IMPACT OF TELEVISION COMMERCIALS ON CHILDRENS ATTITUDE

Dalbir Singh Tika Ram

Television commercials are one of the most extensively used advertising media. The vast majority of products meant for children are advertised on television. Television has become a primary source of information and entertainment for majority of Indian population. The reach and access of television is quite formidable. In the process children are exposed to plethora of information on various products. This not only complicates the buying decision process in children but also overburden their feeble minds. The main objective of the study is to know the attitude of the children towards television commercials. The main findings include that Television commercial believability and likeability are two main factors affecting the attitude of the school children. Gender and education have been observed as significant factors affecting television commercial taste, annoyance and the purchase of products and believability of television commercials respectively. Key Words: Believability of Television Commercials, Likeability of Television Commercials
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Advertising on television is one of the most popularly used tools of promoting the product for all sorts of consumers. Television has become a primary source of information and entertainment for majority of Indian population. The reach and access of television is quite formidable. For children in particular, advertising on television is a preferred mode of promoting products like confectionary items, fast food, snacks etc. Children devote a considerable time for watching their favorite programmes on different channels. Page and Ridgway (2001) have concluded the impact of consumer environment on consumption pattern of children on the basis of socio economic background and concluded that along with socio economic environment the impact of family, mass media school and peers should also be made. Marketers have to try hard to find novel ways of evaluating the impact of their advertisements on children buying behaviour. Attitude towards advertising measured as predisposition to respond are determined by brand attitude and purchase intensions (Lutz 1985). The children constitute a formidable target market with huge opportunities for marketers. It is well acknowledged that children play an important role in purchase decisions. Marketers take advantage of this opportunity and advertise products meant for children on television. Fur-

ther the childrens buying behaviors is significantly influenced by their attitude towards the advertisement per say but there are important factors like parental guidance and peer pressure are also responsible for framing their attitude. Objective of the study: The main objective of the study is to know the attitude of the children towards television commercials. The study tests two hypotheses: H1: Childrens attitude towards Television Commercials is not affected by gender. H2: Childrens attitude towards Television Commercials is not affected by Education Level.

I Review of Literature
For understanding the background of the research topic, literature review has been carried out. As large numbers of articles were available on the topic, the researcher has selected and reviewed articles of relevance.
Assistant Professor, Haryana School of Business, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, Hisar (Haryana), India Assistant Professor, Haryana School of Business, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, Hisar (Haryana), India

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Ashill and Yavas (2005) investigated the dimensions of advertising attitudes in two culturally diverse countries to examine advertising attitude and concluded that advertising attitude consist of social and economic effect dimensions. Panwar and Agnihotri (2006) emphasized that childrens ability to decode and process advertising message is influenced not only by their cognitive ability at different age strata but also by their social and personal environment. Social norms also influenced the processing of advertisement messages. Tingstad (2007) has found that children perspective and childhood are not only valuable but also necessary to inform consumer research. Dens et al (2007) have investigated the parental attitudes towards advertising the children. They have observed that advertising to children appear to moderate concern to parents. Andersen et al (2008) have shown complex differences in the perception and reaction to advertising and suggested that one should be more careful before making general global conclusion on complex issues. Sharma and Dass Gupta (2009) presented integrated perspective in interest and influence level of children and thus leading towards developing a conceptual framework for marketing to childrens. Ozdogan and Altintas (2009) observed that co viewing of advertisements with parent increase the family effects and discussions on advertising with parents reduce the family effect. Study concluded that parent child co viewing of advertisements can alter the children perception of advertisements through personal assessment. Pankaj Priya et al (2010) concluded that children differ in their cognitive ability in interpreting television advertisements. Researcher find out that credibility aspect has an important impact across all age of children. The research gap drawn from literature review indicates there are various dimensions of attitude formation in children which needs further exploration and the present study is a step in that direction.

standard to senior secondary were selected. The sample characteristics are shown in Table No. 1. The questionnaire included nine questions out of which 02 were related to gender and education of respondent. Remaining of seven questions of the attitude construct was statement on attitudes of the respondent towards Television Commercials adapted from Rossiter (1977) children attitude scale. The collected data were coded, edited and analyzed by using SPSS software. Statistical tools namely frequency distribution, one-way ANOVA and principal component analysis has been used for analyzing the data.

III Results and Discussion

The 07 items of the scale were subjected to internal reliability assessment with a 0.585 alpha, evidence of scale item dependability and suitability. For ensuring the suitability of factor analysis for the kind of data collected for the study, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) tests were performed. The value of KMO measure of sampling adequacy was 0.613 (acceptable range above 0.50) which indicate that sample size is adequate for principle component analysis. Similarly the Bartletts test of sphericity (using chi-square measure) indicated that variables are correlated, hence suitable for factor analysis. Table No. 2 indicates the frequency of response to attitude statements. Majority of the respondents disagree on 04 variables by 74, 59, 82 and 84 percent in relation to Television Commercials Tell the Truth, I like most of the TV commercials, you can always believe what the commercial say or do and the products advertised most on TV are always the best product to buy respectively. Whereas large proportion of respondents agree on 03 variables by 57, 75 and 81 per cent in relation to Most TV commercials are poor in taste and very annoying, TV commercials tell only the good things about a product and do not tell about bad things and TV commercials try to make people buy things they do not need respectively. Summarily respondents show disagreement on 04 and agreement on 03 variables. By applying the Principal component method of factor analysis, 02 factors with eigenvalues above 1 have been extracted. These 02 retained factors represent 49.105 Mass Communicator, January - March, 2011

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II Research Design and Methods

The research study is exploratory cum descriptive in nature. The study was conducted in Hisar city (Haryana). Random sampling technique has been utilized for sample selection. A total of 100 children studying in class 8th

