection for parents is not based on the health benefits of a product.

Parents and their children opt for different brands of dairy products.

Acknowledgments

The study is founded by the Russian Scientific fund #14-18-02135 “Psychophysiological and neuro-linguistic aspects of the process of recognition of verbal and nonverbal patterns”

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