Evaluating effects of traditional and nontraditional advertisements on children

Abstract

Cognitive development is defined as a child’s capabilities in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, and other aspects of brain development. Cognitive defences are a subset of cognitive development, which are defined as children’s understanding of the selling intent of commercials and an associated distrust of ads. The major drawback of this study, however, is that it assumes that children who have cognitive defences will necessarily use them. Previous researches have shown that children understand the selling intent of ads by the age of eight, though some also argue that this knowledge exists much earlier. However, this knowledge is not sufficient to impart resistance to persuasive appeals. To be able to defend themselves from persuasive attempts, children must be able to discount the advertiser’s message in some way. They must be able to retrieve the pre-existing advertising knowledge to identify the misleading and peripheral information. They must also be able to retrieve product knowledge and purchase criteria to generate product counterarguments to specific product claims. The ability to use such sophisticated information processing strategies depends on the child’s stage of the cognitive development