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percent of the variance of the 07 variables. Table No. 3 shows the relative explanatory power of 07 factors in terms of their eigenvalues. In the unrotated factor matrix (Table No. 4), variable 1 and variable 6 have significant cross loadings (above 0.40) on two factors. Hence in order to justify their association with just one factor, factor matrix was rotated by using Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. In rotated factor matrix (Table No. 5), each factor has a significant loading (above .40) on different variables. The first factor is made up of 04 variables and has been named Believability of Television Commercials. The second factor comprises 03 variables and has been named Likeability of Television Commercials. On the basis of gender, significant difference has been observed in relation to variable named Most TV commercials are poor in taste and very annoying (5 per cent level of significance) which shows that boys and girls differ significantly as far as TV commercial taste and annoyance is concerned. For the rest of 06 variables, no significant differences were found on the basis of gender (Table No. 6). On the basis of education, significant difference has been found in relation to variables named TV commercials try to make people buy things they do not need and you can always believe what the commercial say or do (5 per cent level of significance). The respondents differ significantly on variables TV commercials try to make people buy things they do not need and you can always believe what the commercial say or do on the basis of education. For remaining 05 variables no significant differences were observed in terms of education (Table No. 7).

mercial believability and likeability are two main factors affecting the attitude of the school children. Television commercial taste and annoyance is significantly affected by the gender. Education is found to be a significant factor affecting the purchase of products and believability of television commercials.

References
Ashill , Nicholas J. and Yavas Ugur (2005) Dimesion of advertising attitudes, Journal of Marketing intelligence and planning volume 23 no. 4, page 340-349 Dens, Nathalie, Pelsmacker, P. D. and Eagle, Lynne (2007), Parental attitudes towards advertising to children and restrictive mediation of childrens television viewing in Belgium, Young Consumers, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2007, pp. 7-18. Lutz, R.J. (1985), Attitude and cognitive antecedents of attitude towards the ad: a conceptual framework, in Alwitt, L.F. and Mitchell, A.A. (Eds), Psychological processes and advertising effects: Theory Research and Application, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ,pp. 45-63. Ozdogan, F. Bahar and Altintas M Hakan (2009) Parent s Adolescent integration and family effect on adolescent TV skepticism: an empirical analysis with Turkish consumers, young consumers vol. 11 no. pp 24-35 Page, Christine and Ridgway, Nancy (2001) Impact of consumer environments on consumption patterns of children from disparate so ciao economic backgrounds, journal of consumer marketing Volume 18 no. 1 pp 2140 Pankay Priya, RK Baaisya and Sharma Seema (2009) Television advertisements and childrens buying behavious, Journal of Marketing intelligence and planning volume 28 no. 42, page 151-169 Panwar, JS and Agnihotri, Milan (2006), Advertising message processing among urban children An Indian experience Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Volume 18, No. 4 pp 303-327. Rossiter (1977), Handbook of Marketing Scales by William O. Bearden, Richard G. Netemeyer and Mary F. Mobley, Sage Publications, pp. 225-227. Sharma, R. Walia and Das gupta Pinki (2009) marketing to children a planning framework, young consumers embralled group vol 10, no. 3 pp 180-187.

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IV Conclusion
Majority of the respondents disagree that Television Commercials Tell the Truth, like most of the TV commercials and believe what the commercial say and the products advertised most on TV are always the best product to buy. Whereas large proportion of respondents agree that Most TV commercials are poor in taste and very annoying, TV commercials tell only the good things about a product and do not tell about bad things and TV commercials try to make people buy things they do not need .Television comMass Communicator, January - March, 2011

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Gender Boy Girl Total

Table No. 1: Sample Characteristics Education Level 8-10 Above 10th 49 14 31 6 80 20

Total 63 37 100

Statement

Table No. 2: Frequency of Response to Statements Strongly Agree Disagree Agree

Strongly Disagree

Total

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Television Commercials Tell the Truth. Most TV commercials are poor in taste and very annoying. TV commercials tell only the good things about a product and do not tell about bad things. I like most of the TV commercials. TV commercials try to make people buy things they do not need. You can always believe what the commercial say or do. The products advertised most on TV are always the best product to buy.

3 6 43 7 27 7 5

23 51 32 34 54 11 11

66 38 21 50 15 60 68

8 5 4 9 4 22 16

100 100 100 100 100 100 100

Table No. 3: Total Variance Explained

Initial Eigenvalues % of Cumulative Component Total Variance % 1 2.086 29.798 29.798 2 1.351 19.307 49.105 3 .944 13.482 62.587 4 .882 12.607 75.195 5 .669 9.555 84.750 6 .599 8.554 93.304 7 .469 6.696 100.000

Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings % of Cumulative Total Variance % 2.086 29.798 29.798 1.351 19.307 49.105

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Table No. 4: Unrotated Component Analysis Factor Matrix

Variable Television Commercials Tell the Truth. Most TV commercials are poor in taste and very annoying. TV commercials tell only the good things about a product and do not tell about bad things. I like most of the TV commercials. TV commercials try to make people buy things they do not need. You can always believe what the commercial say or do. The products advertised most on TV are always the best product to buy.

Component 1 2 .415 -.566 .534 .250 .535 .627 .341 .545 .732 -.269 -.297 .745 .488 -.121

Table No. 5: Rotated Component Analysis Factor Matrix

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Variables Television Commercials Tell the Truth. Most TV commercials are poor in taste and very annoying. TV commercials tell only the good things about a product and do not tell about bad things. I like most of the TV commercials. TV commercials try to make people buy things they do not need. You can always believe what the commercial say or do. The products advertised most on TV are always the best product to buy.

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Component 1 2 .670 .280 .590 .681 -.170 .147 .660 -.207 .519 .102 .135 .801 .717 .339

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