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A Survey on Relationship between Television Advertisements and Consumption Pattern among Children and Adolescents
RasulKarami
M.A.student of Business Management, Rasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Rasht, Guilan, Iran

Seyedeh Sara Saberhosseini,SeyedehmarziehHasheminasab, Maryam DehbanSadatmahaleh, ReyhanehHassanpourGilevai, NargerAbdolalipour,ZeinabMahmoodi ,Reza FarahaniEsfini, AbedinAbessi,MehdiZarrin, Mehdi NokhbehZaim
M.A. Student of Business Management, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Guilan, Iran

Abstract Psychologistshave considered childhood and adolescence as the most fundamental and the most basic stages of growth in human beings, and believe that personality, beliefs and initial attitudes of individuals are formed in this period.In recent years, researchers found that children have played an effective role in purchasing goods. And one of the most important and effective factors that motivating children to buy and consume the products and goods is advertising, particularly through television.Therefore, the present study has tried to investigate the relationship between watching television advertisements and consumption pattern among children and adolescents.This paper is organizedthrough follow structure; next sectionwillpresent introduction. The third section has focused on the backgrounds and research theoretical principles.The fourth section has discussed definitions and indicators of variables. Section V will present the research methodology.Conclusions and recommendations have been presented in section VI and references are given at the end. Keywords: Commercial Advertisements, Consumption Pattern, Television, Children and
Adolescents

1 - Introduction Children are powerful consumers in society, and therefore they are effective on families shopping decisions making. Professor James Neal has m ade the term ofchild-driven (society) (as Patriarchy or Matriarchy) to describe developing spending ability of children within the family (john c mowen-2009543).Since children has no income source, sometimes parents do not pay attention to things that they say or demand, however their words and statements have incisiveimpact on the family purchasing goods yet. Parents also on the basis oftheir income, educationstatus, and ... paying attention to their children ideas and demands to buy goods; even If,they do not accept them by themselves.What is more important is recognizing how much children in Iranian family are effective in purchasing goods. (Baghbaniyan, Nasim, 2007).Among the effective factors in formulating individualsintellectual and behavioral patterns, in addition to family, friends and school, another factor that is called mass mediaplays a significant role, so that performed researches in this area indicate that the mass media, especially
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television are one of the most important factors that wil l affect the individuals lifestyle. The formation of individuals behavioral patterns occurs in childhood, and one of the most important factors that influence formation of consumption patterns in children is advertising (Esmi, Reza, 2011, 94). Advertising is one of the most effective meansin communicationalmarketing that motivate and stimulate consumers towardbuying goods (Pankaj Priya; 2009-151). Kotler (2002) defines advertising as:any paid form of presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and service s through mass media (Atash Pour, Hamid; 2011, 92).Advertising is a means to supply and more sales(Abolhasani Chime, Zahra, 2006118). Attitude toward advertisement can be as a result of numerous factors such as transparency of content and intellectual visualization, the mood of consumer and his/her excitement through advertisements andinterest of consumer to television programs that includes advertisement(John c.mowen-2010-235). Television in Iran is the most popular mass media (Madan Dar 2010).Watching televisionbegins from early childhood. Children in age grade of 2-4 years old, watching TV about two-hour during a day. This rate will increase about three and a half hours during the primary school, and then inadolescence this rate will be three hours (Esmi, Reza, 2011, 94). Eachchild, ineach hour of watching television is exposed to 20 to 30 advertisements, in which if the average time of watching TV being about 4 to 5 hours,a child will watchingin a day, approximately 130, in a week more than 900, and during a year about 45,000 commercial advertisements (Esmi, Reza, 2011, 95). Powell, Sisypka and Chalupka (quoted in Morley, 2007) in a researchhave studied, a lot of advertisements that were displayed from 2003 to 2004, and found that in this period of time, children, in 36 percent of the time period that have spenton watching television advertisements were exposed to advertising related to food.The results of Poor Noroozresearch (1999) emphasizing that the most advertisements of food products has been related to foods that was not nutritive and playno role in physicalgrowth and nutrition of children (Asad Zade, Hasan, 2011,95). In addition to the massive amount of advertisements,addressing present issue is importanton the other hand;Firstly, the investigated population is children and adolescents thatin comparison with adults are highly more vulnerable against advertising messages; Secondly, research results have indicated that there is a strong relationship between wrong nutritional andhealth habits and behaviors in adolescence, and the risk of emerging chronic diseases in adulthood;and thirdly in countries such as Iran that is combined with a young population,the mental and physical health in this age grade areone ofthe fundamental priorities in planning and policy making in the various areas such as these media.Media are
