South African children’s influence tactics: what works and when?

Abstract

Purpose Family consumption studies have been criticised for using an individualistic or dyadic approach to explore the types of influence strategies that children use to sway parental decisions. In this study, attention is refocused on the voices of South African families within twenty-first-century familial interactions. The purpose of this paper is to explore the prevalence of pester power in South Africa, and to understand the influence strategies used by children and the different categories of products that children attempt to influence the purchasing of. Parental responses to these strategies are also explored to determine their effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach An exploratory research design using quantitative, but mainly, qualitative data, was used to draw insights from 135 families to understand intra-familial negotiation tactics within the context of family consumption and everyday family life. Thematic content analysis was used to extract themes from the responses. Findings The findings suggest that children use everyday family interactions as a resource to select successful pester and negotiation tactics. These children have a relatively deep understanding of how to influence their parents by using different tactics, such as emotional appeals, product requests, purchase justifications and bad behaviour. Children were found to have an awareness regarding the circumstances during which these tactics are more effective. Originality/value The contribution offered by this paper is first to build on calls for perspectives in the African context, when marketing to children and second, to add deeper understanding of the categories that children from South Africa influence, and the negotiating tactics that they use. This also contributes to an understanding of the intra-familial interaction processes leading to the eventual emergence of influence strategies and concomitant consumption behaviour.

Children’s pester power, packaging and unhealthy food preference

“…Being the child's food preference established, the influence of the child's purchasing power on the parents was also verified. This relation between children's pester power and the buying behavior of their parents theoretically corroborates with several other studies that have plagued the theme in other contexts (Askelson et al , 2019; Page et al , 2019; Ellis and Maikoo, 2018; Chaudhary et al , 2018). Some practical implications of these findings could be the possibility of generating parents` reflections about better strategies with their children, such as, before even entering the stores, they should do some previous agreements to avoid stresses inside the point of sale (Sanders and Woolley, 2005).…”

Balancing benefits: evidence-based guidelines for school-banking programmes

“…Students' (5-13 years) ability to understand and critique marketing and marketing messages Students aged 5-13 years are unable to understand messages and marketing at a sufficiently nuanced level to be informed consumers of any financial service product Uribe and Fuentes-Garcia ( 2017), Freeman and Shapiro (2014) Parents' susceptibility to marketing is influenced by several factors beyond understanding, including marketing via their children (pester power) Malik and Shah (2016), Taghavi and Seyedsalehi (2015), Dikcius et al (2014), Aleti et al (2015a, b), Ellis and Maikoo (2018), Chaudhary (2018) Children are subject to social pressure and want to fit in with peers Pagla and Brennan (2014), Guillemot (2018), Holiday (2018), Szendrey and Fiala (2018), Thaichon and Quach (2016) The impact of in-school marketing on students' perceptions of that marketing and/or product There are no published studies that focussed specifically on the impact of toys and prizes on children's perceptions of banking products and brands. The majority of the research focussed on gifts and toy premiums are from food products.…”

“…Prizes increase the desirability of the brand or product. Prizes increase the competitiveness and contribute to the sociality of the brand throughout the social network by creating "buzz" Malik and Shah (2016), Taghavi and Seyedsalehi (2015), Dikcius et al (2014), Aleti et al (2015a, b), Ellis and Maikoo (2018), Chaudhary (2018) The impact of exposure to in-school marketing to children on their adult perceptions/attitudes/behaviour To date, there has been no published assessment of the long-term impact of school-banking programmes on adult behaviours. There are no studies that have been conducted over the lifetime of consumer-bank relationships.…”

Influence of cartoon characters on generation alpha in purchase decisions

“…According to Anitha and Mohan (2016), marketers are always curious about the influence of children on consumer purchasing decisions. Earlier studies from Asian countries (Chikweche et al , 2012) like Singapore (Swinyard and Sim, 1987), China (Flurry and Veeck, 2008), India (Chaudhary and Gupta, 2012), Israel (Shoham and Dalakas, 2003), along with Western countries (Toomey and Francis, 2013) like Holland and USA (Foxman et al , 1989), Scotland (Thomson, 2004); Denmark, Germany (Gram, 2007) and Brazil (Dallazen and Fiates, 2014) have acknowledged that children do significantly influence purchasing decisions, using different tactics (Ellis and Maikoo, 2018).…”