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the main channels that throughthem the message transferring to audience (Sojudi, Forozan; 2005, 114). Therefore, if a comprehensive and popular medium such as TV does not useresearch findings in the field of the impact of media programs on children and adolescents to produce their advertising programs, dealing with its unpleasant consequences, in the long-term, will result in irretrievable costs.Thus, in this study has been tried toinvestigate therelationship between watching television advertisements and consumption pattern among children and adolescent in order to provide information to attendants, in the area of producing and broadcasting commercials. 2-Theoretical Principles and Research Background: In general, scholars and experts have no consensus on the effectiveness of advertisements onpeople thoughts and lifestyles.Mc. Quailhas divided the path of developing research and theorizing about the impact of medium, into three stages which are including the following items:the powerful influence of media, limited effects of media, and re-emergingtheory of powerful influence of media. In the powerful influence of media theory, in which theory of shells (snow) is an instance; media have capability to provide substantial variations in society and its constituent elements (Esmi, Reza, 2011, 96). Lazars Feld and Bresson, in late 1940s, havesuggested the Media Limited Effects Theory, in which they have claimed thatcommunicational messagesare not able tocreate fundamental variations in individuals beliefs and behavior, but can partly strengthen them, and there should be prior preparation to effectiveness.Accordingly, the approach of Media Limited Effects will highly value the non-communicational indicators such as age, job, family, education and...,in the field of effectiveness of messages on the audience (Mahdi Zade, 2009). Careful examination of evidences related to the impact of television advertising aboutfood on children, which was performed by the UK Food Standards Institute have Indicated that such type of advertising, regardless the effect of other variables, willaffects the children's food preferences and options (Hastings et al 2003, quoted in Morley, 2007).This issue, according to the increasing influence of children over families selecting andbuying food, seems notable (translated Dehghan, Alireza; 2003, 39). Scott (2004), Dustinand Height (2005)have identified three factors ofParents, Peers (as the primary reference group) and the Media (as a secondary reference group) as the most important effective factors toselect the advertised products among children (Pankaj Priya; 2009-153). Robertson and Rossiter (1997)(quoted Hosseini, 2001) by studying the effects of television advertising on boys have concluded that there is a relationship between the time that they spend on watching advertisements and the rates they demand to the purchase the product.The research results of
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Kelishadi et al (2004) that were performed on studen ts in the age grade of 6 to 17 years,in Esfahan, have demonstrated that 1.96 percentof students and 5.6 percent of their parents hadchosen foods that theyhave been familiar with them through advertisements and in 90.6 percent of cases, although parents have been disagreed withthe choice of theirchildren, have boughtthat food due to their insistence.The impact of television on children's dietary habits, usually is considering based on the pattern of stimulus - response (conditioning), thus,higher minutes or hours of watching commercials (stimulus) will lead to higher probability of individuals consuming and requesting (response) the advertised food (Coon k.a.coldberg-2001-107). Vaneshand Pine(2002)have studied the relationship between the rate and the way of watching advertisements, and the extent of children requests to receive gifts from Santa Claus. Results revealed that, overall, children who watch more commercials, in their letters to Santa Claus, had requested getting more items.Other factors are effective on children consumption preferences and purchasing requests.For example, the results have demonstrated that childrensattention to advertised products will reduce as they become more mature.They graduallyduring the process of growththink critically about what medium offer them, as well as become more sensitive toward theirpeers opinions.It is also shown that gender plays an important role in children's tendency toward advertised products, so that, boys insist on their demands more than girls; other factors that are effective in determiningchildren consumption behavior include:social - economiclevel of family, the type and frequency of interactions between parents and children, and influence of peer groups (Dworkin, 1997). Researchers at the University of Liverpool, in a research have examined dietary behavior of 60 childrenin the age grade of 9 to 11 years while watching cartoons, as well as after displayingadvertising related to food and toys.Their findings showed that there is a significant difference between the amount of food that children have consumed after watching advertising about food and the amount of food that the same children have consumed after watching toy commercials.Thus, the amount ofconsumed food, after watching food advertisements, in all children and in every weight increased significantly;however this amount of increase was higher among overweight people.Closer investigations of these researchers revealed that the type of selectingfood also will change after watching advertisements and move toward low quality and unhealthy foods,so that, after watching these advertisements, obese children weremoreinterested to eat fatty junk food and ultimately have chosen the same snacksand junk food (Eskandari, 2008).Bowentown et al (2003) in their research concluded thatif television advertising emphasizes the non-nutritive properties of foods as the most important selecting criteria, the consumption value ofadolescent audiences will be affectednegatively.The data of this study confirm the foods thathave been advertised more than others are
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foods that are consuming extremely.In addition, the dietary habits that are formed in adolescence will influence adulthood dietary patterns, andin turn, these dietary habits can have definite impact on the formulation of chronic and dangerous diseases in adulthood.However, the performed researches about the subject of the present paper, mainly, reflect the relationship between watching media advertising and consuming the goods and services. But,researches undoubtedly will develop a proper field and correlation to evaluateeffect of watching. Hence, according to theoretical principles and reviewed research findings, several hypotheses have been set out about the relationship between watching such type of media products and consumption patterns of children and adolescents that will beas following.

3.Research Hypotheses:
The Main Hypotheses: 1 - there is a positive correlation between the amount of watching advertisements of products and services (at indices of food, appliances, and equipment and services and entertainment places) and the consumption patterns of these products and services. Secondary Hypotheses: 1-1. There is a direct correlation between the amounts of watching food products commercials with highnutritive value, and the consumption patterns of these products amongthe audience of advertisements. 1-2. There is a direct correlation between the amounts of watching food products commercials with low nutritive value,and the consumption patterns of these products among the audience of advertisements. 1-3. There is a direct correlation betweenthe amounts of watching appliances and equipment commercials,and the consumption patterns of these products among the audience of advertisements. 1-4. There is a direct correlation between the amounts of watching services and entertainment places commercials, and the consumption patterns of these products among the audience of advertisements. 1-5. There is a direct correlation between watching educational television advertisements about saving behaviors, paying attention to safety issues and traffic regulations, and implementing these practices. 4. Research Variables and Operational Definitions of Research: Independent Variable: Television advertisements:It is a set of advertisements that through the public medium of television will be presented from investigated company, to consumers. Indicators of Independent Variable: 1- Foods: A. With high nutritive value: They are products, which in addition to having a significant amount of calories are containing a large quantity of proteins, minerals and vitamins that are necessary to growth of children
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and adolescents. These products are:ice cream, dairy, pasta, eggs, juice, nuts (pistachio, peanuts, and roastedseeds), cake or cookie B. With low nutritive value: They are products, which are not containing necessary vitamins, minerals and protein and have low calories, and their excess consumption is harmful for health.For example,different type of sauces (red or white), snack, chocolate, cocoa, soft drink, chips, jelly and pastel, sausage and salami 2 - Appliance and Equipment: Stationery (colored pencils, markers, erasers, etc.), educational facilities (cd, brochures, books), toys and entertainment devices, sports equipment 3- Services and Entertainment Places: Amusement and entertainmentplaces (amusement park, etc.), restaurants Dependent Variable: The amount of consumption: in order to its measurement the Likert type scale has been used ("high" 2, "low" 1, "at all" 0) 5. Research Methodology: 1. Methodology: This research has been performed through survey method. 2. Methods of Data Collection: In order to data collection,researcher made questionnaire has been used. That its questionswereconfigured based on Likert type scale ("high" 2, "low" 1, "at all" 0).The first questionnaire involved 20 questions, in whichchildren and adolescents have been asked about the amount of watching advertisements and consuming food products, including foods with high nutritive value, such as dairy and juice (7 questions) and the foods with low nutritive value such as snack and chips (7 questions), and appliances such as stationery and educational facilities (4 questions) as well as advertised services such as restaurants and entertainment venues (2 questions). In the second questionnaire,parentspoint of view about the amount of children's savings on electricity and water consumption, and considering safety issuesand paying attention to traffic regulations have been investigated. 3. Method of Data Analysis: Research data have been processed by using the method of statistical Pearson correlation test, analysis of variance in one-wayclassification, and Tukey test.
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4. StatisticalUniverse and Sample: Statistical universe of this research are Tehran children and adolescents in age grade of 7 to 14 years old and their parents.Sampling procedure has been based on conventional method in the Broadcasting Research Center, (Radio and Television OrganizationResearch Center) which is a cluster multi-stage method. So that, according to the census of Statistical Center of Iran, in 2007, citizens of Tehran have beenconsidered as 32099 blocks, and each one contains a number of households; in the first stage of sampling, 321 blocks, among the blocks were selected systematically, and then 2 percent of households living in each block were chosen to interview. In the next stage,in order tointerview withtarget people, they went to each home.Finally, after excluding invalid questionnaire, a total of 734 questionnaires (369 boys and 365 girls) as well as 96 fathers and 638 mothers have been investigated and analyzed statistically. 6-Conclusions The purpose of this study has been determining therelationship between watching television advertisements and consumption pattern among children and adolescents. According to the results, the existence of a direct relationship between watching advertisements(in the general index of products and services, as well as indicators of food products with high nutritive value, food products with low nutritive value, appliance and equipment and services, and entertainment places) andconsumption pattern of advertisements audienceswill be confirmed. It means that increasing the amount of watching commercial advertisements of products and services,(in all the above mentioned indicators) will increase the amount of consuming products and services among audiences of advertisements. The confirmation ofhypothesizes and the existence of a positive relationship between above mentioned indicators are consistent withGerbnerspoint of view oncultivatingan unreal vision about the world in the minds of permanent audiences of TV.According to Cultivation Theory, by watching more TV program, the audiences attitude and point of views w ill be closer to what TV provide, and will imagine the surrounding environment as depicted on TV. On the basis ofcultivation theory,it can be concluded that children and adolescents who have watched more advertisements, under theinfluence of television have consumed the products and services that TVhas advertised them, more than other their peers. As present study indicated, increasing the amount of watching advertisements will increase the level of consuming products that have delivered in advertising. It seems that among effective factors that influencing consumption patterns and purchasing behavior of children and adolescents, cost and the price of products and services is effectivefactor oneffectiveness of
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commercial advertising on children and audiences,so that, comparing the correlation coefficient between watching advertisements and the amount of consuming products, indicate that children and adolescents are under influence of food advertisements more thanadvertisementsrelatedto services and entertainment places. Results of this study demonstrated thatthere is a relationship between the rate of watching educational television advertisements, and the rate of saving behaviors, paying attention to safety issues and traffic regulations. It means that children and adolescents who have watched educational advertisements about saving and safety issues and traffic regulations more than others, havesavedmore water and electricity and paid more attention to safety issues and traffic regulations,and as a result savings behavior and paying attention to safety issues will be embedded in them. Researches showthatTV permanent audiences, in comparison to others are under more influence ofadvertisement, and paying more attention to these programs. 7. Recommendations: 1) Since the time period andrepetition of broadcasting advertisements are effective factors onattracting children and adolescents, in order to preventconsuming non-nutritiveproducts, such as chips and salty snack(the amount of watching these twoproducts advertisements have been high among audience)that have been considered as somereasons ofincidence of malnutrition in children,reducing the amount of broadcasting such type of advertisements is recommended; and in contrast, the amount of advertising nutritive materials, such as dairy and protein that are essential for children's growth(even by receiving the lower cost from advertisers) should be increased.In addition, in advertising food products, there should be more emphasis on consumption of foods that contain nutrients such as dairy, vegetables, cereals, eggs, fruits, andbeneficial impact of these foodsshould be expressed through using simple andunderstandable language to children. 2) According to the results of this research, based on the childrens great tendency to food advertisements (junk food) and consequently, the consumption of those products,providing intellectual messages that willinform children about disadvantages and harmful consequences ofusing these products, such as obesity and tooth decay, is necessary. Therefore, there should be some health recommendations, such as brushing teeth after eating sweet foods,along with food advertisements. 3) On the basis of relatively high incidence of consuming non-nutritive products, especially among young children, elimination ofadvertisements
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related to these products is necessaryor the amount of their broadcasting should be as little as possible.On the other hand, it is necessary, by sufficient informing, their parents being aware of the harmful effects ofconsuming such products.In addition, it is necessary that foods and junk foods that are advertised have been analyzedin terms of paying attention to health standards, and should be confirmedby nutritionist.It should be noted that the permission of Ministry of Health in advertising such products is not enough,but it is necessary that the Council health of Radio and Television Organization implement more rigorous controls, in order to permit broadcastingthese advertisements. 4) The results of this study suggest that increasing watching educational advertisements will increase the amount of saving behavior and paying attention to safety issues.Therefore, the production of theeducational advertisements and continuing theirbroadcasting will beeffective and usefulin formulation and developingproper and correct behaviors in society, such as saving and paying attention to safety issues and traffic regulations.Moreover,as a result of providing attractive puppetry and animatedadvertisement, in whichtheir main characters are children who are following the correct pattern of consumption, children and adolescents will become familiar with the proper usage and saving behavior and culture of correct consumptionwill cultivate in them. 5) According to Islamic principles and instructions about avoidingwastefulness and extravagance, producing and broadcasting advertisements should not be inconsistent with these principles.On the other hand, since the repetition ofadvertisement is one of the most important factors that influencing audiences, therefore it is recommended to deal with culture of consumerism, and there should be some restrictions and standards to broadcast and repetition of advertisements.

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